Post-Game Talk: Oilers lose late to Vegas

[Ibanez]

This org is far too 'nice' to some players, for some reason.

I know we shouldn’t expect much from Bowman. But for some reason I’m hopeful he has a spine

 

[Drivesaitl]

Like I'm not even talking like 2-3 years ago, literally one year ago

Jeff Skinner scored at a 27 goal rate

Adam Henrique scored at a 24 goal rate

Victor Arvidsson at a 27 goal rate

Now one would expect that at least one of these guys would also get like a McDavid or Draisaitl boost. I mean none of them played with anyone as good as McDavid or Draisaitl.

No top 6 winger we acquire ever does really well here it seems like aside from two guys basically -- Zack Hyman (way above expected) and Patrick Maroon who we traded away.

There's a long laundry list of guys who were supposed to work that washed even starting with incumbent players like remember when we thought Taylor Hall + McDavid would be awesome, or McDavid + Eberle? Lucic barely eeked out one OK season here before his entire offense evaporated to nothing. Ryan Strome? Never even got a look in the top 6, but couldn't buy a goal.

Athansiou experiment? lol. James Neal? Worked for about 20 games and then totally out of gas. Evander Kane? That actually did pay dividends for 2022, and then of course right after we sign him to a sizable extension he gets a freak skate cut injury and he's never quite had the same chemistry with McDavid or Draisaitl and frequently finds himself on the 3rd line.

None of Skinner or Henrique or Arvid we're going to be getting appreciable PP time here like they would elsewhere.

Arvid on pace last season is misleading as he only played 17 games. In a typical recent season he scores 15 EV goals. Skinner played on losing clubs that were usually behind. Its easier to put up those kind of goals on a poor club thats almost always behind and teams playing you lightly every night. That was never going to be the case here. It was going to be J Skinner in a hot kitchen, on a contender, and he's NEVER had any experience with that. Not fragging him. he had the HOPE treatment his entire career on lousy clubs. theres a lot he wouldn't know about what it was really going to be like playing here. He doesn't even know what its like to play in a market like this. Neither does Arvid frankly.

Henrique has disappointed but then look at his age. At some point that extra jump starts to be gone. Combine this with linemates who rarely have scored and...

 

[Stoneman89]

Only gets tougher from here on in looking at the schedule

 

[Soundwave]

None of Skinner or Henrique or Arvid we're going to be getting appreciable PP time here like they would elsewhere.

Arvid on pace last season is misleading as he only played 17 games. In a typical recent season he scores 15 EV goals. Skinner played on losing clubs that were usually behind. Its easier to put up those kind of goals on a poor club thats almost always behind and teams playing you lightly every night. That was never going to be the case here. It was going to be J Skinner in a hot kitchen, on a contender, and he's NEVER had any experience with that. Not fragging him. he had the HOPE treatment his entire career on lousy clubs. theres a lot he wouldn't know about what it was really going to be like playing here. He doesn't even know what its like to play in a market like this. Neither does Arvid frankly.

Henrique has disappointed but then look at his age. At some point that extra jump starts to be gone. Combine this with linemates who rarely have scored and...

It's not just those three guys, it's like everyone for like 15 years here.

RNH-Eberle was a reliable scoring combo even in dark years here, and then McDavid gets here and they suddenly can't produce together.

Like how?

Even in the one year they all played together, Hall + McDavid play like shit together, McDavid quickly gets hurt, then Hall + Draisaitl take off, so you're thinking "cool! So when McDavid is back we'll have two good offensive lines!". Nope. When McDavid comes back, Hall's scoring goes cold as ice and Chiarelli having shit for brains decides signing Lucic and trading Hall is the smart way to go.

Ryan Strome couldn't buy a goal here, goes elsewhere and carves out a decent niche. Athansiou looked terribad here. Evander Kane signs a contract here and then almost gets his arm chopped off in a game.

Like at this point I just think whoever we would have as "this is Leon's wingers!" just wouldn't work. No one has worked the entire McDavid era in that role aside from one stretch with RNH + Yamamoto, and they some how had zero chemistry ever again after one great stretch.

The only player we've added or even drafted into the top 6 who has just come in there and produced no problem and actually been a part of the team for any reasonable length of time is basically Zack Hyman and no one else. Maroon was essentially a 1 year boom, Lucic had nothing after 1 season, Evander Kane was great for a half season + playoffs and then a drop off to the point where he's often not in the top 6 at all. Everyone else ... just shit largely.

 

[Drivesaitl]

It's not just those three guys, it's like everyone for like 15 years here.

RNH-Eberle was a reliable scoring combo even in dark years here, and then McDavid gets here and they suddenly can't produce together.

Like how?

Even in the one year they all played together, Hall + McDavid play like shit together, McDavid quickly gets hurt, then Hall + Draisaitl take off, so you're thinking "cool! So when McDavid is back we'll have two good offensive lines!". Nope. When McDavid comes back, Hall's scoring goes cold as ice and Chiarelli having shit for brains decides signing Lucic and trading Hall is the smart way to go.

Ryan Strome couldn't buy a goal here, goes elsewhere and carves out a decent niche. Athansiou looked terribad here. Evander Kane signs a contract here and then almost gets his arm chopped off in a game.

Like at this point I just think whoever we would have as "this is Leon's wingers!" just wouldn't work. No one has worked the entire McDavid era in that role aside from one stretch with RNH + Yamamoto, and they some how had zero chemistry ever again after one great stretch.

Can't disagree with anything but AA is mostly not a great player. Not one you ever win with and nobody should try.

The year he scored 30 somehow was on a bad team and a lot on breakaways and odd man rushes. He was good at those. Think he had a couple empty net goals as well that season. But good teams and playoff clubs don't give you much of those. But whatever AA gives you in scoring he costs you.

I dunno. We're agreed on this franchise and there never being any plan here. It seems like the fans deduce theres some kind of plan more than the org does. I should know better by now and just pull the plug but I'm an addict I guess.

We haven't had great coaches either. Some good enough ones. Particularly, jmo, I prefer coaches that want to see some more physical hockey. I don't like the Analytics darlings. We've had a lot of those, and we had coaches that almost coach the offense and life out of teams. I was sold on KK but maybe premature. He's gone to a no hitter approach.

not a popular view here but I always thought Hall was stirring the drink. he was the dangerous rush player on the line. Hall was the best of them offensively, on the whole. Eberle better hands in tight. But Hall was the dynamic player.

 

[Cloned]

Marriage, lol.

I already said this lol

Makes me personally wonder who we also looked at before they hired Bowman.
Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Anyways, I'm off to bed fellas. Gotta take the fiancee for a checkup tomorrow. No jokes here @Cloned you bastard haha. Good night.

Don’t make the same mistake McDavid did.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I know we shouldn’t expect much from Bowman. But for some reason I’m hopeful he has a spine

Tickets are sold. Not much is going to be happening. its part of my frustration that each offseason people just eat up whatever this org does and whoever they get (while losing others) and drinking it up. Its a very non critical market. Blanket acceptance, keep buying tickets at any price no matter what. Never changes. The org is doing what it needs to rake in piles of money. Basically turn on the houselights, stock the piss beer that cost 15 bucks, the shit food that cost 20 and let the fans in to buy up all the latest jerseys.

Gonna be some sad jerseys left in dark closets.

Org bilked so much money out of fans last playoffs I wonder how many pockets can even handle another deep run this playoffs.

I already said this lol


Don’t make the same mistake McDavid did.

heathen!

Wives are fine. INlaws on the other hand..

 

[Soundwave]

Can't disagree with anything but AA is mostly not a great player. Not one you ever win with and nobody should try.

The year he scored 30 somehow was on a bad team and a lot on breakaways and odd man rushes. He was good at those. Think he had a couple empty net goals as well that season. But good teams and playoff clubs don't give you much of those. But whatever AA gives you in scoring he costs you.

I dunno. We're agreed on this franchise and there never being any plan here. It seems like the fans deduce theres some kind of plan more than the org does. I should know better by now and just pull the plug but I'm an addict I guess.

We haven't had great coaches either. Some good enough ones. Particularly, jmo, I prefer coaches that want to see some more physical hockey. I don't like the Analytics darlings. We've had a lot of those, and we had coaches that almost coach the offense and life out of teams. I was sold on KK but maybe premature. He's gone to a no hitter approach.

not a popular view here but I always thought Hall was stirring the drink. he was the dangerous rush player on the line. Hall was the best of them offensively, on the whole. Eberle better hands in tight. But Hall was the dynamic player.

Yeah and then Hall just decides to stop ... scoring when McDavid returns from his injury in 15-16, even though he and Draisaitl were having a good season up until about that point.

Like how does this keep happening, lol, it's some law of science that we can never have two lines simultaneously producing well.

 

[Oilhawks]

How it feels watching this team this season:

 

[Sniper99]

Old and slow. Team has taken a couple steps back from last year

They just try to make one extra play., go back to last season and playoff and Shoot first. Bouchard last year damn near shot everything passed to him. Now this year i feel he hesitates too much.

 

[Shanahanigans]

This team bet on the 32+ year old journeymen instead of the 23-27 year olds they developed and helped them get here. Bad bet. Very clear that players like Henrique, Janmark, Skinner weren’t going to be the answer. Those are deadline pick ups, Janmark is a 12-13. A good finals does not change that. Skinner and Henrique have spent the last decade toiling away on bottom feeders and racking up garbage time points because well, someone has to score. We traded away or lost most of our middle six play drivers and gave the keys to old vets , as our core itself is aging. We got rid of 3 Dmen from last year and replaced them with three #7. We got older and significantly slower. This was bound to happen.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Winnable game. I thought they played a decent game but of course the nervous breakdowns carry the day bleeding out an embarrassing last minute loss.

Ekholm made a soft defending play that enabled Vegas player to push it to a wide open penetrating d-man for a high danger kill shot even though it was a 2 on 4 situation. Last two minutes were a fire drill in their zone culminating in the GWG. Skinner lets down this team's inept PK with a weak blueline shot through the wickets. He also has a bad habit of pushing pucks out into high danger ice instead of covering up for face-offs. Help your beleaguered team with stops but also don't make your team already struggling with structured defender have to add anticipating and coverage for erratic unnecessary puck play by its goaltender. A no power PP is also choking life from this team with little movement and predictable play. Easy to defend not shooting and over carrying and over handling in low quality perimeter ice.

This game was there on a platter with some breaks. Until the Oilers self induced mistakes and continuing to shoot blanks on offense tilted to a better shooting, better transition team capitalized. On the positive, Nurse Kulak were very good as a pair. Out performed the vaunted top pair which has had more wobbles this year.

 

[Soundwave]

This team bet on the 32+ year old journeymen instead of the 23-27 year olds they developed and helped them get here. Bad bet. Very clear that players like Henrique, Janmark, Skinner weren’t going to be the answer. Those are deadline pick ups, Janmark is a 12-13. A good finals does not change that. Skinner and Henrique have spent the last decade toiling away on bottom feeders and racking up garbage time points because well, someone has to score. We traded away or lost most of our middle six play drivers and gave the keys to old vets , as our core itself is aging. We got rid of 3 Dmen from last year and replaced them with three #7. We got older and significantly slower. This was bound to happen.

Then how come practically the same thing was happening one year ago?

Foegele, McLeod, Holloway had a combined 4 goals at this point a year ago at the same point, same as Skinner, Arvidsson, Podkolzin this year.

We can never have two lines reliably going at once for anything more than a very short period of time.

Been that way the whole McDavid era and even before then ("surely Hall, Eberle, Nuge, Hemsky, Yakupov is two decent scoring lines" ... nope).

 

[nexttothemoon]

Like I'm not even talking like 2-3 years ago, literally one year ago

Jeff Skinner scored at a 27 goal rate

Adam Henrique scored at a 24 goal rate

Victor Arvidsson at a 27 goal rate

Now one would expect that at least one of these guys would also get like a McDavid or Draisaitl boost. I mean none of them played with anyone as good as McDavid or Draisaitl.

No top 6 winger we acquire ever does really well here it seems like aside from two guys basically -- Zack Hyman (way above expected) and Patrick Maroon who we traded away.

There's a long laundry list of guys who were supposed to work that washed even starting with incumbent players like remember when we thought Taylor Hall + McDavid would be awesome, or McDavid + Eberle? Lucic barely eeked out one OK season here before his entire offense evaporated to nothing. Ryan Strome? Never even got a look in the top 6, but couldn't buy a goal.

Athansiou experiment? lol. James Neal? Worked for about 20 games and then totally out of gas. Evander Kane? That actually did pay dividends for 2022, and then of course right after we sign him to a sizable extension he gets a freak skate cut injury and he's never quite had the same chemistry with McDavid or Draisaitl and frequently finds himself on the 3rd line.

Like we get enough offense (and then some) most of the time to get by because McDavid/Drai are nuclear weapons at the top of the lineup, but we've never really had a 2nd line in the entire McDavid era and it's been like 20 different players tried there and even a fair bit spent on that for no real suitable fit.

I said as much in the pre-season threads.

Everyone was convinced the team would be an offensive juggernaut... but I didn't see it just based on goals out and goals coming in. It just didn't add up.

Kane out is massive and his goals and the way he scores them can't be replaced easily and Hyman's inevitable regression (was guaranteed not to score 54 again... and was likely to regress to ~30.. but maybe that's even optimistic).

They had an aging Arvidsson and Skinner who were supposed to be the Calvary coming in... when they had a combined 30 goals between them last year.

Sure Arvidsson was hurt for most of last year BUT that doesn't mean an aging and injury prone player is going to suddenly explode with a pile of goals when added to the Oilers. He had seasons of scoring 15-10-20-26-6 goals in his last 5 seasons and 21 of those goals were on the PP... of which he'd likely get next to none of in Edmonton. That means he's averaged ~11 EV goals per year in his last 5 seasons. I'm sure people were penciling him in for 25+ or even 30+ goals playing with Drai. Hell I even thought that was possible when I first saw they signed him because he had scored 30+ goals twice in career before so I initially thought wow... when he plays with someone as good as Drai he could get back to that.

Once I actually dug into the numbers though I realized Arvidsson was probably more in the 15-20 range at best... and maybe that 11 EV goal target is more along the lines of what we can actually expect of an aging/injury prone player.

Skinner similar story... past 5 seasons... 14-7-33-35-24 goals... but 22 of those were PP goals which will come few and far between on the Oilers... so he's averaged 18 EV goals per year over the past 5 years. Now he "should" get more than that on the Oilers playing with McDrai you would think but again... an aging player doesn't always find chemistry instantly with a new team/players either.

Arvidsson currently on pace for 6 goals and Skinner on pace for 18... not too far off their 5 year EV goal averages. I expect them to do better than that BUT they aren't likely to be the offensive saviors everyone was expecting them to be.

Henrique I was certain would not have a very good offensive season when playing with the likes of Brown/Janmark/Podz/Ryan/Perry in the bottom 6. Those 5 players scored 25 goals combined last year... so you are looking at maybe 5+ goals each from them as their expected offensive production... any more is gravy... so expecting Henrique to somehow score 20+ with that group of anemic offensive players was going to be a gargantuan feat.


It all just added up to an overall underwhelming offensive season and it was going to come down to McDrai having to drag the team to the playoffs yet again on the backs of them scoring 100 goals between them which is a tall ask as every team knows EXACTLY where the true offensive threats are on this team... and they scout and plan for that every night and again I've said this repeatedly that teams get up for playing the Oilers and take pride in shutting down the big guns and give 100% more often than not vs the #1 contending team in the NHL... and the Oilers can't match that level of effort and intensity over a grindingly long 82 game regular season.