IS IT FIXED? HOW ‘BOUT NOW?
Oilers recall forward Iiro Pakarinen from Oklahoma City; Assign defenceman Martin Marincin to the Barons.
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) November 6, 2014Wil Acton was sent on waivers yesterday and Keith Aulie was recalled before that. Gazdic is still technically on the roster so for Pakarinen to come up before Acton clears waivers I believe there needed to be someone else off the roster. Marincin had already been chosen as the guy out for tonight (we’ll talk about that) so this move may potentially be a short term paper fix. As Jason Gregor reported, the move allows Pakarinen to take the morning skate so it seems as though this really is just a paper transaction. Then again, these ARE the Oilers so they might legitimately think he needs to play in the AHL.
Marincin has been largely paired with Fayne where the two of them routinely get sacrificed against the top lines of the other team. He played his last game with Jeff Petry and you can see in the shift tracking from War-On-Ice.com that he was playing in lock-step with Claude Giroux for a significant portion of the game. Incidentally, Claude Giroux was held to just a single shot for the first time since the 1st game of the year. He averages roughly 5 per game in all the other games he’s played in.
The reasoning behind the move that the coach gave was that he was looking for more “grit…. Grit is fine. I like gritty players. I swear I do. But Martin Marincin has been facing tough assignments on a regular basis for this team and his replacement will be expected to do the same. Keith Aulie didn’t appear to be getting that job done in the American Hockey League. I don’t expect him to do it against the best the National Hockey League has to offer. He could be the grittiest player in recorded history, born with jagged edged knives for elbows and an icy stare that could make Chris Pronger cower in despair, but if he cant play Hockey at this level then it doesn’t really matter does it?
I don’t think there’s anything in Keith Aulie’s history that suggests he’s an NHL player capable of taking over Martin Marincin’s role. That’s my problem with this. The lanky Slovak has had a rough patch for a bit, but there are solutions that don’t necessitate planting pylons on the ice in his stead. SOMEBODY STOP THE PUCK
I am not a card carrying member of the Goalie Guild so it’s OK for me to say this, the Oilers are being let down by their goaltenders. I know you cant say that without a lot of people getting up in arms about how terrible Edmonton’s overall defense is but that’s a garbage argument that doesn’t hold any water. If the quality of defense was correlated to goaltending then we should expect to see Buffalo’s goaltending be the bottom of the league. The Sabres are all but adopting “Obliterated For McDavid… as their official slogan on the year and arent really ashamed of icing the worst collection of players since the Oilers of 09/10. Meanwhile, Neuvirth has a .928 sv% and Enroth is above .900 so far too.
The Oilers’ netminders have seen a total of 360 shots and only stopped 320 of them. That’s a combined .888 sv% from the two goalies this year. I don’t care IF the Oilers’ team defense isn’t that great, those are unacceptable numbers. You cannot win in the NHL with that kind of goaltending. It is the biggest reason the Oilers are right back at the bottom of the Western Conference again.
It isn’t because of their depth at C. It isn’t because their Head Coach makes wonky decisions on a semi-regular basis. It isn’t because the skill guys don’t care enough. Winning in the NHL begins with the net and moves out from there. If Ben Scrivens and/or Viktor Fasth cant pull themselves together the Oilers don’t have a hope in hell.
If we switch over to just 5v5 action so far, the Oilers have allowed 304 shots on net and have been scored on 32 times. Boston has been getting .9192 sv% at even strength this year which places them at 16th place in the NHL by that metric. They are right in the middle of the NHL. If the Oilers had been getting even middle of the road NHL goaltending they would have only allowed 25 goals. They’ve only played in 12 games so far. 7 goals at even strength this early in the season is a huge swing.
Bottom line, the Oilers arent getting out of the basement until somebody steps up in net.
LINEUP
Lots of different little moves have happened. The decision to call up Pakarinen means lines got a little blended but at least they make sense. Eakins is not sticking Pakarinen on the Draisaitl line and that’s a good thing because they would just get stapled to the bench. He’s keeping NHL bodies on every line and reuniting the 4th line after the Acton debacle.
Pouliot RNH Eberle Pakarinen Arco Perron Purcell Draisaitl Yak Hendricks Gordon Joensuu
Nikitin Schultz Aulie Petry Klefbom Fayne
Scrivens
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) History. It’s not in Edmonton’s favour tonight. The Oilers haven’t won a game in Boston since November of 1996. Let that one sink in for a minute. Space Jam hadn’t even been released in Theatres yet. SPACE JAM. Good grief. That has to change at some point, right? RIGHT??? 1996.
2) Not So Power Play. The club’s Power Play is clunking and clanging along to the miserable tune of 13.2% on the year, and that’s only thanks to a bit of early success they got. It is a wasteland right now. The Oilers, even without Taylor Hall, have the firepower to be better than this. Something has to give. On the man-advantage the Oilers are 11th in the NHL in terms of FF/60 or unblocked shot attempts per 60 minutes. They are generating shooting opportunities at a decent rate (last year they were 26th) and that makes me think the dam will burst at some point and the goals will come.
3) Simple Plays. I think the blog yesterday was a great example of what happens when you don’t execute on the simple plays. The 5 foot pass should be a given in the NHL and when it goes wrong there’s hell to pay. It also showed what dogged determination on the forecheck can lead to so hopefully it inspires Edmonton to do the same. Just getting shots on net and making the simple play is so basic that players with NHL skill can likely forget it. Going back to basics when things start to fall apart is never the wrong decision.
Puck drops tonight at 5:08PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet 360. Game On!
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