Since the Skinner trade, Jarry has shown some flashes of being a good goaltender. I like his positioning and lateral movements. However, he has had a couple of tough outings. Now, some of those goals, Jarry would like to have back, but the Oilers simply need to play better defence. Bouchard getting walked easily by Faber vs the Wild is a prime example. Simply put, they give up too many chances.
Now I've written a lot about how the Oilers structure lacks cohesiveness and unity. Draisaitl vented his frustrations last week following a three game losing streak where the Oilers gave up 16 goals. What raised some eyebrows was that he said the coaching staff needs to be better. This was interesting as I've been saying this since the summer. The one thing I realized is this: The Oilers as an organization simply want it all without putting in the proper investment in developing players.
Guys like McDavid and Draisaitl are easy to develop as they would have found the same level of success, if not more, on any team in the league. You can just let them loose.
It's the Holloways, Brobergs, Savoies and Pulijarvis who need the right type of coaching. One thing that Martin St-Louis said in his Amazon Prime Interview (I can't find the link) which resonated with me was his approach with Demidov which is not to over-coach him. He essentially said that Demidov already has great instincts when he has the puck. His job is to teach him how to play away from the puck in order to be in the right position to get the puck. I know it sounds simple, but several coaches fail at helping out players in this regard, and opt to drain their confidence and ice time, rather than show them how to play hockey at the NHL level. The Oilers do this constantly as they want all players to develop like McDavid and Draisaitl, but that's not how it works. Those guys are just built differently.
The Oilers are in a weird spot with some players and are playing the same run and gun style all the time, but that only works if McDavid and Draisaitl are on the ice. And it works well when they are because they are that good. However, when the bottom six get on the ice, the play is disjointed and stale. This is because of the lack of structure established by the coaches, and Draisaitl is starting to get upset, and I don't blame him. I know I talk a lot about Montreal but I watch a lot of Habs games and Oilers games, and Montreal is miles ahead of the Oilers when it comes to structure. Everyone knows what they are doing out there and the group is unified. When I watch the Oilers afterwards, I have no clue what is going on. It's a testament to how good McDavid and Drasaitle are, because if they had the Montreal coaching staff, the Oilers would be first in the NHL.