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!
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Oilersnation
Coaching Change?
- The suggestions to replace Tippett with Gulutzan make little sense to me. How many assistant coaches have been promoted to their team and had success?
- If they replace Tippett I wouldn’t replace him with Gulutzan. Nothing against Gulutzan, I just don’t think it is a situation that leads to much different results.
- Regardless of who is the coach, the Oilers will need more consistent goaltending. If you believe the goalies are struggling solely due to the system, I’d counter with Mike Smith’s stats from last season: same system, much better goalie statistics.
- A different system will help, but it won’t solve the goaltending issue itself.
- I don’t know if Woodcroft and Manson will be better overall than Tippett and Playfair. In their three seasons, the Oilers have the 12th most points in the NHL. Their PP is #1 (29th) and their PK is fifth at 82.6%. What has struggled is their 5×5 goals against/game.
- …if you hire Woodcroft you have to do so with the plan to keep him as the head coach. It wouldn’t be wise to promote on an Interim basis when the team is struggling like it is and then opt to not retain him at the end the year.
- There are some veteran NHL coaches available like Mike Babcock, Claude Julien, Alain Vigneault and Travis Green to name a few… And it could mean Woodcroft could look to go elsewhere as he was passed over for the job.
- This season has not gone according to plan. With every loss the odds of a coaching change occurring increases.
- I don’t think the team plays intense enough. There hasn’t been enough of an emphasis to be a more emotional team. I do think the coaches can encourage more of that, or demand more of it.
- They haven’t matched the urgency and intensity of the opposition often enough in the past six weeks. Regardless of who is coaching, those need to become part of this group’s foundation. At some point, the players need to look within and realize they needed a higher commitment to excellence.
- If the players’ work ethic and willingness to compete in the important areas of the ice doesn’t improve then it won’t matter who is coaching.
BLH’s Thoughts: Craig Button made an interesting point last Friday on Gregor’s show that I didn’t even consider. Mike Smith only played six teams last year and half of them were shite. On top of that, they also never left Canada…
My question is, if Gulutzan wouldn’t be a good interim coach then why the victories while he was behind the bench when Tippett was out with The ‘Vid? Why did the weakest roster this team has seen since the DoD days go out and look like a team on a mission and then return to their sulking ways when Tipp came back? Even Gully’s media avails were better…
Now, watch. Gulutzan has been out with a bout of The ‘Vid of his own but now he’s ready to come back, watch this team play with some more initiative against the big boys of the Atlantic division… Watch the PP come back to life too.
I am in full agreement with the Edmonton media that this team needs some more “assertiveness” in the lineup. I’ve said it on so many occasions that this roster needs a few more pricks, guys that will drag others into the game. Ramp up the intensity a bit.
I mean, it’s fine that the Oilers have Kassian, Sceviour, and Benson out there banging bodies, but with all due respect to Colton and Tyler, this team needs bigger guys to be doing it.
I look at Warren Foegele and if he stopped slowing up when he was going to hit a guy, he’d be a dangerous player. Same with Perlini.
What I wonder is if Holland is betting on Josh Archibald’s return because even though he’s a smaller guy, he’s learned how to hit to hurt. He’ll skate right through an opposing player if he gets the opportunity and he doesn’t take any shit from anybody.
Lowetide.ca
OILERS FIVE-ON-FIVE (FWDS) SINCE DECEMBER 1
- One thing worth monitoring is five-on-five scoring by forwards since December 1 (15 games in that span, I’ve listed those who played five or more games).
- Brendan Perlini 4.20
- Connor McDavid 2.24
- Kyle Turris 2.03
- Kailer Yamamoto 1.89
- Colton Sceviour 1.81
- Zach Hyman 1.75
- Leon Draisaitl 1.63
- Ryan McLeod 1.37
- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 1.36
- Jesse Puljujarvi 1.32
- Warren Foegele 0.91
- Zack Kassian 0.85
- Tyler Benson 0.74
- Devin Shore 0.69
- Derek Ryan 0.50
- So there’s a lot here. Perlini is on a tear, hasn’t been as noticeable because the team isn’t winning.
- McDavid is McDavid, the only concern Oilers fans should have is that this is wearing on him.
- The big bets of summer aren’t working and these are difficult days for everyone in the organization but the expectations of 97 are Herculean on normal days.
- This poor run over the last six weeks could shake the Oilers to their foundation if things continue, and yet an easy fix (find a goalie, ladies!) doesn’t appear to be in the plan.
- Sceviour and Hyman are delivering enough to get a checkmark lately…
- Draisaitl slowed down in December but we expect an increase in activity over the days to come.
- McLeod, Nuge and Puljujarvi needed an extra point somewhere to pump up the total a little, but there’s no cause for concern.
- Foegele and Kassian need to deliver a little more, nice to see Benson on the board and I think we know Shore lands around here. Derek Ryan has had a tough season, full stop.
BLH’s Thoughts: Perlini is not on a tear. lol. He’s played six games since Dec. 1st whereas everybody else aside from Turris has played 14 or 15. He gets more than half the TOI Connor gets and do you know when he’s scored his goals?
- 1/15 vs OTT
- 1/5 vs TOR
- 12/16 vs CBJ
Would you consider a player who scored 3 goals in a month of hockey somebody who’s “on a tear”? That’s just another example of skewing the numbers to fit a narrative and it drives me nuts. Let’s gleefully ignore the 21% shooting percentage too.
Here are a couple of funny stats for LT’s time frame,
- Zack Kassian’s 19.25% is the 2nd best GF%/60rel on the team (behind Seth Griffith…).
- Leon Draisaitl’s GF%/60rel in that time is the worst on the club at -14.1…
So what are we left to take away from this? The bottom six players are leading this team’s GF% stat for December and January so far and the top sixers are shitting the bed. Why is that? Does this team now go as Leon goes?
Check out the numbers for yourself right here.
How can one say there’s not cause for concern with Nuge and Pulju. Can you rememeber the last time either had a goal? RNH has THREE goals this year and my boy, Jesse, has three of his own since Dec. 2nd. Then we’ve got McLeod with FOUR with three of those coming before Nov. 24th!!!
Surely there’s cause for concern there! I can cut McLeod some slack considering he’s a rookie and he’s mostly played in the bottom six, but for Nuge and Pulju to be slumping so badly in the goals department whilst being deployed in the top six doesn’t ease my concerns.
Lastly, when did finding a goalie suddenly become an easy fix? Is there a metric out there that I haven’t come across that could help me with that?
The Daily Goal Horn
- According to (David) Pagnotta, the Canes have asked about Chychrun and Klingberg. Jeff Marek of Sportsnet also linked Carolina to Klingberg. From what I can tell, they appear to be the favorites to land him.
- When the March 21 Trade Deadline arrives, the Ducks will face some key decisions on their own pending UFAs. Here’s who could be available: Rickard Rakell, Ryan Getzlaf, Hampus Lindholm, Josh Manson.
- One player that Vegas would like to retain is pending UFA Reilly Smith. He has a $5M cap hit and is considered the most likely cap casualty. Depending on when Pacioretty and Eichel return, he could be kept for their expected long playoff run.
