Pre-Game Talk: Look at me, I’m the Mr Kot now. EDM vs. UTA - 7 pm on Tuesday

Stu will shit the bed sooner rather than later. Always been that way. Only time he looks decent is against a bottom feeing team. Won't surprise me to see him play well against a crappy Utah but if he shits the bed against them, that won't surprise me either.
 
Stu will shit the bed sooner rather than later. Always been that way. Only time he looks decent is against a bottom feeing team. Won't surprise me to see him play well against a crappy Utah but if he shits the bed against them, that won't surprise me either.

He also has a shown the tendancy to have streaks where he looks fairly solid every once in awhile where he'll go a 16 game stretch where 12 or more of the games are at least decent starts especially when it's a softer segment in the schedule and the team is playing well defensively (and there are some sign of it starting to show over the last 2 weeks and Ekholm should be back soon).

Considering the current slump he's been dealing with is easily the longest of his career, he could be due for another prolonged stretch of solid goaltending.

Looking at the final 15 games, there's 4 games against tough teams, 2 vs. LA (who he actually has had many very good starts against in the past few years and has a career 6-2-1 record with 1.91 GAA and .941 save percentage in regular season), and 9 games against the weaker teams. If he's ready to go through a good stretch, between him and pickard, they should find somewhere between 10-12 wins and the team should be feeling better about themselves going into the playoffs. If he indeed continues the slump and this was just a 1 game thing, then it's going to be a long summer for Oiler fans.

Fun stat, the teams he's had the best Save Percentage vs over his career that he's played more than once are LA, Calgary and San Jose and Edmonton has 6 games against those teams in the final 10 games.

He's also a surprising 4-1-1 vs. Winnipeg with 2.67 and .908 despite getting lit up in Game 1 this year for 4 goals in 32 minutes.

The only teams left on the schedule where below .900 career wise is Anaheim and Dallas, but he also had a great playoff vs Dallas last year.
 
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Looking for a bit of Skinner optimism?

Through Skinner's career, adding up all the splits against the teams left on Edmonton's schedule, Skinner is 45-16-5 with a GAA of 2.41 and sv% of .915. The only teams left that he's sub .900 for his career are Anaheim, Dallas, and Utah (mostly as the Coyotes, though 4-0 despite poor percentage).
 
I don't think this is true.

League-wide, teams have won by 3 or more goals 39.0% of the time. Using that percentage over 39 wins would suggest 15.21 of Edmonton wins should have been by 3 or more. Edmonton has won by 3 or more 12 times

League-wide, teams have won by 4 or more goals 16.15% of the time. Using that percentage over 39 wins would suggest 6.3 of Edmonton wins should have been by 3 or more. Edmonton has won by 4 or more 7 times

League-wide, teams have won by 5 or more goals 4.95% of the time. Using that percentage over 39 wins would suggest 1.93 of Edmonton wins should have been by 3 or more. Edmonton has won by 5 or more once.

Edmonton doesn't blow out teams more often than average in general. In fact, 46.3% of all their games have been decided by 1 goal where the league average is only 38.3%.

Oddly, on average teams win by 3 or more goals more often than they win by 1 goal, whereas Edmonton has 18 wins by 1 goal and only 12 by 3 or more.
Playoffs are a different beast.

All the Oilers "series loses" in the McDrai era have come via teams that took the inside lanes to the net. Vegas schooled the Oil with the most straightforward of game plans. Own the lane to the netfront.

Look at the forechecking of the Panthers. Colorado, even Winnipeg and Chicago dummied the Oil.

All the aforementioned teams had superior forechecking systems. Perimeter hockey won't beat the big dogs in the postseason. Never in a million years. Teams sit back and wait for the Oilers to turn over the puck and they capitalize.

Learn from the past or fail yet again.
 
The dream scenario is Calgary, Vancouver and STL all missing the 8th spot by 1 point while Utah sneaks in.
Why?
Playoffs are a different beast.

All the Oilers "series loses" in the McDrai era have come via teams that took the inside lanes to the net. Vegas schooled the Oil with the most straightforward of game plans. Own the lane to the netfront.

Look at the forechecking of the Panthers. Colorado, even Winnipeg and Chicago dummied the Oil.

All the aforementioned teams had superior forechecking systems. Perimeter hockey won't beat the big dogs in the postseason. Never in a million years.

Learn from the past or fail yet again.
Completely a different topic than what was being talked (the topic being the idea that they ran up the score too often and got lazy and complacent) but okay, I agree with what you are saying here.
 
Why?

Completely a different topic than what was being talked (the topic being the idea that they ran up the score too often and got lazy) but okay, I agree with what you are saying here.
The bad habits came from somewhere. Tell me, who makes the worst passes on the team?

I'm all for our stars taking chances when they pay off but the better the opposition it becomes more likely than not those teams will sit back and let the Oil hand them the puck on a silver platter.
 
I'm not sure. I think it's up to the individuals and the team and how long the injury is.

I've heard ex-players say in interviews that injured players typically just stay in the home city of the team to get treatment and that they don't spend a lot of time with guys at the rink other than attending home games and coming down to the room after the game.

I'd assume they are always invited to team social events, though.
Best story I've ever heard about an injured player from the Oilers:

I won't name them but this injured player was doing his rehab at 6 am at Glen Sather before the clinic opened for the public. Well he kept going out at night and getting in trouble for being late every morning or just straight up missing his appointment (fines and such).

So what he started doing was to leave the bar at closing, take a cab to the Sather and tell the cabbie to keep the heat on and the meter running and then to wake him up at 5:55 am so he would be on time for his rehab appointment. Legend haha.
 
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I'll never cheer against the Oilers but you do you
Sure. And what?
If masses here can bash the coach, goalie, certainly veterans , new comers then for a game I can cheer for Utah to get 2 pts against Oil.

We aren't missing the playoffs and we aren't catching WPG. It's going to be LA or MIN for us in round 1 unless in an unlikely scenario LA catches Vegas.
 

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