Around the NHL 2023-2024

[Linkens Mastery]

Oilers fired Woodcroft

About time

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

Seems pretty ice cold to fire him after the teams best win of the season. I suppose they wanted to let him finish out the road trip but still seems like if this was decided, they should've let him go after the Sharks debacle.

I want to see Bruce Boudreau step in. Bruce, there it is?

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

Well, I think it's pretty clear what's going on in Edmonton.

After Connor McDavid left his mark on the roster by supposedly convincing the team to give Nurse a big extension, sign Jack Campbell to a big deal because "If he can play in Toronto, he can play here", signing old junior teammate Connor Brown to a contract to join McDavid on the top line, and getting his agent a job as CEO of Hockey Operations, they've now hired McDavid's junior coach and AHL Hartford Wolfpack coach Kris Knoblauch to take over behind the bench.

They've also brought in Paul Coffey as a new assistant coach who, to my knowledge, has never coached in pro hockey.

I see this going very poorly. Someone send McDavid and Torrey Krug on vacation this offseason. It's going to be a sad state of affairs when they destroy that franchise over the next few seasons in an effort to appease McDavid and he bolts in free agency.

 

[BlueDream]

I don’t think Woodcroft is a bad coach at all. I think Edmonton’s problems are more due to the roster.

He will deserve another opportunity somewhere and if for whatever reason we find ourselves looking for a new head coach, he’s a guy I wouldn’t mind interviewing.

 

[Xerloris]

I don’t think Woodcroft is a bad coach at all. I think Edmonton’s problems are more due to the roster.

He will deserve another opportunity somewhere and if for whatever reason we find ourselves looking for a new head coach, he’s a guy I wouldn’t mind interviewing.

Holy f*** no.

 

[BlueDream]

Holy f*** no.

The fact that you disagree with it gives me more confidence in my opinion.

 

[Xerloris]

The fact that you disagree with it gives me more confidence in my opinion.

Everytime we get an Oilers hand me down it turns to shit for us.

 

[mk80]

I'm not surprised they fired Woodcroft, as always for teams it's easy to swap head coaches than anything else. I'm sure he'll land on his feet somewhere. And I don't think the fix with them is simple enough to just bring in McDavid's junior coach, as good as he may be.

I am surprised given their goaltending issues, their goaltending coach also didn't get shown the door.

 

[MissouriMook]

Walk off HR from Stützle in the first game of the Global Series.

 

[Majorityof1]

Walk off HR from Stützle in the first game of the Global Series.

I was very confused by your use of HR until I watched the highlight. Well done, sir!!!

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Walk off HR from Stützle in the first game of the Global Series.

thought it was interesting how puck was heading right for goalie's head, and goalie ducked out of the way rather than make the facestop.

 

[PocketNines]

Barbashev just laid an absolutely devastating clean hit on Xhekaj at the end of the second and knocked him out of the game. I bet there is a main board thread with video

 

[Cotton McKnight]

thought it was interesting how puck was heading right for goalie's head, and goalie ducked out of the way rather than make the facestop.

It was a rather strange save selection.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

What's up with the schedule this week? What's the NHL's logic behind having zero games on Tuesday?

 

[MissouriMook]

What's up with the schedule this week? What's the NHL's logic behind having zero games on Tuesday?

You used "logic" and "NHL" in a sentence. That's cute.

 

[Brian39]

What's up with the schedule this week? What's the NHL's logic behind having zero games on Tuesday?

US Thanksgiving.

That makes Wednesday and Friday very valuable home dates for US teams.

Wednesday night is like a weekend night with very few people having to go to work the next day. It is one of the busier drinking nights of the year, kids are for sure off school the next day and there are tons of people who come "home" Wednesday and could view the day as one of their few chances to see their home town team. The large majority of people are off Friday and a lot of those people 'back in town' are still around on Friday.

28 teams play Wednesday and 30 teams play Friday. 3 of the 4 teams off on Wednesday were the teams who played Saturday and/or Sunday in Sweden. All 14 games on Wednesday are in US cities and 14 of 15 on Friday are in US cities.

That is damn near every team playing Wednesday and Friday and almost every US team who played a road game Wednesday has a Friday home game. The league is having the large majority of teams travel between these Wednesday/Friday games to maximize the number of teams who get a home date around Thanksgiving.

And then 16 teams play Saturday and 10 play Sunday (with none of the same teams playing).

All told, 21 of the league's 32 teams play 3 games from Wednesday through Sunday and 3 of the 11 teams who play fewer games just played weekend games in Sweden. It definitely makes sense to not have these teams playing Tuesday and instead have them play on Monday.

I think it is odd that they didn't find a way to get 1 game on the calendar for Tuesday, but it definitely makes sense to load up W/F/Sat/Sun around Thanksgiving as much as possible and then figure out M/Tue after the fact.

 

[PJJJP]

Damn even the new Oilers goalie they called up has a .870%

 

[Brockon]

Damn even the new Oilers goalie they called up has a .870%

I'm not quite sure what you expected from a 31 year old AHL journeyman, with under 120 previous NHL games a .904 sv% and 3.04 GAA career averages, in his first game behind a struggling team with defensive lapses?

It's been 5 years since Pickard started over 10 games in an NHL season and 7 years since his career high 50 starts in 2016-17 for an impressive 2.98 GAA and 0.904 sv% behind an absolutely abysmal Colorado team that went 22-56-4 for 48 points. Pickard went 15-31-2, which I reiterate is ridiculously impressive considering how spectacularly bad Colorado was that year. He has played 30 NHL games since the end of that 2016-17 season.

Pickard is a stop gap while Holland tries to figure out how to improve their goaltending without having any cap space to work with. I don't see any outcome other than the Oilers riding Skinner and hoping for the best, because unless Holland pays in premium assets to pull off a miracle trade - there aren't any other options, except to pray McDavid and Draisaitl can score 4+ goals a night to give the Oilers a chance to win.

 

[MissouriMook]

Taylor Hall out for the year with a knee injury. They're going to get Celebrini, too, aren't they?

 

[Celtic Note]

Taylor Hall out for the year with a knee injury. They're going to get Celebrini, too, aren't they?

Boo that noise

 

[Spektre]

How crazy will it be if Edmonton gets the first overall pick

 

[Bobby Orrtuzzo]

Taylor Hall out for the year with a knee injury. They're going to get Celebrini, too, aren't they?

The league would love for them to be the next penguins model. Bedard = Crosby, Celebrini = Malkin, Korchinksi = Letang. They just need to find their MAF

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

Taylor Hall out for the year with a knee injury. They're going to get Celebrini, too, aren't they?

Hall going there boosted their chances of Celebrini 10 fold to begin with, just based off Hall's track record

 

[Frenzy31]

How crazy will it be if Edmonton gets the first overall pick

I think it goes to Columbus. At some point, they are just owed.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Evason out in Minny. Hynes to be new Wild coach.