Top Hockey Insider Connects Edmonton Oilers to Montreal Defenseman

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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Cult of Hockey

Player grades: Yes, McD did it again, as Oilers beat Jets in thrilling shoot-out

Duncan Keith – 3 – A tough night for Keith. He seemed a second slow all over the ice.
Tyler Benson – 2 – Called for the weakest slashing penalty of the modern era, then seconds after coming out of the box he was headed right back after a second straight offensive zone penalty on a cross-check on Pionk.
Kailer Yamamoto – 4 – A quiet game from Yamamoto. Tried hard but was the one weak link in the Top 6.
Cody Ceci – 7 – Was solid through the night even with his main partner struggling… Played over 24 minutes and had four shots on net and six hits to co-lead the team.
Evan Bouchard – 7 – One of Bouchard’s better defending games of the season… Not a ton on the offence but a couple solid outlet passes and hammers on net.
Zach Hyman – 7- Hard work, shift after shift. In the first, a hard forecheck causes a turnover, he gets up from his knees and takes it to the front of the net for a good shot – a microcosm of his night.
Leon Draisaitl – 8 – One of the best no point games you’ll see. A bull all at both ends of the rink and on the PK.
Connor McDavid – 8 – McDavid was only good by his standards until he decided to tie the game on his own and then score in the shootout… A couple hits on Mark Scheifele in the 2nd.
Stuart Skinner – 9 – As good as Connor Hellebuyck was, Skinner was just as good. In fact, he was even better, with 45 saves on 46 shots plus two more in the shootout.

BLH’s Thoughts: A “2” for Benson? C’mon, he wasn’t that bad. As player grades go for the Cult of Hockey, that means he had a “bad” game and he didn’t. If he was that bad, the coach wouldn’t have let him play the rest of the game, but Tippett had him out there in the third period while the game was still tied at zero… That tells me the coach wasn’t as upset as some of the Oilers ultras on Twitter.

The way I see it is that the Oilers young winger set a bit of a tone while he was on the ice and I knew before the game started that the Jets physical style would play right into Benson’s hands since he’s added that element to his game. The kid has to do something to stand out, right? And what was missing from the Oilers game in Winnipeg? A physical element.

Personally, I think Benson got a raw deal from the refs on both calls considering the Jets defenseman he hit did a helluva acting job them and how it seems the officials were looking for retaliation penalties anyhow…

Colton Sceviour was very solid again. This guy should get into more games.

Ryan McLeod was much more physical tonight but was only 33% on the dot.

Kassian showed up and nearly killed Brendan Dillon with an open-ice hit. That’s a plus. Maybe that tilt with Stanley the Giant sparked something buried deep inside of him…

Puljujarvi… My boy was snakebit againt the Jets this week. He was getting to the soft ice and firing some rockets off, but they just weren’t landing behind Hellebuyck. He played well as he usually does vs. Winnipeg.

Oilersnation

GDB 16.0 Wrap Up

Right when we needed a goal, the captain came through with an unbelievable effort to not only tie the game but extend his point streak to 16 games and counting.
Skinner was excellent for the Oilers and gave them the calibre of goaltending that they needed to stay in the fight and prove to the doubters that he belongs in this league.
Skinner finished the night with 46 saves and a .979 save%.
The Oilers’ PK was fantastic when called upon and it was awesome to see the way they were able to stifle the Jets’ power play at some huge moments in the game…
What a monster night for Darnell Nurse as he played a team-high 31:21 in TOI to go along with two shots on goal, six hits, and four blocks.
I have to give Zack Kassian some credit for squaring off against Logan Stanley considering that the latter is basically a giant.
The Oilers passed up way too many chances to shoot the puck in favour of looking for an extra pass, and it caused them to turn the puck over far too often instead of getting a quality shot on net.
Duncan Keith’s passing to no one in particular was an adventure I didn’t want to be on.

BLH’s Thoughts: What I loved about this game is that the Oilers came out strong and established a clear base line as to how the game was going to go. They were physical and intense and they battened down the hatches against Winnipeg’s high-flying offense. ‘Twas a full-team effort for 65 minutes and a sprinkling more in the shootout.

Another thing that impressed me was McDavid’s physicality on Mark Scheifele in the third.

On the other side of the coin, what’s up with Edmonton’s defensemen refusing to let Skinner freeze the puck? How many times was the biscuit right in front of their goalie and as he was going to cover it somebody knocked it away…

Now, I think there are going to be some overexcited fans that want to deal a goalie after that performance from Skinner but I caution against that. Edmonton will want to go into the playoffs with three netminders and at the moment, they’ve got that. Unless Mike Smith is ruled out for the year, they should hold onto their trade assets or use them on other positions.

And with that in mind, Skinner deserves another start and if Tippett is being honest with himself and Koskinen, he knows the kid should get another game in between the pipes. Besides, Koskinen deserves a bit of a break, don’t you think? Let the big guy recover.

Jeff Marek Show

BLH’s Thoughts: At the 13 min mark Friedman starts to talk about the Oilers and his belief that Ben Chiarot is a match for them. He’s of the impression that the Habs could eat some of Chiarot’s salary to create a bit more of a market and to increase the value of Chiarot as a trade asset. The insider also is also of the belief that Montreal could definitely get a first round pick for the defenseman.

Now, considering that Holland has said time and time again that he’d be willing to move a first rounder but only for a player with term on his deal or a player who’d be under team control for the foreseeable future, I don’t think he’d trade Edmonton’s first round pick for Chiarot seeing as he’s an impending UFA. He might trade Dmitri Samorukov for him though…

Do you like the idea of Edmonton acquiring Chiarot? For me, if the dman is in the form he had during the Habs Cup run last summer, sure. If not, no thanks. But one might argue, if Holland can bring in a dman that will result in Duncan Keith getting pushed to the third pairing, that might be a good thing.

Conversely, what would that mean for Philip Broberg, Slater Koekkoek, Markus Niemelainen, and possibly Dmitri Samorukov.