The Oilers have decided to send down Anton Slepyshev to the AHL and they’ve recalled Taylor Beck. The team clearly understands that Slepyshev needs to play hockey if he’s going to continue to improve. For reasons that escape logic, they have not yet come to that same conclusion for Jesse Puljujarvi.
Let’s talk about reasons that are fake and should carry no weight when it comes to keeping Puljujarvi in the NHL:
1) He’s earned it. Jesse Puljujarvi has 1 goal and it came in the very first game of the year. He hasn’t scored in 31 games. That’s not earning it. He’s done lots of good things and I can speak to his 2-way play, but come now. Let’s be real.
2) Practicing in the NHL is beneficial. Har-dee-har-har. Good one. Teams barely practice in the NHL because they don’t have time. Edmonton couldn’t even run a full fledged practice for a couple days in their 3 day rest period because 2 of those days were strictly devoted to actually resting. If practice is beneficial then the AHL is the answer.
3) He’s learning how to be an NHL player in the NHL. Puljujarvi is playing heavily sheltered minutes and hasn’t played more than 10:07 in the last 4 games. He’s learning how to be a sheltered 3rd liner when we want him to learn how to be 1st liner. He needs to learn how to be effective playing almost 20 minutes a night, against grown men, and while being targeted defensively.
4) There’s a language barrier. This is by far the stupidest reason to keep Puljujarvi in Edmonton. Are we to believe that the billionaire Daryl Katz is unable to find a translator in California? He’s playing in Bakersfield. There are almost 400,000 people in Bakersfield, 800,000 people in Kern County, and 38 million people in California. Am I to believe that no-one among them can translate from English to Finnish and reverse? Don’t give me that crap. He’s a European hockey player. Language is expected to be an issue.
The Oilers have prevented this kid from playing North American hockey for long enough. Just let him play in the AHL and be done with it. Call him up when he’s ready. They’ve already denied him the right to play for his country at the World Juniors, at least do some right by him and let him play games. ***
Taylor Beck is up with the Oilers and with the season he’s having it’s going to be very difficult to keep him in the AHL. Beck is leading the entire American Hockey League in scoring despite playing in the California division which plays fewer games. He has 30 points in 19 games. That’s 4 fewer games than the 2nd leading scorer Brad Hunt (yes, that Brad Hunt) who has 29 points.
Beck played 1 game for the Oilers this season and he was generally invisible, but that’s hardly enough time to make decisions on a guy. In his last partial AHL season, Beck had 33 points in 46 games with Bridgeport. He’s obviously going supernova at the minor league level considering he’s 3 points off that in 27 fewer games. The Oilers are hoping that this level of offense translates better to the NHL than it has in the past.
Beck only has 23 points in 88 career games. However, on Edmonton he will get a chance to play with one of three quality centres and it might be the right time for him to make the most of this opportunity. He’s 12 points better than the next closest Condor, he’s in the prime years of his career, and he’s scoring a ton. This is probably the best chance Beck has had to secure a spot in the NHL for a long time. If he can add something the Oilers it will be a welcome surprise since expectations weren’t particularly high for him.
The knock on Beck has been his speed. Edmonton when playing its best hockey is a fast team. Can he keep up? I hope so.
LINEUP
The Oilers are taking Pouliot out of the lineup because they don’t like his sideburns. Beck is in. Hendricks is in. Gryba is healthy but remains a scratch. Puljujarvi is out.
Lucic McDavid Eberle Beck RNH Pitlick Maroon Draisaitl Caggiula Hendricks Letestu Kassian
Klefbom Larsson Sekera Russell Davidson Benning
Talbot Gustavsson
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Refueled. The Oilers have had one of the most compressed schedules in the NHL. They played 32 games in 50 nights and tonight’s match concludes their first 3 day rest period of the entire season. You can make a compelling argument that the team only played half of their last contest. From the moment the power play ended to start the 2nd period against the Blue Jackets, the Oilers were done. Call it being dog tired, whatever, the fact is they had nothing to give. Now they’ve had time to rest and they happen to face a team playing their 3rd game in 4 nights. On top of it, the Lightning are one of the few teams with a worse record in their last 10 games than the Oilers. All things being equal, Edmonton has an opportunity to strike a team that should be in the same position they were when Columbus put the pedal down and crushed them in the back half of the game. Time for that killer instinct to show up.
2) Eberle Back To The Top. Based on the practice lines from yesterday, Jordan Eberle may be getting another shot back with the top line of Lucic and McDavid. Eberle is on pace for another 60 point season and he’s a more natural finisher than Pitlick and more proven than Caggiula. The problem with Eberle is that he’s good for 60 points with or without McDavid (which seems like a bizarre thing to complain about). The nature of the complaints, though, are that McDavid creates a significant number of scoring chances and still somehow Eberle isnt capitalizing at an acceptable rate. I think Eberle should be scoring more as a result of playing with McDavid. It hasn’t happened yet but it might be more bad luck than anything. In the 4 years prior to this Eberle was shooting 12.4% 5v5. This year he’s only shooting 5%. He really should have at least 3 more 5v5 goals based on his history. He needs to take advantage of playing with McDavid tonight.
3) Dodging Kucherov. The Lightning might be underperforming, but Nikita Kucherov isn’t. The 5’11…, 178 pound Lightning winger has 30 points in 28 games and has an 8 point lead on the next closest Tampa Bay forward. You have to go back almost a year (January 2016) to when these two teams last played each other. Kucherov scored and picked up an assist in that game. He lead the Lightning in scoring a year ago and is doing it again now. He’s the most dangerous player for TBay right now (followed by Hedman), but a lower body injury has kept him out of the last 2 games and he’s still doubtful to return tonight. This would be a fortunate turn of events for the Oilers, who would benefit from playing a tired and depleted Lightning team.
Puck drops tonight at 8PM Mountain Time on Hockey Night in Canada. Game On!
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