Hey, so that was awful.
The decision to start the sharp looking backup to give Talbot an opportunity to find his game resulted in 3 goals on 8 shots in the opening period and 5 goals on 21 shots overall. Needless to say, you aren’t gonna win many games when your goalie is sporting a .762 save percentage.
No, it wasn’t ALL on Brossoit. It was A LOT on Brossoit, but not all. I’d probably give it a 80% share to Brossoit, 10% on Klefbom, and 10% the rest of the team. It’s never in fashion to blame the goalie in hockey. The blame usually falls more on other parties than it does on the stopper, but I don’t subscribe to that theory. Brossoit was bad. Klefbom was bad.
The Edmonton Oilers are drowning in bad bounces, bad goaltending, and every bad decision is coming back to haunt them in spectacular fashion. Every goal looks like a back-breaker at this point. When you open the game with a 2 on 1 the wrong way for a goal in the first 20 seconds, you are basically saying “We weren’t ready to play. We need a Mulligan….
This game is the first of a road trip that will hopefully allow the club to just get back to solid/unspectacular decision making. I’m all for creativity and complex gamesmanship, but Klefbom just needs to refocus on making a solid pass and getting shots away. Kris Russell had a spectacular assist on a no-look, behind-the-back, blind pass across the blueline, but that move was exactly the kind of thing that the defense was getting burned on all game. We love it when it works, we cringe when it doesn’t.
It's actually really difficult to get a handle on what this team is doing well and what it is not, because so many of the games have been undermined by the goaltending. When every mistake ends up in the back of the net, the reflex is to simplify the game to the extreme. It’s hard, even when you acknowledge the issue, to see where the right balance is. They desperately need to get back to some normalcy between the pipes. Playing from behind non-stop is not a great way to live in the NHL.
LINEUP
Benning is still out of the lineup. Caggiula and Drai skated with the team but the weekend is a more likely re-entry point for both.
Maroon McDavid Yamamoto Lucic RNH Strome Jokinen Malone Kassian Pakarinen Letestu Slepyshev
Klefbom Larsson Nurse Russell Auvitu Gryba
Talbot
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) PDO Clash. The Oilers are the 30’th ranked club in terms of PDO. That combined shooting and save percentage is just ugly and making this club look much worse than they should be. The Blackhawks, on the other hand, are rocking 1st place in PDO. 5v5 this is a team with an unreal 12.9% Shooting percentage and a fantastic .947 save percentage. Things could not be going better for them. While the goals are working out for them, the shot and attempt metrics point to this being more mirage than good process. Let’s see if a correction is in order.
2) Yamo. The Draisaitl injury has really exposed how brutally thin the Oilers are at RW, but it’s also forced Yamamoto to get the full shot he earned in camp. So far, he’s looked much better on the feature line than when he was stuck playing limited minutes. He’s even been spotted into the 1st PP unit. He’s had an assist in each of his last 2 games and he’s averaged almost 20 minutes a night. As of today, I would say that he gets sent home after his 9th game. He has 5 games (including tonight) to force Edmonton’s hand.
3) Klefbom and Larsson. This pair has struggled a lot in recent games and they need to get their performances back up to standard. The Oilers are a team that cannot really afford to have their top pairing go through rough stretches. We’re playing without a safety net here. Klefbom has to move the puck, skate, and start getting shots through. Larsson has to get greasy in the corners and in front of the net. The Oilers need 22-25 minutes of solid hockey from this duo, but not that much more. If they do that then eventually the skill up front will start to capitalize on their chances. Klefbom has a lot to give offensively, but the team really just needs him to be guide from the defense zone through the neutral zone more than a feature player in the offensive zone. He doesn’t have to Erik Karlsson to be really effective.
Puck drops tonight at 6:30PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet One. Game On! Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy