Cool, I'll concede it doesn't take everything into account but I can guarantee that if you did this breakdown for every team currently on a heater that didn't have a coaching change you'd find basically the same thing. Check out Seattle's stats for example.
The numbers might not be quite as stark but our goaltending was ridiculous & unsustainably bad the first month & is now reached unsustainably good level. Amazing what can happen when everybody up & down the lineup has confidence in the guy in net.
I've said thru these last 2 coaching changes that if we get competent NHL goaltending in the regular season, we'd be just fine. Of course I'd like our goaltending to go unsustainably good for the playoffs like Florida did last year but, like almost every goalie in the NHL, I'm not sure he's capable of that in the pressure cooker of the playoffs.
The goaltending was going to bounce back for sure but you can’t just chalk everything up to that. It’s a big portion, the biggest even but there is a lot the coaches are doing differently that was changed the way this team plays. Woodcroft had everyone confused and lost trying to implement a zone defense system and knobloch managed to implement it successfully within a week or so. Coffey has the D breaking out down the middle more often and we aren’t seeing the lines blended every few shifts and McDrai together constantly.
This has been beaten to death already but the high danger scoring chances off the rush was a major part (not the only part) of why the Oilers were losing early on. The team just wasnt executing a defensive system with any regularity. Assignments were confused and all too often players made agregious coverage mistakes and left the opposing player wide open. If the HDSC stats were more granular that would have been more evident. You had to actually watch the games.
The bottom line...it is virtually unsustainable for a team to to be somehwat competitive when the defensive execution in front of the goalie is subpar, The goalie doesnt know what to expect (in terms of coverage) in any given situation and that alone is going to cause issues...especially for a young inexperienced technically strong goalie. There is no way for a goalie to play a calm efficient game in that environment. An experienced goalie that relys primarily on athletic saves would probably do better but the down side is that a goalie like that is not ususally as fundementally sound. Thats likely why most if not all goalies now a days have sound positioning and efficient movement as the foundation of their game. Grant Fuhr/Dominik Hasek type goalies are a thing of the past.
So its not a coincidence that as soon as the systems play was cleaned up the goaltending slowly started getting better.
On a side note...I really like the defensive system that Knoblauch has employed.
Gap control against the rush is much better and dmen are less likely to give up prime scoring areas and essentially back into Skinner. They are much better at taking away the cross ice passes and also at collapsing in the slot area when the puck is in tight. The back pressure is much better as well so the forwards are more involved in playing defence.
Gone are the moments where a dman is expected to make decisions on man to man or zone coverage and end up taking themsleves out of the play. That was a weak point in Nurses game for sure (and most of the dmen) although Ekholm seemed to handle it okay. Nurse is a much better dman and this defence as a whole is better when the system is simplified.
The last part of all this was that team just wasnt scoring enough (they werent outscoring their mistakes) early this season under Woody to compensate for their poor defensive play and the losses mounted up. Coffeys ability to change the transition game is also an important factor.
Not only is the team defending better and more efficiently the transitiom game is much better as well. More flow creates more goals off the rush and more time in the O zone.
I think that Woodys downfall was a result of 2 things....Woodys inability to communicate and prepare the team properly for the systems change and the lack of goal scoring.
IMO the lack of goal scoring was helped along by the lack of flow in their offensive game created by the defensive system confusion initiated from the changes. It was a fire drill in their own zone most of the time and their transition game was very poor. They opposing team dictated the play and the Oilers seldom had the appropriate response. Everything was disconnected.
That affected their offensive execution in a big way.
So while i think that Woody is a good coach I also think that his lack of experience played a role in why the team started the way it did.
