Edmonton Oilers Talk: Five Games in and We’re Talking about “Statement Games”…

This is your TL/DR (too long, didn’t read) summary post where excerpts are taken from the best of the best when it comes to Edmonton Oilers blogs. BLH gives you his two cents on the latest posts being published in the Oilogosphere! Including those from Lowetide.ca, The Athletic, Oilersnation, The Cult of Hockey, Copper N Blue, Oil on Whyte, and more!

The latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation comes from all of the internet’s top sites like Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, Sportsnet, and TSN just to name a few!

If you’re short on time but want to keep up with the day’s Oilers news, you’ve come to the right place!

Give us a follow on the socials!

Oilersnation

Off the Top of My Head

Five games into an 82-game season is way too early to suggest the Edmonton Oilers have the Vegas Golden Knights right where they want them, but it’s not too soon to characterize a 5-3 win in Sin City on Friday as a statement game. It damn sure was.
How is Zach Hyman, who has five goals and can score them any which way you want, working for you? How about the third line of Warren Foegele, Derek Ryan and Matt Kassian? Anybody check the numbers on Mikko Koskinen, who beat Arizona 5-1 to open the two-game swing and made 36 saves in Vegas?
There’s little debate Wayne Gretzky is the greatest player ever to lace his skates in the NHL… As a studio hockey analyst with Turner Sports? Not so much, according to Mike Milbury, among those unimpressed with Gretzky so far. To hear Mad Mike tell it, Gretzky is boring.
… the Great One had plenty to say to Sportsnet host Gene Principe about the Oilers’ red-hot power play… Gretzky compared it more than favorably to the units Glen Sather used to be able to throw over the boards in the 1980’s.

BLH’s Thoughts: Statement games? Really? Why? Vegas was without FOUR of their main cogs. How on Earth was that an statement game? What was the statement, “Hey, as long as your best players on on the IR, we can beat you!”?

For what it’s worth, I would also take this roster’s PP vs. the one from any of the Stanley Cup winning teams. But for fun, if you could put together an all-time Oilers PP unit, who would be on it?

Gretzky-Draisaitl-McDavid
Coffey-Kurri

Oil on Whyte

State of the franchise address – very early season edition

The Edmonton Oilers are in a very good position right now. It may be early in the season right now, but this is an encouraging sign for the future, sample size notwithstanding. They’re the juggernaut that just won’t stop.
Things have a way of balancing themselves out in the NHL, so Calgary and San Jose will both come crashing down to earth eventually while Vegas and LA will get their act together as well.
Jesse Puljujarvi has been a pleasant surprise… He currently sits in sixth place in the league in scoring right now…
Zach Hyman, another guy who this season has fit with the Oilers like chips and salsa. Thanks to three PP goals, he currently sports 5-1-6 in five games for the team.
Nuge is the other guy of note. He has seven assists in five games. A bit snake-bitten in the goals department to be sure, but helping a teammate score in many ways is just as good as scoring yourself.
In case you’re counting, that’s five Oilers in the top 20 in league scoring.
(Derek) Ryan has taken the second most faceoffs of any Oilers and is so far at 59.1%? Talk about a guy who can take some heat off of Draisaitl.
…we can finally say we have four centers that are all capable in the faceoff circle. McDavid, for whom this has long been one of the few weak spots in his game, is up to 52%, while Dr. Drai is rolling along at 64.5%, while Devin Shore is at 68.8% (that’s bound to come down a bit at some point).
The only top-six forward who has been a disappointment so far is Kailer Yamamoto, who has put up no offence in the first five games.
As you would expect, the Oilers once again have the #1 PP in the league at a whopping 47.1%.
The PK isn’t quite as impressive, but it’s still ninth in the league at 88.2%.
…the Oilers have two legitimate PP and PK units that Tippett can roll out one after the other if he wants to.
Darnell Nurse is doing this thing, putting up three assists in five games.
Bouchard has 1-2-3 in five games in the early going, with a +5 to boot, pretty good for a guy getting his first taste of tough competition.
Well as you would expect there’s a bit of a feeling-out process for both of them as they get used to playing with each other, so they won’t be as impressive a pairing in the early going as they’re slated to be.
Mike Smith has taken the majority of the starts in the early going, but Koskinen in his couple of starts has done well, as he’s 12th in the league in sv% with .943 and 18th in GAA with 2.03.
The fourth line has also been a bit of a disappointment… They’re all playing around 10 minutes a game right now, and find themselves stapled to the bench for most of, if not all, of the third period in games so far.
It’s very early in the season but I could see the Oilers winning the division if things keep going as they are, with no worse than second unless they completely implode.

BLH’s Thoughts: This is indeed a far-too-early address of the team and why do things have a way of evening things out only for the other teams and not the Oilers? Is it not just as feasible that Edmonton could drop the next five games as it is for San Jose or Calgary to pick up eight of ten points in their next five?

I think it’s fine to point out some of the metrics that the Oilers are putting up right now, but aside from McDavid and Draisaitl, there’s probably not one player on the team who has the same ability to continue their heaters as the writer does go on to say in so many words (click the link above to check that out).

Here’s the thing, we know that Mike Smith has already been knicked up and Mikko Koskinen showed signs of discomfort on multiple occasions vs. Vegas. So with that information, how do you feel about the team going forward now? How high are you on Stuart Skinner and would it shock you to know that there are some rumblings that Holland has been talking to other GMs about a goaltender….

Spector’s Hockey

SPORTSNET: Elliotte Friedman reports Jack Eichel could consider filing a grievance through the NHL Players Association to force a resolution to his standoff with the Buffalo Sabres. He speculates that could happen within the next couple of weeks if he’s not traded before then.

Jeff Marek reports New York Rangers general manager Chris Drury seeks a top prospect in exchange for unhappy winger Vitali Kravtsov, who recently returned home to Russia awaiting a trade. Marek said Drury isn’t budging from that asking price right now.

GOPHNX.COM: Craig Morgan recently took note of the Arizona Coyotes using Phil Kessel on their top power-play unit instead of defenseman Jakob Chychrun… Morgan also observed 15 scouts who attended the Coyotes’ recent game against the St. Louis Blues.

SPORTSNET: Jeff Marek reports Coyotes center Barrett Hayton also came up in trade speculation this week… Hayton’s agent Pat Morris shot down rumors his client asked for a trade. Marek said it looks like he’ll be staying with the Coyotes as head coach Andre Tourigny thinks highly of him. Tourigny made Hayton the captain of Team Canada at the 2020 World Juniors.