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
Get After It
- The Oilers have started slowly and played from behind far too often this season. The five-on-five play hasn’t been what it needs to be. And, despite new personnel, Tippett isn’t getting the kind of production and contributions he needs from his bottom-six group of forwards.
- With the record the Oilers have, they’ve built in some margin to lean on while waiting for Warren Foegele and Zack Kassian et al to provide Tippett’s top-six forwards the offensive bump and support they looked capable of providing early on.
- Other than the top six, the rest of the forwards haven’t given Tippett enough to work with.
- Foegele had a couple of goals in his first seven games. While he wasn’t going to score at that rate all season, he hasn’t been bringing the energy and physicality you need from your third line.
BLH’s Thoughts: 16 games without a goal now for Mr. Foegele. You’d think if the coach wanted to get him going, he’d throw him out with Connor and Leon for a spell. Then again. Yamamoto has 6pts all year I think and he’s spent 99% of his time with The Hart Foundation, so who knows what’s going through Tippett’s mind with regards to player deployment.
Now, with all of that in mind, the third line had one helluva game against Minnesota. I was happy to see them start the game because I knew what they could bring to the start of a game and that’s speed, energy, power, and something to prove. When the pundits are talking about how good Edmonton looked, a lot of that is because of Foegele, McLeod, and as weird as it sounds, Kassian. They showed some desperation.
Lowetide.ca
- The Edmonton Oilers have to do something about their five-on-five goal differential. I know, I know, we’ve discussed it a time or two before, but the scene of the crime remains the old Moreau-Marchant-Grier stomping grounds.
- How can Dave Tippett crawl from the wreckage? I think Derek Ryan needs a break, Ryan McLeod has earned the No. 3 line role and Nuge could run at times in the middle with Tyler Benson moving up the depth chart to third line, with Warren Foegele taking the skill minutes. Something like Hyman-McDavid-Puljujarvi, Foegele-Draisaitl-Yamamoto, Benson-Nuge-Kassian.
BLH’s Thoughts: As I suggested yesterday and intimated above, Foegele should see some time in the top-six, if anything, just to get an idea of how he’d fit in case Nuge or Hyman go down. What do the Oilers have to lose by making that move? Pat Maroon, Zack Kassian, and I think Milan Lucic to an extent, all discovered some unrealized potential (and point production) playing alongside Connor McDavid.
So when the team is enthralled in a three game losing streak and is 7-7-0 in it’s last 14 games, why not try something completely different?
Spector’s Hockey
- TVA SPORTS: Jonathan Bernier examined which Montreal Canadiens players with long-term contracts could be traded if executive VP of hockey operations Jeff Gorton decides a rebuild is in order.
- Bernier believes Carey Price should be traded. While he has a no-movement clause, he might lift it for an opportunity to join a Stanley Cup contender.
- Defenseman Jeff Petry likely won’t want to be part of a rebuild.
- Bernier also suggests shopping wingers Brendan Gallagher and Joel Armia and defenseman David Savard.
- THE HOCKEY NEWS: Ryan Kennedy reports former Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin is said to be high on the Vancouver Canucks’ list of candidates to replace Jim Benning as general manager.
- NBC SPORTS BOSTON: D.J. Bean observes it’s becoming increasingly likely the Bruins will sign goaltender Tuukka Rask once he’s ready to return to action next month. Doing so, however, would mean demoting Jeremy Swayman to the minors as Linus Ullmark has a no-movement clause.
