The 2 worst teams in the NHL are playing against each other tonight in what some are calling the McDavid Bowl. Somebody actually had the nerve to suggest to Scrivens that the team might want to tank and that went down pretty much exactly the way you might think it would.
Players don't tank. Management regimes put teams in a position to tank. It's about icing bad teams, not throwing games.
Despite the fact that these are the worst 2 teams in the NHL, the Oilers and the Sabres have gone about it in different ways. The Oilers struggled for half the season with their goaltending. Edmonton is 29th in the league in 5v5 save percentage this year.
To quote that old hockey saying, if you don't have goaltending, you don't have anything. Well, by that measure the Oilers didn't have anything for the 1st almost 40 games.
By that same measure, 5v5 save percentage, the Buffalo Sabres are 18th in the NHL. They have a combined .919 at Even Strength while the Oilers have a combined .902 save percentage.
So if one team is getting a significantly higher save percentage than the other but the raw Goals For and Goals Against totals are similar then the obvious answer is that the one team is allowing a massive amount of shots against.
The Sabres of 2014-2015 are bad on a historic level when it comes to all kinds of shot data.
Buffalo at Even Strength:
Shots For: 22.3/60 (30th) Shots Against: 34/60 (30th) Fenwick For: 29.5/60 (30th) Fenwick Against: 47.2/60 (30th) Corsi For: 39.5/60 (30th) Corsi Against: 65.2/60 (30th)
This team is just plain terrible at creating chances, defending chances, and possessing the puck. That's all there is to it.
They are simply a bad hockey team. Now that they've taken 30th place from Edmonton I don't see how the Oilers are going to regain it. I think the Sabres will finish dead last by a significant margin this year.
LINEUP
Taylor Hall is still hurting and did not take the morning skate. It seems very unlikely that he would play in the game tonight. And, considering Hall admitted that he returned too early from his knee injury, I think we will see the Oilers take a cautious approach to putting Hall back into game situations. Fasth played pretty well in the last one but the Oilers are going with Scrivens. It's been some time since he played and they likely can't afford to keep him on the bench and get really rusty.
Pouliot RNH Eberle Yak Roy Purcell Hendricks Gordon Klinkhammer Fraser Lander Gazdic
Ference Petry Klefbom Schultz Nikitin Fayne
Scrivens
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Favoured By The Gods. I don't know what Nail Yakupov did to be so cursed but he should probably start apologizing for it. He made a bad play that ended up in the back of the net then spent the rest of the night taking dangerous shots on Dubnyk and setting up great chances. He was rewarded with nothing for his efforts. You have to think if he keeps playing like that the points will start coming.
2) Better Entries. The Oilers wasted glorious opportunities on the PP by failing to even enter the zone. Nelson has to get this team going and talk to them about how they gain the zone with possession. The best chance on the PP came from Ference on the forecheck after a dump in. That is sad.
3) We Band Of Brothers. I think the coaching staff has imparted a message that it is not ok to let teammates get roughed up. We saw Petry level a guy and mix it up in front of the net in the last game. It's a side of his game that doesn't always come out. More of that will go a long way over the course of the last half of the year.
Puck drops tonight at 7:38 PM on Sportsnet Oilers. Tank On?
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