Stop it. Just stop it right now. I don’t want to hear one more word about Nail Yakupov and what the Oilers should be trying to with him. The only thing they should be pondering is how to get him more minutes. That’s all. Anything else is wacky.
Here’s the crisis, if maybe you watched the game and DIDN’T get huffy about Yak. Nail Yakupov played with Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for a little while and failed to produce a single point.
That’s it.
Now if you’re thinking “But neither did Hall or RNH… then you should just keep those thoughts to yourself lest you’re looking for serious trouble. Your ideas are invalid and you should probably just sit in the corner until I’ve thought of a good punishment for you.
Ok, I’ll stop the tongue in cheek. Nail Yakupov played a good game. He really did. He moved the puck pretty well, he supported his defense in his own zone, and he made a few really good offensive plays. One play in particular stood out in the 3rd when he jumped up against the glass to pick off the puck on an attempted ring around then found a streaking Draisaitl for a great shooting opportunity.
The hand wringing over Nail Yakupov’s game and his place in the lineup is completely preposterous. He did more in this game that Eberle has done in the entire pre-season but the notion that Yak should spend additional time on the top line is giving people fits.
We should maybe talk about something that actually happened on the ice when Yak was playing instead of questioning whether or not the trio of Hall, RNH, and Yak had more instant chemistry than Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. You can say they didn’t look like a great fit all you want, but the facts are such: The Oilers had possession almost 2/3 of the time when Nail Yakupov played last night.
As per Hockeystats.ca Yak had a CF of 64.7% at Even Strength against the Canucks. He was +11 -6 on the evening. When Nail Yakupov was playing last night there was almost a 2:1 ratio of play in the offensive zone compared to the defensive zone. That should be the game story for Nail Yakupov. We should be reading “Quality Effort Goes Unrewarded… not “Enigmatic Russian Confounds Staff…. He played almost the same amount of time as Tyler Pitlick and his 2 shots, while not being impressive, were still more than both Hall and RNH who played 5-6 minutes more that game. What to do about Nail? Play him more, that’s what.
Why does this matter? Why care about possession numbers when the Oilers lost the game anyway? Because this is about the process. The Oilers were one of the NHL’s worst possession teams and here a player failed to record a point but instead kept the play out of his own zone and in the attacking end all night. In fact, the entire team went 55% at Even Strength on the 2nd game of a BTB and the big reason for the loss is the terrible PP going 0/5.
So let’s cool it with the Yak crying. He was a player who contributed to a dominant performance in possession but simply wasn’t rewarded and didn’t get as much ice time as he probably deserved. I would be more than happy seeing him play on with either the top line or Draisaitl if it means the puck keeps heading in the right direction, and you should be too.
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