The Oilers under Knoblach are anything but a run and gun style team. And yet they came within a goal of winning last year and are the first team in the conference finals this year with McDavid.
What does any of this have to do with a run and gun style. For someone who spends an inordinate amount fo time criticizing McDavid/Draisaitl it seems evident that you really have very little knowledge of what they actually do for the team.
You could well be right, but this analysis falls short in the SCF last year. 97 was 2 goals against all series, so the Oilers being down 2 or three in the third was on the Goaltending and losing the depth battle. McDavid couldn’t have played better defensively, so we can put away the ‘he could’ve been more versatile defensively’ for this series atleast. We don’t know how the first few games go with a healthy Draisaitl, just like Malkin was fully healthy in 2009. Maybe he carries his own line, who knows.
It depends what’s the definition of production. His 0.8 in 2016 was a good number overall, but not compared to his standard. Yes he shut down loaded lines and full credit to that, but strictly speaking for on-ice prefomance, 0.8 for 1C is subpar production. He provided far greater intrinsic value by playing with plugs, so I’m not criticizing it. Here’s the problem for me, I don’t know how much of HBK’s success is on Crosby making sacrifices, and how much is on each member of that line overplaying their ability and usual stat line massively. It’s a combination of both. Everyone would use that formula if it garanteed a Kessel type player to play that great without a star center on his side, but there is no guarantee.
A big reason for this was Oil starting a 40 year old Mike Smith, who had let in some absolute head scratchers, especially in that Calgary series. If you look at the goals conceded, it’s fair to say the majority of the goals conceded were a result of bad goaltending and/or individual mistakes, atleast in the Calgary series. Some were a result of a run and gun playstyle, just not the majority.
I am not sure how many times you need to be told. Individuals do not win cups, teams do. And you seem to be the only one who feels that the bolded is true. That 2022 team had one guy on it who was legitimately capable of playing in the top 2 on defense and he was completely crippled by injury. Draisaitl was also playing with a severe high ankle strain that prevented him from playing center. There goalie was playing with injuries that ended his career. No Pittsburgh cup winner had less depth than that 2022 team and its not even close.
Stop embarrassing yourself man.
McDavid has about .5 pt/gm more in the playoffs than Crosby. s That is about the same gap as Crosby to Sam Bennett. And yes Crosby has played more years. But if you only want to look at say their three highest scoring years it is McDavid with 95 in 52 = 1.82 pts/gm vs Crosby's 85 in 68 = 1.25 pts/gm so on the same tier offensively in the playoffs might well be a stretch.
The Oilers depth is miles better than it was in 2022. It's not even close. Though it is still probably not quite on par with any of the Pens winners without Ekholm when you factor in inconsistency in net. Give this team the Pens goaltending from their cup years and I am confident that they would win this year and would have also won last year. They may even have won in 2023 since the big difference in the Vegas series was in net.
It shouldn't be a circle of logic because hockey is a four-line game. For example, McDavid's current 1.54 ppg is lower than last year's 1.68, but that's been offset by the depth scoring. If McDavid's line ppg drops by 0.3, but the other three lines each improve by 0.15, the net impact is +0.15, which is sound reasoning why the Oilers are better positioned this year than ever. Depth scoring has been the X factor so far, and I can't determine why McDavid's lower PPG in wins has anything to do with that. If the other three lines play better, the Oilers have a higher chance of winning.
Yes this year the Oilers are getting excellent production out of their depth. That is in good part why they are 8-3 so far. If that continues and they can straighten out their special teams they will be hard to beat even with very sketchy goaltending. But you are making my point. In the past it was not that way. Over the last three years without McDavid on the ice the Oilers scored 57 ES goals and gave up 85. With McDavid on the ice they scored 74 ES goals and gave up 54. So they go from a +24 to a -28. In 2009 with Crosby on the ice the Pens scored 23 ES goals and gave up 14. Without him it was 35GF vs 34 GA. In the three cup years with Crosby on the ice the Pens scored 62 ES goals and gave up 51. But with Crosby off the ice they scored 109 and gave up 84. Do you see a pattern here????
