The result wasn’t what we were hoping for, but it was what we were expecting if the Oilers were to take a bunch of dumb penalties. The Ranger Power Play cut through the limp Oiler Penalty Kill like a hot knife through butter. The Rangers were 2/3 on the man advantage and Patrick Maroon’s idiotic elbowing penalty stood as the back breaker.
The most positive thing to come out of that game was the play of Jesse Puljujarvi, who looked like he had been shot out of a cannon. The former 4th overall pick looked faster than I ever remember him before and breathed a lot of life into a 2nd line that was previously only Nugent-Hopkins’ cross to bear. If he plays like that on a consistent basis then the dynamic of that line changes drastically.
Puljujarvi directed 5 shots on net in just 15:37 of ice time and not a second on the Power Play. He took 11 shot attempts, 4 of which were rated scoring chances by Natural Stat Trick, and the Oilers had 2/3 of all attempts when the Nuge/JP line was on the ice. Nuge was a hoover all over the puck and Puljujarvi was all over the forecheck with that speed.
Lucic, for all his other virtues, plays a slow game. The tryouts on the right side have had players with different speed settings, but none dialed up so fast. I think Yamamoto is very quick and darting, but I don’t believe we saw him move with the puck or towards it like Puljujarvi can. Then you have the Ryan Stromes of the lineup who are moving in quicksand.
In terms of making the team faster, even one player on a feature line can make a huge difference in perception. If the McDavid line is pushing defense back for a shift then immediately after the Nuge/Puljujarvi line can do the same thing, we’re going to stop hearing about how slow the Oilers are overall.
If Puljujarvi can stick, and I know that his game yesterday was almost the perfect debut for him, then it not only changes the dynamic of the 2nd line, but it allows the coaching staff to keep Draisaitl with McDavid. There wont be a need to spread the wealth of talent around. I’m sure one day the plan is to have Draisaitl play away from McDavid (It’s why he’s getting paid 8.5 million), but right now this team will take 2 scoring lines with actual talent before trying to make other combinations work.
LINEUP
I’m projecting the same as yesterday, but with Brossoit in net.
Maroon McDavid Draisaitl Lucic RNH Puljujarvi Jokinen Strome Pakarinen Malone Letestu Kassian
Klefbom Benning Nurse Larsson Russell Gryba
Brossoit OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Klefbom’s Play. Oscar Klefbom is getting hammered in the press and on social media these days and it doesn’t help when he plays a legitimately poor game. Yesterday was one of those days where both he couldn’t do anything right and that he was getting punished for it. He defended against two separate 2v1 situations and both times he looked like a forward trying to do an impression of a defenseman. He hasn’t forgotten how to play defense, but he is getting destroyed by percentages. We are experiencing some nasty PDO with Klefbom that is making him look even worse than he actually is. He has a 95.0 PDO which is built on a poor 5% shooting average and a defense low .900 save percentage when he’s on the ice.
2) Still Great 8. The Washington Capitals are still lead offensively by Alexander Ovechkin who is tied with linemate Evgeny Kuznetsov with 19 points in 17 games. Ovechkin is tied for 2nd in league scoring with 13 goals and is 3rd in shots on net with 80 already this season. He has more than double the shot total of the next highest Capital forward. His undeniable shooting talent is one of the reasons why he is outpacing the underlying metrics so far this season. His line is well below 50% in shot attempts and scoring chances, but with that laser beam and raw talent he is dangerous at any time. That’s the power of the one shot scorer. 3) Bouncing Back. If there’s any hope in returning to .500 then this team has to find a way to stop back to back losses. At the very least, not losing in regulation is a must. So they lost yesterday. Whatever. That has to be in the rear-view mirror already. The only thing that should be on their mind from that game are the adjustments needed to make the penalty kill effective. Beyond that, the Oilers need to show a lot more resiliency. We all wanted them to sweep the New York portion of this road trip, but it doesn’t happen very often and they can win 3 of 4 with a victory tonight. If this is the start of another losing streak then the dreams of making the playoffs get further and further out of reach.
Puck drops tonight at 5PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. Game On!
Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy