Edmonton Oilers Gameday Reviews: Draisaitl, McLeod, and Nugent-Hopkins have St. Louis Singing the Blues in Oilers Road Win

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Sportsnet

Draisaitl, Oilers continue dominance in big win over Blues

These days, Draisaitl is THE top player, leading the NHL with an obscene 31 points in 14 games, the latest a lovely set-up for Kailer Yamamoto, who blasted home the game-winner with 28 seconds remaining in a 5-4 Oilers win in St. Louis.
How good has the big German been this seasons? Check out these stats:
- On Sunday, Draisaitl had a power-play goal from his favorite spot to the goalie’s left and two primary assists, the eighth time in 14 games this season where he has notched three or more points.
- He leads the league in points (31) and goals (15), is one back of the lead in assists with 16. He is tied for third in the NHL at plus-12, and sits 15th in the league among regular faceoff men in faceoff percentage (55.1%).
- In his last seven games, Draisaitl has had three points in five games and two points in another, for 18 points.
It was a win that had many contributors, and we’d observe that we’ve perhaps never seen a goalie play so well as Miko Koskinen did, and still allow four goals.
The Oilers are the only team in the NHL that is averaging more than four goals scored per game (4.14), and their goals against per game of 3.00 put them right in the middle of the pack.

BLH’s Thoughts: If not for Mikko Koskinen, the Oilers would’ve had their asses handed to them royally and one might argue they still did but were lucky that Jordan Binnington was doing his best impression of Hardy Astrom on the evening. Although, that was a damn fine little wrister from Killer on the GWG.

When Draisaitl scores from his büro, do you also wonder how the hell he manages to find an opening nearly every time? I mean, I’ve never seen him as an Ovechkin or Brett Hull-type at all but for the love of Pete, Leon sure scores goals like those guys…

Cult of Hockey

Player grades: Kailer Yamamoto fires the last shot as Oilers top Blues in barnburner

#18 Zach Hyman, 7. A strange game where the puck was bouncing on him a lot, with a couple of scoring chances lost in the process. Didn’t muster a single shot on net, but was instrumental in the first 2 Oilers goals, earning assists on both.
#19 Mikko Koskinen, 8. He was the only reason the Oilers were in the game at 1-1 after the first period, turning aside 8 of 9 Grade A shots… 39 shots, 35 saves, and a truly non-representative .897 save percentage. Koskinen won’t even get credited with a quality start but he sure as heck delivered one.
#29 Leon Draisaitl, 9. Another outstanding game in all facets. His line with RNH and Yamamoto was Edmonton’s best both by eye and on paper, producing outstanding shot shares on a night their mates were largely in chase mode.
#56 Kailer Yamamoto, 8. His big moment came in the game’s final minute when he burst into the slot, accepted Drai’s centring pass and did indeed fire an effective one-timer that overpowered Craig Billington.
#71 Ryan McLeod, 7. Has come alive on this road trip and was rewarded in St. Louis with his first NHL goal, when he jumped on Foegele’s “pass” and fired a one-timer off the backhand side that found the top of the net behind Binnington.
#93 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 8. All over the puck all night. Appeared determined to break his season-long goal drought, and finally got rewarded when he converted a Draisaitl feed with a quick shot through both defender and goaltender to put the Oilers in front 3-2.
#75 Evan Bouchard, 4. Had his struggles defensively, finding himself on the wrong side of more than one Blues attacker. Played 23:46 to lead all Oilers (1 second more than Nurse!), and also topped all penalty killers with 4:16, contributing some good clears to that effort.
#25 Darnell Nurse, 4. Among the defensive culprits on 2 Blues goals, beaten by key passes on both the 1-0 and the 4-4.
#22 Tyson Barrie, 4. Had a complete clean sheet on the event summary, not so much as an official shot attempt (though we at CoH rated him for one jam shot after a McLeod wraparound attempt).
#2 Duncan Keith, 4. Oilers defenders were under the gun all night, and the Keith-Ceci pairing were no exception with some difficult moments at both even strength and on the penalty kill… Keith was victimized on 4 Grade A looks at even strength and 5 more on the PK.

BLH’s Thoughts: Three players had “it” from start to end last night, Draisaitl, Yamamoto, and Puljujarvi. You could tell just from how they were skating that all three were going to have decent games.

In the last two games, Ryan McLeod has been Leon-like on faceoffs winning 19/24. He’s starting to find his groove and if he can continue to do this, he’ll take a weight off of Ken Holland’s back the size of Ryan Getzlaf. I hope he can spark some bottom-six scoring…

The Hockey Writers Rumors

During this week’s episode of The Jeff Marek Show, Mike Chambers of The Denver Post said he believes Samuel Girard was “the big piece” the Colorado Avalanche were offering up to Buffalo in an attempt to get into the Jack Eichel trade conversation. Even though the trade didn’t go down and Eichel went to Vegas, Chambers still thinks Girard could be traded.
Ron McLean asked Jeff Marek during Saturday’s 32 Thoughts segment what he felt was going on in Dallas where John Stevens was removed from the bench for the first time since he joined the organization as an assistant coach.
Oilers Sign Matvey Petrov to Entry-Level Deal… The fact that Matvey Petrov didn’t appear early in the OHL season might have been a win for the Oilers as it appears they’ve grabbed one of the better young players late in the draft. Fewer scouts watched him play and he is exceeding expectations.