Video Nasty
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- Mar 12, 2017
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Oilers now 13-12-1: THE THREAD THAT'S FUN FOR EVERYONE
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Nathaniel Skywalker
DIG IN!!! RiGHT NOW!!!
- Oct 18, 2013
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First of all, I'm not an Edmonton fan. I've just seen too many bad streaks for various top teams over the years that nowadays I never talk shit about a team like that until a certain point. We are not at that point.
This thread is a perfect example of how the HFboards kids work. Some team or some player has a bad stretch and they come out of the woodwork trying to amplify every little flaw that team or player has. Even more so if they dislike the team or player. Then when that team or player goes back to normal, they just disappear until the next chance they get. Rinse and repeat. I'm not impressed.
Like I said before, they can enjoy feeling right while it lasts. Me, I'll wait a lot longer before thinking Edmonton is a shit team that deserves to be almost dead last in the league. Aside from a few games so far, they have outshot and outchanced their opponents, but they've had terrible finish and goaltending. Eventually this will give. Starting with McDavid and Draisaitl going back to their normal form, like they've shown for the past 6-7 years.
If "dominated" means not winning their division, much less their conference, in the regular season and being dumped out relatively easily in the second round of the playoffs.
Agree with you that they are on a low and will regress upwards towards the mean, but let's not kid ourselves that last season they were substantially better than what they were, which was a borderline top-8 team.
Dominated does not mean that they were the best team in the league or the greatest hockey squad in history. It means that they scored over 320 goals, leading the league. They had three 100+ points players. They looked amazing and were nearly unbeatable in the second half of the season.
Also, they did not get "easily" dispatched in the playoffs. They got eliminated by the Stanley Cup champions. Before the final game, both teams had scored 17 goals each. I watched every one of those games and the Oilers were not outclassed. Some people are just amplifying things now because they don't like the Oilers and they are not doing well currently.
PainForShane
formerly surfshop
- Dec 24, 2019
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Yes, last year they scored a lot and had an all-time historic powerplay, and to your point above, RNH also hit 100 points on the back of a ton of cheap PP assists. But no, they did not dominate. The Bruins dominated last year, they were the only team who did.
Offensively, sure Edmonton dominated, and this year for whatever reason they haven't been able to score goals so far. But let's not kid ourselves, this version of the Oilers have never been a dominant team, to be dominant you need to take care of both ends of the ice, this version of the Oilers has never been even close to elite defensively.
That said this is still a very good team, and I think they'll almost certainly 'regress' to their average level of play ie 50 win / 100+ point seasons, and I personally believe they have a better than 50% of making the playoffs even now. But they're not some elite squad. They're an incredibly gifted offensive team which struggles defensively and in net, which in the past has really hurt their chances of making legitimate Stanley Cup runs.
And yet... could they have won the cup last year and could they still win built the way they are currently built? Of course. But I think it would help if they were able to become more of a 200 foot team. Every team goes cold at times, elite contenders don't tend to suddenly become worst in the league if their offense goes cold for 10 games or so. And if the Oilers can fix the defensive side of things while keeping 80-90% of their offense, I think they'll be much more likely to win a cup or two in the future. Imo that's where the emphasis should be rather than trying to clown on McDavid's for his current lack of offense (he's still a point a game by the way, which is not terrible)
Perhaps a better term would be "prolific" since they did put up a lot of points, but that only masked their fundamental and frankly horribly flawed defense, and which probably contributed to their offensive productivity since it seemed they had a number of players who were always cheating on defense for the rush. Whether they were legitimately competitive in round 2, we'll have to agree to disagree; IMHO, they had a couple of good games but four where their offense was mostly held in check and their defensive weakness was rather easily exploited.
An excellent example of "offense fills stadiums, but defense wins championships".
I think the Oilers not shutting McDavid down is a timing issue with the salary cap in mind.
I think he's playing hurt but it's not a season ending injury. Perhaps something that requires 3-4 months. Thus, the Oilers won't put him on LTIR right now because they can't currently make use of his full cap hit to help the team.
In this situation, McDavid would come back during the season and thus the Oilers would be over the cap if a trade was made to use that temporary LTIR cap.
So they are waiting for January/February. They can put McDavid on LTIR for the rest of the season at that time. Time it so he's back for round 1. Then make a trade to use the LTIR space if the Oilers are close enough to the playoffs. No salary cap in the playoffs so like the blackhawks, lightning, and most recently the knights, they use this cap loophole to ice a vastly improved team.
I think he's playing hurt but it's not a season ending injury. Perhaps something that requires 3-4 months. Thus, the Oilers won't put him on LTIR right now because they can't currently make use of his full cap hit to help the team.
In this situation, McDavid would come back during the season and thus the Oilers would be over the cap if a trade was made to use that temporary LTIR cap.
So they are waiting for January/February. They can put McDavid on LTIR for the rest of the season at that time. Time it so he's back for round 1. Then make a trade to use the LTIR space if the Oilers are close enough to the playoffs. No salary cap in the playoffs so like the blackhawks, lightning, and most recently the knights, they use this cap loophole to ice a vastly improved team.
I Hate Philadelphia
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EdmFlyersfan
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Maybe the Oilers organization just ruins them and is rotten top-down, I mean they have McDavid and Drai who are arguably the #1 and #3 forwards in the NHL and are choking every season...and now both seem to have given up with McDavid a shell of himself and Drai's only contribution is post game pressers where he's a sarcastic clown to reporters.
WhataKnight
The KnightMan Cometh!
- Jan 6, 2023
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First of all, I'm not an Edmonton fan. I've just seen too many bad streaks for various top teams over the years that nowadays I never talk shit about a team like that until a certain point. We are not at that point.
This thread is a perfect example of how the HFboards kids work. Some team or some player has a bad stretch and they come out of the woodwork trying to amplify every little flaw that team or player has. Even more so if they dislike the team or player. Then when that team or player goes back to normal, they just disappear until the next chance they get. Rinse and repeat. I'm not impressed.
Like I said before, they can enjoy feeling right while it lasts. Me, I'll wait a lot longer before thinking Edmonton is a shit team that deserves to be almost dead last in the league. Aside from a few games so far, they have outshot and outchanced their opponents, but they've had terrible finish and goaltending. Eventually this will give. Starting with McDavid and Draisaitl going back to their normal form, like they've shown for the past 6-7 years.
Hey - I get it. I’m a fan of the SPORT first; and then the team I support comes in at an immediate second.
I just still can’t move off from the historical data that suggests that Edmonton does best when the ability to convert on the PP at a high clip and threaten holy terror while on offense aids an ability to proceed in a near “mentally unflappable” condition. A number of things have to support a number of others for them to get to that circa now. Even then, they run into issues on the defensive side of the puck.
I don’t doubt they’ll be among the tops of the league with much of this roster. Still; it they had a backup like Varlamov, a #3C like O’Reilly or Pageau and top-4 D like Hague, Chychrun or Pelech added, they’d be over the top or close to it.
It’s a GM approach thing - not organizational bias. They may need to “rob Peter to pay Paul” at some point regarding offensive firepower. It may not require moving Draisaitl, but constructed as it is, the chances of course correcting without changes looks like low probability to me.
(I don’t think they’re a shit team; I just think they’re not equipped to play the “4-back” system Woodcroft is trying to use. They need structure on D, a little size; and the circumstances that allow them to feel confident at that endeavour. Currently, that’s not there.)
Chips
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- Aug 19, 2015
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The flaw in this, and why most teams opt to keep their injured star player playing all year, is the oilers are quite likely going to miss the playoffs without McDavid playing. Or at least be at way higher risk, even without this bad of a start. They aren’t a prime Lightning or some of the other teams with regards to their depth. McDavid is a big boost to the team, like majorly disproportionately and makes some of their other guys look a lot better when he’s on.
To lose your key guy for so long you need really good depth.
This is what I meant when I said loose nit narratives earlier in this thread. I obviously agree that leaders need to be able to motivate and inspire their teammates to uphold a certain standard of play (something McDavid has actually been documented of doing by coaches and teammates as far back as his junior years btw) but outside of those things, what other impact is it they're supposed to have on their teammates? Unless there's proof, I don't believe it's Crosby alone that is teaching players how to develop their games, more than likely, the coaches who have told these leaders to develop their games are the same ones telling these other teammates to do the same. You see this with Yzerman and Scotty Bowman. His entire MO was to create teams that backchecked and played on both sides of the ice. But after this strategy worked, it was easy to look back in hindsight and say Yzerman was the sole reason his teammates played better. It's simply not true. I've seen this argument multiple times and imo it always gets extremely overblown. Yes leaders motivate and inspire their teammates with their play, but they aren't literally doing the coach's job like you suggest, that is taking things too far. This situation does't work as a parallel to the workplace because those skillsets that can be transferred to other coworkers are mental and depend on knowledge and work ethic, not talent. The skillsets that can be shared have already been taught.
You bring this up but when stories of McDavid literally drawing plays on the whiteboard for his teammates, giving them words of encouragement, leading by example and being commended by his coaches for exhibiting literally these exact same qualities come up, people write them off. There was a thread at the beginning of the season about McDavid asking his teammates to come earlier to training camp to get a head start, and he was clowned because of it. There are quotes of his teammates and coaches admitting he helps motivate/encourage his teammates and leads by example. Where is the proof of players like Crosby, Kucherov (who btw, I've never heard used as an example for leadership) and Kopitar impacting their teammates in ways that McDavid hasn't been documented to do? I'll even give you some links to articles that confirm McDavid's done this. Like I said, you can motivate and inspire your teammates to be better players, but developing players is not what team leaders do (as pretty and mythologoical as this sounds), it's what the coaches do. Imo you're simply crediting the team captain for doing this because he's the figurehead of the team.
'Mature beyond his years': Connor McDavid's evolution as Oilers leader through good times and bad
How Connor McDavid pulls along his teammates from here until the first week of April both on and off the ice could be the biggest factor on if the Oilers’ season will continue past that point.theathletic.com
Edit: and like clockwork, the mute Crosby fanboy Sanscosm proves my point
I’m not saying McDavid isn’t trying - I’m sure he is trying his best to elevate everyone. He’s just not effective at all. In part for reasons out of his control.
EdmFlyersfan
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McDavid is likely playing hurt, Drai seemed to have checked out and is only noticeable during his post game pressers.
- Jul 30, 2016
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He's been as effective as he possibly can. He has led them to a conference finals. Despite sub .900% goaltending, he made it past LA and gave the Golden Knights a run for their money (Marchessault is on record of saying Edmonton was the toughest team they played that post-season). He hasn't won a cup, but he has been effective, he deserves a little bit of credit. Is the job done? Obviously not, but this isn't an all-or-nothing procedure when it comes to evaluating individual players.
Duke74
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- Jan 13, 2018
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You can repeat that exact same post but with "MacKinnon" "Rantanen" and "Makar" in those blanks. And we don't have the luxury of a Makar on our team.
Duke74
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- Jan 13, 2018
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The irony of a Coyotes fan trashing Edmonton and/or The Oilers. Like your team uses a mop closet for its dressing room.
StevenF1919
Registered User
8 points ahead of you in the standings and we don't let our whiny baby star player run the team like he's the GM but okay. How long until Connors dad is behind the bench?
Zirakzigil
The Global Hangman wishes he could be
Thread titled updated. Even though @Three On Zero forgot to remind me.
Also, how did the Oilers score 4 goals and McDrai combined for 0 points?
Also, how did the Oilers score 4 goals and McDrai combined for 0 points?
You’re completely missing what I’m saying.. can’t really respond since this is two different conversations. Maybe I just can’t explain it well enough for you…Try re-reading perhaps? Or think of it this way: in the long term, how does McDavid impact his teammates play when he’s not on the ice? How does his play, over many games, influence others? IMO it has not been positive to anywhere near the extent that others elite franchise players have been able to.
MCR74
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- Nov 11, 2022
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The thread title should read "Oil kill off coach".
- Oct 9, 2012
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I’m still recovering from being out PDO’d by the LeafsThread titled updated. Even though @Three On Zero forgot to remind me.
Also, how did the Oilers score 4 goals and McDrai combined for 0 points?
- Jul 30, 2016
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Jesus Chirst, I already exhaustively explained to you my stance on this rhetoric 2 replies ago... I believe he has done all he can to be a good leader (whether it's leading by example or inspiring/motivating his teammates), the point of my last response was that he has achieved some level of success despite not winning a cup and deserves some credit. As I said before, this long-lasting influence on teammates talk is arbitrary and there's no way to verify whether any player does or doesn't do this; if anything, there's actually proof that this isn't the case for many of the other players you brought up. You obviously do not see things that way. We won't see eye to eye on this so whatever. This back-and-forth is obviously going nowhere and I've said my piece.
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