Post-Game Talk: Need a win? Make it so!

[ThePhoenixx]

I'm thinking shut down McDavid and Draisaitl until the playoffs.

There's 7 games left

and Ekholm

 

[Slats432]

Nice win. I saw Draisaitl talking to Forss but it wasn't after the trip or the slip on the puck. It looked like there were a couple spots, one during a faceoff and one near the boards. Not sure if it was a recurrence or something a little different. Hope it's short and we are near full speed in 7 games or so.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

EDIT: The management fellater isn't worth it.

Hope they show up big in LA tomorrow otherwise we're basically destined to finish in 3rd place.

 

[SupremeTeam16]

I can’t shake the feeling that HFOil is dying a slow and inevitable death.

GDTs are less busy, PGTs are less busy. Most games don’t even have a GDT up till late in the day.

Y’all better not be treasoning yourselves over to Reddit.

The quality of discussion has become absolute trash here. Not worth wading through the endless stream of repetitive, uninformed and negative junk posting. Every thread gets hijacked by the same half dozen or so morons repeating the same shit over and over again. It’s really chased off a lot of the quality posters.

I joined an Oilers discord, only a few dozen posters, quite a few who have defected from HF I think, but it’s a good mix. Quality, knowledgeable discussion, posting is steady but not overwhelming and a few members who are really great for gathering all the tidbits on X and such to put them all in one place for posters like myself who aren’t so plugged in.

 

[JordanGalhanth]

I started posting here way less because of the negativity. I’ve talked about it before. I’ll post a bit during the PGT and a bit in the GDT but I’m not posting during the game anymore.

For me, it's the negativity and also the extremes...everything from "We are so winning the cup" to "Everything is hopeless and trade Connor".

At the end of the day, [*braces for flying bricks*] hockey really is just a game. A fun game, an historic game, but at the end of the day, just a game. It's not worth hijacking hours and hours of my day to sift through a bunch of overreactions and get all worked up when I've got a life of my own that I don't want to miss out on.

 

[McTonyBrar]

Great win last night. Arvidsson and Skinner just keep on bringing it.

I hate giving goaltending credit. It goes the wrong way but brilliant game for Pickard.

ANY UPDATE ON LEON?

 

[Stoneman89]

I feel like Drai is becoming so injury prone...at least around playoff time.

It really is becoming a thing. Have to admire him for playing through all of it, but it seems every year he's banged up entering the playoffs or getting badly injured during them. And it eventually affects his play as we go deeper.

 

[Stoneman89]

Regarding lack of posting interest, my biggest beef is when it gets personal towards the player. Everyone has either their favourite or a guy or three that they don't think is very good. That's fine and dandy. But when you start seeing stuff like, "he looks fat", or " I hate the way he tosses his hair back", or " he's trying to look like Fuhr with the white pads", or "I heard he selfishly wants to play every game". Silly and ridiculous. And the criticisms are focused soley at one individual repeatedly ad naseum, completely ignoring all other players or facets of the game.

 

[Mez]

I can’t shake the feeling that HFOil is dying a slow and inevitable death.

GDTs are less busy, PGTs are less busy. Most games don’t even have a GDT up till late in the day.

Y’all better not be treasoning yourselves over to Reddit.

These are my thoughts on this.

1. Going to game 7 last season made this regular season feel very mundane. This is the main reason I have been less active.
2. just for last night, 8:30 game against SJ isnt going to be worth it for alot of people to watch not to mention post on here.

 

[Connor McConnor]

Feel bad for Drai that his injuries will likely cost him a Hart, he's been the best player in the NHL this season and the "McDavid" factor has actually been a positive for him because he's outplayed the best player in the World all year. Hoping it's nothing major.

 

[mcdingdong]

Yeah, it's funny how they accuse us of being too negative when our argument is that the team was good enough to win the Cup with better goaltending, and their argument is that our two best players are chokers. So, one group thinks we have an otherwise great team, and the other group thinks we had/have an otherwise great goalie but a mid team and overrated superstars. Which party sounds more negative about the team? The one that doesn't even seem to like or have confidence in our best players, or most of the roster, save for one mediocre goalie, or the party that believes in the team but not the goaltending? The Simps for Stu Community Foundation is the most negative and delusional segment of the fanbase by a mile.

This is exactly the kind of post people are referring to re: toxicity here.

Here we are, Skinner hasn't played in almost 2 weeks, and the usual suspects are still in here dumping on him. So cringeworthy. Everyone knows he's had a brutal season, and that we need goaltending help. Surely there is something more interesting to discuss instead of copy-pasting the same tired and useless commentary over and over and over in every single thread on this board.

Nice invented narrative too, as if anybody was saying we had great goaltending with choking stars. Delusional is right.

 

[Duke74]

I feel like Drai is becoming so injury prone...at least around playoff time.

This is now the fourth playoff year in a row where he will enter the playoffs injured and/or be injured during the postseason.

It's becoming a bit of a disturbing trend and I wonder about the root cause. Is it related to poor conditioning in the offseason? Being overplayed throughout the year? Something else?

 

[Slats432]

There are some really weird takes in this thread. People have said...

Oilers have great goaltending?
Leon and Connor are chokers?

Where the heck is all this coming from? We are in a bizzarro world.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

As usual we're making goalies look good on most nights. This goalie wasn't much when he was getting shelled 8-1 by LA. Not sure what to make of this club needing several saving gmae stops just to eke out another 1G W against the worst team in the league. Seems like whatever bad team we're playing it goes right to the wire. Now Draisaitl injured again. Not a great feeling coming out of this.

There's a lot of positives with the ability to play within and maintain composure to win close games. It reflects this team's character, resiliency, and experience. It's good to see Pickard step up through this recent period as well with a consistent game and saves on the line within team breakdowns at critical moments. They look to be starting to lock in defensively though which is vital to playoff success.

All said, there are areas of concern beginning with health of super elites and other core roster guys which haven't effected this team before during stretch drive hockey. And this team's personnel hasn't been able to outscore their problems despite being tops in league shot volume. With volatile goaltending this is a vulnerability.

Three Year Team Scoring Results:

2024-25		2023-24		2022-23
Shots: 2,403 NHL 99 percentile		Shots: 2,783.5 99 percentile		Shots: 2,754 83 percentile
Goals: 242 NHL 74 percentile		Goals: 292 90 percentile		Goals: 325 99 percentile
Shooting%: 10.1% NHL below 50th		Shooting%: 10.6% 70 percentile		Shooting%: 11.8% 99 percentile

Oilers average shots on goal is 32, 1st in NHL, yet Oilers shooting is 10.1%, 22nd. NHL below 50 percentile. They have a -30 difference between X-Goals and Actual Goals production.
High Danger: 126 goals, 87 percentile. 19.7% NHL 51 percentile
Mid Range: 63 goals, NHL below 50 percentile. 10.6% NHL below 50 percentile
Long Range: 13 goals, NHL below 50 percentile. 2.4% NHL below 50 percentile
Total Goals:
239 goals., 70 percentile. 10.1% NHL below 50 percentile

Special Teams Three Year Actuals

2024-25:		2023-24:		2022-23:
Oilers power play is 25.3%, 8th.		Oilers power play is 26.34%		Oilers power play is 32.36%
Oilers penalty kill is 77%, 20th.		Oilers penalty kill is 79.46%		Oilers penalty kill is 76.98%
Total Special Teams: 102.3		Total Special Teams: 105.8		Total Special Teams: 109.34

Most alarming is the regression in their starting goaltender's game per NHLEdge: NHL EDGE Puck and Player Tracking Statistics - Comparisons

2024-25		2023-24:		2022-23:
GAA: 2.91		GAA: 2.62		GAA: 2.75
SV%: .894		SV%: .905		SV%: .914
High Danger SV%: .791%.		High Danger SV%: .806%		High Danger SV%: .843%
Mid Range SV%: .898%		Mid Range SV%: .904%		Mid Range SV%: .898%
Games > .900: 22		Games > .900: 35		Games > .900: 28
% Games > .900: 45.83%		% Games > .900: 61.4%		% Games > .900: 58.33%
2024-25 Really Bad Starts (under 85%): 12 (of 49 games played) 24%		2023-24 Really Bad Starts (under 85%): 11 (of 59 games played) 19%		2022-23 Really Bad Starts (under 85%): 9 (of 50 games played) 18%

So ... injuries cloud things. What Draisaitl is doing with mediocre line mates and team wide production regression is Hart Trophy worthy. And criticism of Management personnel decisions off-season and in-season notably with goaltender regression is apropos.

EDIT: Sorry anyone reading this - long and my manual input failed with some year by year comps.

 

[MessierThanThou]

I'm sorry, are you insinuating that posts like this are in any way "quality?"

How am I supposed to respond to these baseless, blatant insults? With an insightful thesis on why you guys aren't easily offended little children who want to go elsewhere because reality has laughed your opinions out of the room?

 

[K1984]

How am I supposed to respond to these baseless, blatant insults? With an insightful thesis on why you guys aren't easily offended little children who want to go elsewhere because reality has laughed your opinions out of the room?

There is a high quantity of low quality posts coming from you.

 

[MessierThanThou]

There is a high quantity of low quality posts coming from you.

Oh you mean like your last two flame-baiting posts that have no intention other than to antagonize me into exchanging personal insults with you? Still sore about getting laughed at for your takes in the Buffalo game I see. That's actually kind of sad.

 

[TopShelfGloveSide]

This is exactly the kind of post people are referring to re: toxicity here.

Here we are, Skinner hasn't played in almost 2 weeks, and the usual suspects are still in here dumping on him. So cringeworthy. Everyone knows he's had a brutal season, and that we need goaltending help. Surely there is something more interesting to discuss instead of copy-pasting the same tired and useless commentary over and over and over in every single thread on this board.

Nice invented narrative too, as if anybody was saying we had great goaltending with choking stars. Delusional is right.

Skinner hasn’t played but Pickard has blown the starting goaltender job debate wide open. Of course Skinners struggles are going to get brought up… we’re 7 games away from the playoffs and he has been the worst goalie in the league the past 2 months. This is exactly the time you start talking about which goalie is going to be the guy going forward.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Its that really, even when Skinner had a great two months stats below.

18GP - 2.30 GAA - .917 SCPT - 13W - 4L - 1OTL - 1SO - and then the team decided it was time to stop playing defense

And the usual suspects were still basing him at every turn, leading to pages of Skinner bashing in GDT for simply a goal being scored on him. Its a reason my ignore list has grown, and I don't have an appetite for making GDT anymore.

More upset again that Pickard is winning all the games.

The Oilers don't win this game last night without getting better goaltending than Skinner is providing and without Pickard making some saving stops. Almost anybody here seeing that.

 

[Cloned]

A wise man once told me that you shouldn’t spend more than 5 minutes of your day posting about Stuart Skinner.

I’m already down 30 seconds with this post.

 

[Drivesaitl]

This is exactly the kind of post people are referring to re: toxicity here.

Here we are, Skinner hasn't played in almost 2 weeks, and the usual suspects are still in here dumping on him. So cringeworthy. Everyone knows he's had a brutal season, and that we need goaltending help. Surely there is something more interesting to discuss instead of copy-pasting the same tired and useless commentary over and over and over in every single thread on this board.

Nice invented narrative too, as if anybody was saying we had great goaltending with choking stars. Delusional is right.

Yet you ignore posters like @CROTT fighting here every post game that Pickard is winning. Indeed in the Vegas win the only thing Crott was interested in talking about is Skinner, in a game Skinner didn't play and how he feels Skinner is a mistreated puppy here.

When you label "the usual suspects" its just taking a side.

But several posts here have been removed and I don't want to add to that.

In the same post you're referring to toxicity here you call somebody delusional.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Stu is Stu, I expected him to get better, he has not. This is a problem, but nothing the team can really do anything about now.

What this injury has given the team is an extended look at "starter" Calvin Pickard. He has warts, but he is largely capable, this is important going forward, imo.

 

[K1984]

Stu is Stu, I expected him to get better, he has not. This is a problem, but nothing the team can really do anything about now.

What this injury has given the team is an extended look at "starter" Calvin Pickard. He has warts, but he is largely capable, this is important going forward, imo.

Pickard getting all these starts is the biggest blessing we could get because it removes the excuses of "uncertainty" or "he can't play too many games in a row" or "he only plays bad teams."

If Skinner comes in and fails, we know exactly what we have behind him. Makes decisions like this easier on the folks that seem to have issues making them.

 

[MessierThanThou]

Yet you ignore posters like @CROTT fighting here every post game that Pickard is winning. Indeed in the Vegas win the only thing Crott was interested in talking about is Skinner, in a game Skinner didn't play and how he feels Skinner is a mistreated puppy here.

When you label "the usual suspects" its just taking a side.

But several posts here have been removed and I don't want to add to that.

Yeah, so weird how we actually have people upset after the Oilers WON. Almost like these people aren't really fans at all.

 

[bucks_oil]

Pickard getting all these starts is the biggest blessing we could get because it removes the excuses of "uncertainty" or "he can't play too many games in a row" or "he only plays bad teams."

If Skinner comes in and fails, we know exactly what we have behind him. Makes decisions like this easier on the folks that seem to have issues making them.

Is there still a chance we get to see where Rodrigue is at? I'd be down with him getting a few starts.