Edmonton Oilers Gameday Reviews: Ken Holland has NEVER Fired a Head Coach

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Edmonton Sun

Oilers can’t chase down Hurricanes in 3-1 loss

The Hurricanes didn’t overwhelm the Oilers but they were faster, more opportunistic and Freddie Andersen was better than Koskinen, who made a series of big stops but looked like he wanted Niederreiter’s back (off his arm), and the last one by Aho was a freak play.
Tippett shook the lines up when they dug themselves the 2-0 hole, putting Ryan McLeod in the 2C hole when Leon Draisaitl moved onto Connor McDavid’s line, and slid Nugent-Hopkins in with the third-line bangers Foegele and Zack Kassian.
McDavid, who played just 11:30 in the first two periods, got a whopping 10:36 in the third, two fewer seconds than Draisaitl.
Hyman appeared to hurt his right shoulder when hit by Brady Skjei late in the third.
Bear got nice video tribute and a standing ovation from the crowd, with Bear choking back tears as he sat on the bench early in the first period.
Keith, unavailable since Nov. 23, missed his eighth straight game, but he did skate with main group Saturday morning and was moving well. Bet on him playing Tuesday when Maple Leafs are here.
Goalie Mike Smith also took shots Saturday, but his return is still up in the air.
Kyle Turris and Tyler Benson were the Oiler forward scratches.

BLH’s Thoughts: It would be a shame if Hyman went down with the same injury as Kris Russell. A couple weeks without that kind of work ethic would be very noticeable, but at the same time, maybe Warren Foegele would get a promotion.

I had one friend say to me that he thinks the Oilers miss Keith’s demand for on-ice accountability. I suppose we’ll see when he returns to the lineup.

It was good to see Bear back in Edmonton, but he had a pretty shit night on the stats sheet in his ten minutes of ice time 5v5,

CF% Rel: -16.18
FF% Rel: -23.81
GF% Rel: -100
xGF% Rel: -42.44
SCF% Rel: -16.71
HDCF% Rel: -48.48

He was under the weather too. So we’ll cut him some slack this time.

Warren Foegele, on the other hand, had himself an excellent night.

CF% Rel: 13.26
FF% Rel: 14.58
GF% Rel: 100
xGF% Rel: 16.43
SCF% Rel: 5.61
SF% Rel: 8.08

So that trade looks pretty good for Ken Holland from that small sample size.

These last three games I’ve come away disappointed that Edmonton couldn’t muster up more offense but I haven’t been angry about the efforts. The Oilers have been in the games more or less and as I’ve said before, if the work ethic is there, the fans will understand (to an extent). If they take nights off, the fans will light the arena on fire.

That said, five loses in a row and four of those being on home ice, the Oilers did leave the ice to a chorus of boos last night… I’m surprised nobody was chanting, “WE WANT SIX! WE WANT SIX!”

https://twitter.com/BeerLeagueHeroe/status/1469904860187602944

Oilersnation

Make it five straight losses as Oilers fall 3-1 to the Hurricanes

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins pulled the Oilers back to within a single goal (2-1) with a quick snapshot inside the post after Jesse Puljujarvi hit him with a stretch pass that put him in alone on a chance he buried cleanly.
Had it not been for Kostco, especially in the second period, this game could have easily been out of reach long before the final buzzer sounded and I wanted to give him some props for the effort. Bust his balls all you want for the third goal, but there is no doubt in my mind that he was one of the best Oilers tonight.
Markus Niemelainen was credited with 10 hits…
The Oilers have given up the first goal in 14 of their last 17 games.
I don’t have the exact number for how many times the Oilers passed up a quality chance to shoot the puck but whatever the number is is way too high.
Make that five games in a row where Kailer Yamamoto doesn’t have a shot on net.
Make it 10 straight games without a goal from the fourth line.

BLH’s Thoughts: That pass from Jesse to Nuge was almost a carbon copy of the one he got from RNH earlier in the year. Sublime!

I don’t think Koskinen was the problem last night either. He had a really decent evening aside from two goals that were more or less out of his control. You’d have liked him to have one of those shots but it is what it is and the Oilers had at least FIVE clear chances to score, three of those wide open nets where an Oilers skater failed to even hit the net. So Mikko did his job, can that same be said for the guys responsible for scoring the goals?

I think we it would be unfair to ignore the performance by Frederik Andersen. He still has Edmonton’s number and it’s very irritating.

The Hockey Writers Rumors

Previous reports by insiders suggested the Flyers were going to be cautious about how much money that would have tied up in their coaching staff because they’re still being forced to pay Alain Vigneault $5 million for the next two seasons. Word was they weren’t going to go after an expensive option.
According to Steve Greeley of Daily Faceoff, there’s some talk that the New York Rangers might be thinking about tacking on an extra year to a contract extension offer in an attempt to get Ryan Strome’s annual average salary down a little bit.
- Greeley says the Rangers might be looking at Charlie Coyle (six years at $5.25 million) and Phillip Danault (six years at $5.5 million) as comparables but Strome’s agents are likely thinking more in the area of Brayden Schenn’s eight years at $6.5 million and Kevin Hayes’ seven years at $7.14 million.
He (Jeff Marek) says, “Much like (Brendan) Gallagher, if the Habs go the teardown and rebuild model, does (Tyler) Toffoli want to be part of it at this stage of his career? This is not what he signed up for when he joined the Habs.”