This week we saw the Oilers go 2-2-0 with good games against the Jets and Wild on Sunday and Thursday respectively and two stinkers on Tuesday against the Sharks and one last night against the Coyotes (those damn Yotes have our number).
Hey, one bright side: They have won five of their last eight games. There have been improvement, but these injuries are too tough to overcome.
The Edmonton Oilers Three Stars.
Not going to lie, when you get shutout twice, you’re going to be reaching for some stars here. There’s no McDavid. No Hall. No Eberle. None of those guys make an appearance.
Buckle up, it’s not a great list this week:
3. Lauri Korpikoski: Urg. See?!? It’s been so mediocre that Lauri Korpikoski opens up the three stars. He had two goals in both wins. Korpi had some power play time against Arizona and was partly responsible for the Power Play being a failure. He was lousy possession wise when playing with McDavid, but somehow he had two goals so he gets a star.
I know guys. I know.
2. Cam Talbot: Talbot was the First Star of the week last week by the NHL (boy I looked great not listing him there didn’t I!) and this week he had an up down week. Good news: In the two wins, he had a combined 0.971 save percentage. The bad news: in the two losses he had a combined 0.863 save percentage. The total was a 0.917 Save percentage which isn’t bad. He’s been great this season. He’s the real MVP of the team.
2. Jordan Oesterle: He only played against Minnesota and Arizona and had no points but man, does he look good out there. There’s a little bit of hype with some people comparing to Brandon Davidson (oh, he got injured on Sunday and is done for the year most likely). Against Arizona he played a game high 25:27….and was not a minus on the night. He doesn’t look out of place, but it’s a shame how log jammed the Oilers are on the Left Side. I think he could be trade bait and I hope not.
Edmonton Oilers News and Injuries
Hey, remember how people said injuries were a lame excuse? Well the Oilers lost more players to injury including Brandon Davidson on Sunday against Winnipeg and Adam Pardy on….I honestly don’t know. Pardy is out week to week while Davidson’s injury looks horrible. So let’s list the Oilers who have been hurt at one point this year:
Jordan Eberle, Connor McDavid, Nail Yakupov, Oscar Klefbom, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Benoit Pouliot, Matt Hendricks, Eric Gryba, Andrew Ference, Brandon Davidson and Adam Pardy.
The Oilers lost their entire second line at one point. Yes, I would have loved to see this team with a somewhat healthy line up all at once.
For a longer read, Woodguy55 over at BecauseOilers.blogspot.com has a post about the search of the vaunted Oilers Right handed defenseman. If you enjoy fancy stats, Woodguy55 is absolutely beautiful at this.
Lowetide had his Sail on list, and I agree with it: there’s going to be some painful names that will be leaving us soon.
I recently completed my Edmonton Oilers All Time Roster wrapping up with Centres.
The Oilers signed Jere Sallinen.
Around the NHL
The Oilers are third in man games lost, but first in quality of players lost.
Sportsnet is saying it’s a two horse race between Connor McDavid and Chicago’s Artemi Panarin
Auston Matthews played his last game in Zurich as his team was eliminated in four and Marc Crawford is hoping to get an NHL job soon.
An always must read: Elliote Friedman’s 30 thoughts.
Yahoo! is now streaming 4 NHL games a week for free.
Highlights
Top Moments of March 11th
PK Subban suffered a scary neck injury where he left the game on a stretcher. Thankfully he is out of the hospital.
McDavid scored the game winner against Minnesota
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC1vcoFlIiE
The Week Ahead
Three Home games this week, with the Oilers playing every second game for the remainder of the month.
Monday is against Nashville, Wednesday against St Louis and Friday against a mediocre Canucks team.
That’s the week that was, follow me on Twitter and have a great week!
