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Pre-Game Talk: Fragility

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Appears everyone was right about Bowman. Jeez.

Last chance for the Oilers to prove they need a goalie.
 
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Fragile starts with Knob creating no hit hockey which creates low intensity. Then it starts with giving J.Skinner the stink finger from the beginning of the season until now. Accountability isn't there. Plus Knobs line combos usually makes no sense. That much is on Knob.

Then there's shit goaltending. They've been pretty shitty even when the defence was doing great.

The only player in the top 6 that didn't regress is Draisaitl. That's unacceptable.

The scoring depth is shit. Perry is the only bottom 6 earning his contract!
 
Vagabond said:
Fragile starts with Knob creating no hit hockey which creates low intensity. Then it starts with giving J.Skinner the stink finger from the beginning of the season until now. Accountability isn't there. Plus Knobs line combos usually makes no sense. That much is on Knob.

Then there's shit goaltending. They've been pretty shitty even when the defence was doing great.

The only player in the top 6 that didn't regress is Draisaitl. That's unacceptable.

The scoring depth is shit. Perry is the only bottom 6 earning his contract!
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I agree with this, I feel Knob has made the game to mechanical for the players, and that has sucked all the energy out of this group
 
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foshizzle said:
I agree with this, I feel Knob has made the game to mechanical for the players, and that has sucked all the energy out of this group
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I don't think this is on coaching, I think it's on the players. Podkolzin hasn't had any trouble hitting guys.

Look at our lineup. Who in the bottom six is going to throw a hit? Connor Brown is maybe the softest player I've ever watched, he's gone 20 games without doing anything. Janmark doesn't hit. Henrique is too slow to hit.

And it doesn't get better in the top six. It's not a stretch to say McDavid is the second most physical player on the team, at least in terms of hitting. At least when he's fired up he'll finish a check.

Edit: I just don't see any excuse for a player like Connor Brown to not finish a check. He's big enough, he's fast enough, and he just constantly flys by on the forecheck. And it's not new, he's always played like this, even before he was an Oiler.
 
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Arpeggio said:
I don't think this is on coaching, I think it's on the players. Podkolzin hasn't had any trouble hitting guys.

Look at our lineup. Who in the bottom six is going to throw a hit? Connor Brown is maybe the softest player I've ever watched, he's gone 20 games without doing anything. Janmark doesn't hit. Henrique is too slow to hit.

And it doesn't get better in the top six. It's not a stretch to say McDavid is the second most physical player on the team, at least in terms of hitting. At least when he's fired up he'll finish a check.

Edit: I just don't see any excuse for a player like Connor Brown to not finish a check. He's big enough, he's fast enough, and he just constantly flys by on the forecheck. And it's not new, he's always played like this, even before he was an Oiler.
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Brown needs a reality check in a few different areas.

All things considered, he hasn't been THAT bad, at least relative to his teammates in the same class as him. On top of the hitting which you accurately identified, he's got to start shooting the puck and go to the slot. He's a stocky guy with decent hands and decent feet. There is zero excuse for him to not be driving hard through the slot and looking for opportunities there.

Instead, watch how often he gets to the top of the triangle and just passes it. He constantly, habitually passes off shooting looks. It's maddening enough when its McDavid doing it, but when it's Connor Brown, and the pass is going to Janmark on his strong side around the bottom of the circle, it's infuriating.

I understand the theory for not volume shooting in the top 6 lines, but Konblauch needs to start challenging the bottom 6 to just shoot the f***ing puck. Other than the fact it will result in more goals, it will also result in less D zone time, more O zone draws, more starting in their end rather than having to break in and risk turnovers. Connor Brown should never go a game without 2 shots, but instead he recently went 6 in a row with zero. Needs to be a culture shift to simplicity and accountability in the bottom 6, but it doesn't look like anyone has noticed.
 
Arpeggio said:
I don't think this is on coaching, I think it's on the players. Podkolzin hasn't had any trouble hitting guys.

Look at our lineup. Who in the bottom six is going to throw a hit? Connor Brown is maybe the softest player I've ever watched, he's gone 20 games without doing anything. Janmark doesn't hit. Henrique is too slow to hit.

And it doesn't get better in the top six. It's not a stretch to say McDavid is the second most physical player on the team, at least in terms of hitting. At least when he's fired up he'll finish a check.

Edit: I just don't see any excuse for a player like Connor Brown to not finish a check. He's big enough, he's fast enough, and he just constantly flys by on the forecheck. And it's not new, he's always played like this, even before he was an Oiler.
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This team looks almost exactly like it did when they got Woodcroft fired. So I agree it's on the players. That said, it's on the coaching staff to formulate a plan that breaks them out of that funk without the catalyst being the firing of a coach.

I'm looking at the LA game on January 9th 2023. The team dropped to just 3 games over .500 at the half way mark of the season after a woeful 5 game segment finishing up what was a very uninspiring 12 games set featuring only 4 wins. The team finally gets pissed off after going down 3 goals again then Puljujarvi fights, Hyman fights and Kostin fights. The game still ends up as a loss, but the team goes 29-5-6 from there on out.

The team need something to bond over.
 
Arpeggio said:
I don't think this is on coaching, I think it's on the players. Podkolzin hasn't had any trouble hitting guys.

Look at our lineup. Who in the bottom six is going to throw a hit? Connor Brown is maybe the softest player I've ever watched, he's gone 20 games without doing anything. Janmark doesn't hit. Henrique is too slow to hit.

And it doesn't get better in the top six. It's not a stretch to say McDavid is the second most physical player on the team, at least in terms of hitting. At least when he's fired up he'll finish a check.

Edit: I just don't see any excuse for a player like Connor Brown to not finish a check. He's big enough, he's fast enough, and he just constantly flys by on the forecheck. And it's not new, he's always played like this, even before he was an Oiler.
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Rishaug has asked the coach many times about hitting. Knob keeps saying he wants the team to "check with their legs", and if a hit happens to be there, then take it. It isnt a high priority.
 
With how incredibly poorly Ekholm has been playing lately, this might end up being a blessing in disguise.

He was getting skinned alive 5v5 and needs to get healthy again.
 
McDNicks17 said:
He's scored more and had better defensive results than basically every bottom six player on the team combined.
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I mean Drai doenst want to play with him. He's slow and lazy and doesn't forcheck

Have you listened to Tyler Ennis and his take on J. Skinner? It's pretty accurate
 
The 12 game segment that ended Woodcroft's tenure in Edmonton featured a stretch of 2-9-1, that ultimately ended up 3-9-1 as the team delayed the announcement one more game.

Currently Edmonton is 3-8 in it's last 11 games with the next two games being vs. a team on a 5 game winning streak and a team with the third best record in the entire NHL.
 
Drivesaitl said:
In anycase the Oilers brought back several old players when there was no reason to, lost several good players in offseason, and the 3 bets they took for forwards ALL failed. If you're a fan of this club for a longtime you're not at all surprised.

Holloway was a can't miss and the team just let him go. Dunces.
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lmao ain't that the damn truth. The conversation's moved past it a bit but I want to push back (yet again) about the "deep cultural issues" that you rightly note is really just a much simpler answer of "the Oilers organization is the worst in hockey except for maybe the Sabres, and it's been covered up by the dumb luck of drafting not one but BOTH of the top 2 (maybe top 3 depending on the year and Mackinnon's play) forwards in the league."

The fact that this team has a slump every year isn't surprising. Pretty much every single team in the NHL has slumps throughout the year - it's a long ass season, a hard ass game, and you run out of gas. The Bruins are the only team in recent memory to run a whole season dominant, and then they instead flamed out hard in the first round of the playoffs. The reason it looks so much worse is because we never, ever fix our goddamn core problems:

1. Awful asset management. Holloway and Broberg would be our among our top 6 players this year and we decided we were too good to even properly negotiate with them.
2. Awful development of players. It's improved a bit over the years, but notably Dustin Schwartz has been around for OVER A DECADE NOW and made EVERY SINGLE GOALTENDER HE'S TRAINED WORSE. Only Mike Smith improved during his tenure...by paying for his own goalie coach. Tristan Jarry sought out Schwartz' help the past year or so and it resulted in him playing his way into buyout status. We've had 4 GMs (6 including interim) and 5 Head Coaches (7 including interim) in that time.

It's not rocket surgery guys. All the best teams in the league manage assets well and develop their players well. The Oilers, pending the last 2ish years of Holland's tenure, have never managed assets well, and we only sort of learned to develop players that weren't absolutely sure-fire home runs recently...only to not even bother negotiating with them and letting them walk. Oops.
 
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That 3rd line of Janmark Henrique and Brown is a joke by now.

Connor Brown is everything that is wrong with this team right now. Older, slow and soft, can’t score, no jam to his game.

Yet Jeff Skinner keeps getting benched.

Jeff Jackson can f*** all the way off and take Bowman and the pro scouts and goalie coach with you.
 
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5 Mins 4 Ftg said:
That 3rd line of Janmark Henrique and Brown is a joke by now.

Connor Brown is everything that is wrong with this team right now. Older, slow and soft, can’t score, no jam to his game.

Yet Jeff Skinner keeps getting benched.

Jeff Jackson can f*** all the way off and take Bowman and the pro scouts and goalie coach with you.
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Yeah this is absolutely bonkers. How is it possible that Knoblauch hates Skinner's game so much, despite his actual results, and yet is completely fine with Kapanen, Janmark, and Brown skating around accomplishing nothing every single night.

The ONLY explanation is that they've been trying to move Skinner for a while, and are keeping his games down to limit his chance of injury. I can't wait to hear what he thinks about this team once he's moved, he has to be beyond pissed off lol.
 
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I feel like Knob won't last long here. I understand J.Skinner isn't great defensively, but at least he can score goals. What does Arvidsson and are useless 3rd line do to remain in the lineup?
 
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