The Oilers have a real test tonight against the NHL’s 1st placed Montreal Canadiens. The Habs are playing some good hockey right now and are on a 4 game Winning streak as they roll into Rexall Place. Their only loss this season was a 7-1 drubbing by the Lightning, the team the Oilers kicked this winning streak off with. What’s important to note is that almost every Habs game this year has been close. 5 of their Wins have been 1 goal games. They aren’t blowing teams out of the water, but Carey Price is shutting the door when he needs to.
THE 9TH GAME
Leon Draisaitl turns 19 years old today and he will also play in his 9th NHL game of the season. By now everyone should be aware of this, if Leon Draisaitl plays another game then the 1st year of his ELC will have been started. The clock starts counting down on this contract. There’s another milestone after 40 (or so) games that once is reached will begin the countdown to his UFA status after he turns 25. The Oilers will effectively have all the information they are going to get after tonight’s game to make a decision on their Rookie C.
Here are the Basic stats about the kid so far:
8GP, 1-2-3, -4, 15s. 13:13/game. 45.4% F/O
Here are the Fancy Stats:
CF 51.8% (4th among Forwards), FF 51.5% (4th among Forwards), OZ Starts 42.7% (3rd highest among Forwards), DZ Starts 10.7% (Lowest among Forwards), PDO 93.8%
He scored his 1st goal in the last game and he gets sheltered minutes, both by actual time and by deployment. He and his line are getting lots of offensive zone opportunities and they are taking advantage in shot attempts for it. Eakins is definitely keeping him out of his own zone, which is a luxury provided by the good play of the RNH and Gordon lines. His 3 points have been good and he’s looking better every game. I was expecting worse underlying numbers, to be honest. The fact is that he’s killing it when he’s out there and if the he stays then we should expect his ice-time to grow as the coach becomes more comfortable with him.
The PDO we’re seeing is the sum of his on-ice shooting percentage and his on-ice save percentage. The save percentage is the part that’s out of whack and most likely to climb (though it didn’t really for Yak last year). It’s also the one that is essentially out of his control. By this measure he has been unlucky but the rest show a player that has not been overwhelmed by the task he’s been given.
Obviously the call is Eakins’ to make, but I don’t think Draisaitl is going anywhere. Barring a complete meltdown tonight I think there’s a very strong possibility that he’s here to stay. I’m not against that decision either. The player he is today is not the player he’ll be at game 40 or game 82 and I think he’ll only get better.
Happy Birthday, Leon. I think you’ll earn a fulltime job in the NHL as your first present.
LINEUP
The Oilers are expected to make no major changes to their lineup except Nikitin might not be able to play due to an injury. He was receiving some maintenance on it today. He has a high threshold for pain though. We shall see. Fasth started practicing with the squad on Sunday so there’s good news there, but luckily for the Oilers Scrivens stepped up his game up while the team’s 1B was out of commission. We should see the Habs match their best shutdown players against the Hall line, if they choose not to there will be a lot more opportunities for them to keep up their scoring.
Hall RNH Eberle Purcell Draisaitl Perron Pouliot Arco Yak Hendricks Gordon Joensuu
Nikitin (?) Schultz Ference Petry Marincin Fayne
Scrivens
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Uncle Jesse! Uncle Jesse Joensuu is a “4th Line… superstar this year. It’s not necessarily his points, although the 2 goals he’s scored have been huge for the team, but its also the fact that he’s outperforming the situations he’s been put in. Joensuu is leading the Oilers in CF at 55.6% but he’s only been starting in the Offensive Zone 13.6% of the time. That entire 4th line is crushing the competition and they are getting tough assignments and caustic starts.
2) Petry Handling The Habs? Since they started playing Winning hockey, Jeff Petry has become the Oilers’ 1D. By my eye he has been dragging his defensive partner Ference around like an anchor but the two have managed to stay above 50% in shot attempts. It’s early still, but that’s a minor miracle for this team. Petry and Ference will have the unenviable task of lining up against the Canadiens’ top players who are shooting well above average (Plekanec is shooting 20%). They will need a lot of help from their forwards because it’s no secret that PK Subban will be joining rushes. Subban already has 21 shots this year. For reference, that’s more than every Oiler player except Taylor Hall.
3) Yak City. Nail Yakupov has looked good by eye this season. He attacks the puck and the plays a physical brand of hockey. He is also getting some good opportunities but is missing the net a little too much. Those things will even out more and his shot totals will increase. The Coach is VERY slowly giving him more ice-time this season. By number, Yakupov is doing poorly right now. There’s a real disconnect between what we’re seeing and what the totality of the events on the ice are. Eakins is saying good things about Nail, we’re seeing good things from Nail, something has to give and against his old teammate Galchenyuk would be a great time for it all to come together.
Puck drops at 7:38PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet Something. Game On!
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