Bad news, the Oilers still haven’t won a single game against a Western Conference opponent. Good news, they arent playing a Western Conference opponent tonight.
ABOUT THAT LAST GAME
I dont care if the Oilers gave up more odd man rushes than any other night this year, when you score 4 goals on Ryan Miller at Home you have to win that game. Losing in regulation is embarrassing. Were there lots of odd-man rushes against the Oilers? Yes there were. That doesn’t mean giving up 5 goals is OK. Ben Scrivens has to shut the door on nights like that and bail his team out.
The Keith Aulie giveaway was bad, atrocious even. The goal was still scored from the top of the circles. It’s not like Scrivens had no chance. He should have stopped a couple of those goals. I give free passes on Vrbata shots that can only be registered by super slow-motion High Def cameras, not for wristers from long distance.
It wasn’t all goaltending obviously so harping on just Scrivens isn’t fair. Aulie was stapled to the bench and rightly so after that dummy move. The Oilers went 1/5 on the Power Play and that included a 5v3 that looked pathetic. The supposed offensive players blew it when they could have stepped on Vancouver’s neck. Everybody was looking for the next sweet pass instead shooting. “Don’t shoot if you don’t have a shooting lane… isn’t the same thing as “If you don’t have a shooting lane pass it away immediately… and that’s messing the Oilers up. There are about 4 guys one each PP unit who want to find the lone shooter. It’s crazy.
SOLUTIONS YOU DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR
In today’s 30 Thoughts by the unmatched Elliotte Friedman he suggests that the Oilers might dangle Martin Marincin to get Center help. First, I don’t doubt for a second that calls have been made or at very least taken on that subject. If the Oilers do end up trading Marincin for a C then I think it has the distinct possibility of becoming a black mark on MacT’s record.
The Oilers believed that Draisaitl would be able to handle NHL duties when they drafted him and chose not to heavily pursue other options at 2C. They made room for him thinking he would shine on a team that was deep at Wing. That experiment has not gone as planned and now the team clearly needs a Center they can trust. Draisaitl is playing extremely limited minutes in well managed situations and still isn’t producing offensively.
It would have only cost them money in July to get that player they could have felt comfortable with from game 1 of the season. Today it might cost them a good young defenseman still on his ELC. That is a failure of management. That is a gamble a lot of you probably arent feeling comfortable with MacTavish having made right about now.
Frankly I would stop worrying about the centers right now because there are more pressing concerns at Defense and in Net. The Oilers still don’t have a top pairing defender and Justin Schultz is looking more and more like a #4 defenseman who shouldn’t be playing top minutes and should probably be moved off of the PP. Nikita Nikitin is showing why Lumbus left him for dead and the injuries are only compounding that situation. And as far as the Goaltenders are concerned, they’ve both gone a long way in proving neither is worthy of being a starter yet in the NHL. Another failed gamble.
The club put itself in a bad spot this summer and the solutions for fixing it in the winter arent the ones you want to hear. ROSTER
It looks like Marincin will draw back in tonight, probably for the ailing Nikitin. The PP was mixed up a bit, Petry was on the 2nd Unit, and Hall was taken off the RNH line and moved down with Draisaitl. I would assume that Fasth starts since Scrivens laid an egg against the Canucks. The Oilers traded Wil Acton yesterday for Kellen Lain. Lain is a 6’6… 210lb stick-optional AHL player. It’s obvious they are done with the Acton experiment and its best for everyone considering he couldn’t get playing time here without it being viewed as an act of nepotism.
UPDATE: It looks now like Nikitin will play through his back problem (that probably wont make it worse, right?) and Marincin will likely play instead of Aulie.
Pouliot RNH Eberle Perron Arco Yak Hall Draisaitl Purcell Hendricks Gordon Pinizzotto
Ference Petry Marincin Schultz Nikitin Fayne
Fasth
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Don’t Give Up Halfway Through. That’s not directed at the players. That’s directed at Dallas Eakins. I’m talking about the decision to play Hall with Draisaitl. Do it for a whole game and play them at least 12 minutes at even strength together. The consequences of playing a C out of his depth are pretty dire, but the season is almost lost as it is and he’s been sheltered. The choice to move Hall away from RNH is a bold one and waffling 10 minutes into the game to reunite them is a weak move. Play them apart. Give the rookie more minutes. Be bold.
2) 20 And Counting. Cory Schneider is playing his 20th straight game tonight. His save percentage this year has dipped 10 points lower than his career average and you have to wonder about fatigue. Maybe the Devils were spoiled rotten by the prime years of Martin Brodeur (they were) but playing the goalie that many games in a row when he hasn’t ever *really* been a starter in a full year is a bad idea. Just a thought. Play him 60 games on a normal schedule before running him out there like an Ironman. For the Oilers that leaves a potentially mentally tired goalie facing a team with a lot to prove.
3) Missed Nets On The PP. Fancy stats are such an interesting tool when looking at the different game states. For example, the Oilers are 9th in the NHL on the 5v4 man-advantage in FF/60 with 75.3 per 60 minutes. Fenwick aligns very closely with chances for so the Oil are creating lots of looks for themselves this year. Last year the Oilers were 26th by that same metric and only creating 63.3 unblocked shot attempts per 60 on the PP. It’s a great turn around. The problem is that if we take away the missed shots and look only at shots on net the Oilers drop from 9th in the NHL all the way to 20th at 48.8 shots per 60. Put another way, 1/3 of their unblocked shot attempts never hit the target. Is it bad luck or something systemic that is increasing the likelihood of missed chances? My guess is luck since Edmonton’s 5v4 PDO is 29th in the NHL, but either way the team needs to start hitting the net more while they’re up a man.
Puck drops tonight at 7:38PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. Game On!
Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy