Last 16 Games -- 2 Regulation Wins. Why? Lets Break It Down

[Sheikyerbouti]

puck management: it makes the other issues a bigger deal.


We have been playing pretty well lately and controlling the play, the mistakes have occurred when we have the puck - there should be no need to defend/get saves in many cases

 

[Drivesaitl]

________________________

In short, why has this veteran-laden team with (seemingly) a great deal of offensive skill (eight past 30-goal scorers are regularly on the roster, with another, Kane, waiting in the wings) become a team that needs 50+ shots on goal to score?



Discuss.

Bolded is a crux of the issue. Its perhaps also its own seduction that resulted in this lineup. I'm just a punter but I predicted that the new forwards were not going to put up as much as the outgoing forwards. In fact Foegele, McLeod and a prorated Holloway combined for 45 goals last season. I said Skinner, Arvid, Pods wouldn't come CLOSE to that. Was even willing to bet people and made the offer. Nobody believed me.

Its the thing you can't just count past goals and highest goals as if it matters going forward for players that have played vast majority of their careers and are just getting older. That scoring stock and acumen goes DOWN like BROWN, not up.

The Oilers management made the worst errors getting seduced by name scorers without even asking if the same players would be scoring here under much tighter checking than bad teams get. Think about it. We already have illustration. AA scored 30 goals one season. It was largely the fabrication of playing for an awful team. Opponents didn't even bother with close checking efforts because AA was playing on a club losing the games anyway. Most of his goals were coming on complete botched coverage on breakaways, on two on ones with time. This feeds into a guy like J Skinner. No way was it guaranteed he could survive the close checking the Oilers receive and he hasn't. Same with Arvid. Add intense coverage and checking and he'd be a Yamamoto or worse. Just what happened.

Vast majority of Oilers forwards are not scoring. Period. But unfortunately a lot of them can't realistically even be expected to score much in this lineup and as old as the respective players are.

The Oilers braintrust made the braindead decision to get rid of futures and blue stocks and replace with players on the downturn. We've been doing this for years and starting with the notion that guys like Connor Brown would be able to produce here. This was not only a poor % move by the Oilers looking off their prospects and losing them it was a negative message to any prospect in the org or any player now wishing the Oilers don't even draft them.

 

[Salvaged Ship]

We need the head coach to get in peoples asses, light a fire under them, hold individuals accountable, show passion and motivate. This team is lifeless, low energy, lethargic, just like their coach. Knobend is a barely breathing coach who seems incapable of doing anything but stand there and imitate a pylon. The talent on the team far exceeds the results on the ice, no matter how bad the goaltending has been.

 

[Drivesaitl]

We need the head coach to get in peoples asses, light a fire under them, hold individuals accountable, show passion and motivate. This team is lifeless, low energy, lethargic, just like their coach. Knobend is a barely breathing coach who seems incapable of doing anything but stand there and imitate a pylon. The talent on the team far exceeds the results on the ice, no matter how bad the goaltending has been.

The underproducing players are Nuge and Hyman. Hyman is bashed black and blue and been receiving end of punishment all season long. For him this is NHL correction and teams figuring they have to take him out of plays and this has been happening all year.

Nuge is the sleeping body half assing it out there. He started out the seaosn better and was being solid 200ft. Now he's not even that and he's the one responsible for the tying goal with his no look pass back to Booch in a 1-0 game instead of working cycle and being responsible with puck. Nuge just isn't making offensive plays at any point EV. Not creating, not manufacturing scoring chances.

All the rest that we got here for forwards are a combination of old, not ready to be on a contender team facing close and tight checking, and without the ability to battle through that. You look at the game today and microcosm of the season. None of Brown, Skinner, or Arvid are able to battle through checks. They don't even survive the wall battles. They just loose pucks. Tons of times. We have the weakest Wingers here I've seen in a longtime. physically weak, grit weak etc. Watching this forward group play this game without Hyman was telling. So many of the weak forwards just can't battle through checking.

 

[Soundwave]

Take Nuge off the PP, let Walman or Skinner have some looks there.

 

[The Panther]

Take Nuge off the PP, let Walman or Skinner have some looks there.

I agree, this needs to happen.

Its the thing you can't just count past goals and highest goals as if it matters going forward for players that have played vast majority of their careers and are just getting older. That scoring stock and acumen goes DOWN like BROWN, not up.

Finally something we agree on.

 

[nexttothemoon]

Basically a collective regression year for almost everyone...

Player	Last year pts/game	This year pts/game	Net change
McDavid	1.74	1.42	-.32
RNH	0.84	0.60	-.24
Hyman	0.96	0.61	-.35
Bouchard	1.01	0.80	-.21
Ekholm	0.57	0.45	-.12
Nurse	0.40	0.39	-.01
Perry	0.34 (with Chi and Edm)	0.34	even
Henrique	0.62 (with Ana and Edm)	0.26	-.36
Kulak	0.20	0.33	+.13
Brown	0.17	0.36	+.19
Draisaitl	1.31	1.52	+.21
Janmark	0.17	0.27	+.10
Podkolzin	0.11 (with Van)	0.32	+.21
Skinner	0.62 (with Buff)	0.38	-.24
Kapanen	0.30 (with StL)	0.22 (with STL and EDM)	-.08
Arvidsson	0.83 (with LA)	0.39	-.44
Kane	0.57	na (injured)	effectively -.57 gone from the lineup
Foegele	0.50	na (0.58 on LA)	+.08
McLeod	0.37	na (0.57 on Buff)	+.20
Holloway	0.24	na (0.73 on StL)	+.49
Broberg	.17	na (.40 on StL)	+.23
Ceci	.32	na (.32 on SJ/Dall)	even

Basically all the key players (other than Drail) have regressed offensively... some drastically.

Guys like Kulak, Brown, Janmark, Podkolzin have been ok but they had a low bar to start with.

The team misses Kane who would have been at least a .50 pts/game player if he was healthy... probably even better.

Skinner, Arvidsson and Henrique have been flops offensively.

The players that left... Foegele/McLeod/Broberg and especially Holloway are having better seasons than last year and they likely would have helped to fill in some of the offensive weakness we see in the roster this year. Yes I know cap hits and other factors didn't make it possible to retain all of them... but facts are those players collective offense/speed/depth is basically (much) better than what replaced them.

The team collectively got older/slower and lack of finish and regression seems to be biting so many players at the same time this year.

Oh ya... the cherry on top is that goaltending has essentially regressed overall.


Defensively they have collectively been pretty solid overall at keeping the shot differential to the plus side reasonably consistently... but they aren't taking full advantage of that because of the regressed finishing and offensive abilities combined with the subpar goaltending.