Post-Game Talk: Oilers score 5 goals and an ENG without McDrai

[MessierThanThou]

6 paragraphs of saying nothing repeatedly. Try to even have a point when responding.

On a totally unrelated topic for totally unrelated reasons, I’m suddenly reminded of this scene…

 

[KCC]

I used to dislike Skinner because he was so inconsistent. But to be fair to him, hes been more consistent this year than inconsistent. Hes been consistently bad.

Having a game like tonight is fine. But this is the norm for him this season.

Kicks out bad rebounds. Can’t look around screens with his 6 foot 4 frame. And on the breakaway he just falls forward like Mike Smith when he was 39 years old and injured.

The game last night with skinner is what we are used to seeing. The difference is last year edm was out scoring his awful goaltending. And they almost did it in the playoffs to game 7 of the finals. So ppl who say he “carried edm to the finals” are delusional. He did everything he could to blow it. He’s even average, edm wins the cup. I feel for Mcdavid and drai having to watch and play in front of someone so bad on a nightly basis. I’m praying to the hockey Gods pickard gets to carry the ball in the playoffs. If not, no shot.

 

[McBeastMode]

View attachment 998161
Ha, we'll see about that! We have a saboteur in our ranks!

Another one...

 

[harpoon]

When you don’t like players you just make up things. The well rested excuse is such a joke.

I lol’d when I saw the ‘well rested’ comment. Trying to walk back a whole season of posts calling the player a ‘nothing’ a ‘slug’ etc.

It’s like the ‘bad opponent’ argument he keeps trotting out this year. I’ve lost count of how many times the Oilers have played a team that has ‘given up’ or is ‘playing their worst game of the season’ etc. You mentioned the Jets game after which J Skinner’s game was discounted because the Jets are already in the playoffs and ‘have no reason to even be trying out there’. It’s free comedy at least.

 

[iCanada]

View attachment 998161
Ha, we'll see about that! We have a saboteur in our ranks!

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Yeah that’s how I see it too. He’s closer to Kulak than Walman, Ekholm, or Bouchard.

The only benefit is he might push Nurse down which although might be unsightly ($9.5M 3rd pairing LD) but it would make the team slightly better at the cost of Troy Stetcher or Ty Emberson.

Walman is not better than Nurse.

 

[Mr Positive]

Weird panic here. Felt they played a good game without McDrai. Skinner made the game look a lot closer than it was

I should clarify that the limit of my panic is for the next couple games. I agree that the team has been playing well minus McDrai but it's credit to the players' work ethic and to the coaching. But it has shown just how limited the remaining group is. There's a lot of players with one great thing. Lots of great skaters who can't finish and great finishers who are slow skaters.

 

[Fourier]

McLeod is an NHL player putting up some pts and Savoie isn't one. Fact of the matter is bird in hand is better until proven otherwise and Savoie happens to be in an org now with a horrible record on prospects and development.

For offensive forwards drafted on production and skills they need to be ready to bring that at this level at somepoint.

Savoie is an example of a time period in which top picks looked off size as even being a factor in players. Such thinking led to such hogwash as Bedard being the next McDavid. Teams like us and the Caps and other clubs continually showing that size matters, and especially usually do in playoffs. But for around a 10yr window and including our mistake drafting Yamamotos there seems to have been a shift to ignoring that size overall does matter.

Contracts matter though. McLeod at $2.1M is one thing but if he had a similar season in Edmonton this year he would be looking at an arbitration award that could be $5M so my guess is the Oilers would have been forced to trade him under duress anyway and likely do not get a Savoie level player on an ELC. The deal may not have paid off for this year but it was never suppose to do so. The payback comes next year and the one after if all goes well.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Agreed. He's never made any crazy mistakes that have directly led to goals against all season, and he plays harder and with more effort than 85% of the other forwards. And, now, he's burying as well as keeping play in the other end of the ice.

Too bad he'll be scapegoat and brown/janmark will get a spot over him regardless come playoff time.

Ehhh to start the year I can think of a few own zone / neutral zone turnovers that lead directly to goals against. Having said that, I can't think of a single one in 2025.


He's still not much of a forechecker/cycler, but he's developed a surprisingly good knack for reading the play and intercepting passes, which has his defensive game looking miles better.

"Swapping" him with Nuge has worked out great for both players, getting them closer to their strengths. Nuge at centre (and away from McDrai) has him far more involved in the play up and down the ice, Plus him, Podz and RV, are all on the same page: continually pressure the puck, create turnovers and then get it to the net; there's no slowing down and looking for where Drai or McDavid are, it's just go-go-go.

Meanwhile Skinner's taken on Nuge's role in the top 6 as the high forward and he's generating turnovers, but more importantly he's turning those turnovers into opportunities for himself and not immediately deferring, like Nuge has a tendency to. His lack of forechecking also isn't an issue, as the top 6 here never chips and chases.

 

[ohheyhemsky]

While I appreciate your comments, here is the problem I have with goal by goal analysis. If you only look at goals scored, all over the league there is most often some sort of significant breakdown that means you can credibly blame the goal on someone other than the goalie. Were that not the case for an individual goalie, there is no way they would still be in the league. But in the end some goalies just stop more of these breakdowns than others. This is the missing part of this analysis. Its not just the ones that go in but also the ones that don't that matter. In the case of the Oilers they generate more breakdowns than they give up and often by a fair amount. Unfortunately, too many times this year Skinner is simply stopping a lower proportion of shots of all varieties than the guy on the other end of the ice.

NHL Goalie Advanced Stats 2024-2025

NHL Goalie Analytics, Goals Saved Above Expected

moneypuck.com

Skinner is ranked 66th out 96 goaltenders this season for goals saved above expected. No one's arguing that Skinner is a good goaltender, I'm with you 100%.

But what I was getting at is that on top of our mediocre goaltending, we have a glaring issue on the back end. These aren't one and done breakdowns, these are considerable trends.

It's easy to blame the goalie, especially when the goalie sucks. But we should also be focusing on how debilitating our D core is right now.

Management did shit all, but if you take a look at the list on that site, you can see that our options were extremely limited for someone on between the pipes that would make a difference.

D's gotta limit their mistakes, especially the glaring ones (looking at you Bouchard) for us to have any shot here.

 

[Soundwave]

Its short sample man. Real short sample.

its the thing. Last 2 games the scoring is on so that Skinner has 3G in last 2GP. He also has 3G in last 9GP..

Gonna take a bit more track than this for me to say he's found it. Maybe he has.

Since January 4th is almost a 3 month sample size. That's not a small sample size.

Jeff Skinner 8 goals in 23 games, that is a 28.5 goal scoring rate and he is +8 in the span. That's by the way 1 whopping less goal than Dylan Holloway for the Blues in the same time frame (Jan. 4th to today) and Holloway gets 1st line minutes and PP time. Holloway has 9 goals in 29 games, so Skinner actually has a higher goals per game in that period.

Skinner gets barely any playing time with McDrai and basically no PP time. All his goals are even strength goals.

How many players do that here in the last 10 years? I don't think even RNH or Hyman could do that if you took away almost all their McDrai and PP time.

Knob is an idiot with his forward deployment, he just relies on McDavid and Draisaitl to overwhelm opponents and calls it a day. Woodcroft was brain dead defensively, but I think he was the only coach here that's really ever tried to get a full compliment of scoring from all the forwards.

 

[Dirk Dangler]

Color me absolutely shocked that poster “bobbythebrain” went out of his way to glaze and defend the moronic sieve of a slow fat ass in Stuart Skinner again.

Laughable.

Not only that but gaslighting everyone because apparently we don’t understand the mechanics of rebound control. Skinner obviously struggles with rebound control, which is compounded by a lack of athleticism to recover after.

 

[Soundwave]

I definitely agree, but the issue might be that we are just so top heavy with McDavid and Draisaitl that we just don't have the talent beyond them. It looks to me like they are putting up pretty amazing efforts but the results are so thin

I'll be cautiously optimistic about the Dallas game coming up.

I mean yes and no. It looks like we don't have a lot of talent, but objectively all of RNH, Arvidsson, Henrique, Hyman, and Skinner have been top 6 forwards as I said and all of these guys have scored 20+ goals in this league too like recently, not talking like 5-6 years ago (so like between 2022-23 and now).

Of course you don't want top players to miss too much time, but frankly a run of 4 or 5 games that forces these guys to take more on and probably even more importantly forces the coaching staff to actually (well) coach for a change might help the team in the long run.

They may get destroyed by Dallas, who knows, but I think they need to get some experience of playing like they are needed for offense, not just it being an optional thing.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Contracts matter though. McLeod at $2.1M is one thing but if he had a similar season in Edmonton this year he would be looking at an arbitration award that could be $5M so my guess is the Oilers would have been forced to trade him under duress anyway and likely do not get a Savoie level player on an ELC. The deal may not have paid off for this year but it was never suppose to do so. The payback comes next year and the one after if all goes well.

WE all knew it was deferred potential value. It was an odd move in a compete now window. Odder still due to the club missing multiple BETTER players than Savoie and really Savoie isn't even in Holloways ballpark as an asset. Or Broberg. He isn't even gonna supecede McLeod for quite awhile. My fear is Savoie turns out to be another Yamamoto and some early indications he's having some trouble playng against men at this level. need more runway obviously but in this org when is he ever getting that?

To point out as well when the trade was made people were saying that we'd be seeing Savoie in the back half of this season and playoffs. It wasn't being cited as a strictly next year advent, which it now is.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Not only that but gaslighting everyone because apparently we don’t understand the mechanics of rebound control. Skinner obviously struggles with rebound control, which is compounded by a lack of athleticism to recover after.

Stop saying rebound control, you're saying it wrong....

What a ridiculous post that was. I'm glad I mocked it.

 

[Soundwave]

I'm ok with the Savoie deal, I see a top 6 forward there in Savoie, McLeod was never going to be that. They screwed up with the offer sheets.

 

[Mr Positive]

I'm ok with the Savoie deal, I see a top 6 forward there in Savoie, McLeod was never going to be that. They screwed up with the offer sheets.

McLeod is also overrated by the team he's on. In Buffalo a decent talent like him can get offensive opportunities and linemates that he can't get on a deep team.

 

[Soundwave]

McLeod is also overrated by the team he's on. In Buffalo a decent talent like him can get offensive opportunities and linemates that he can't get on a deep team.

McLeod's a decent player, I just see a higher ceiling with Savoie. You could see even in the short stint this year he was making passes and plays to Leon that almost none of the non-McDavid linemates make to him.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Since January 4th is almost a 3 month sample size. That's not a small sample size.

Jeff Skinner 8 goals in 23 games, that is a 28.5 goal scoring rate and he is +8 in the span. That's by the way 1 whopping less goal than Dylan Holloway for the Blues in the same time frame (Jan. 4th to today) and Holloway gets 1st line minutes and PP time. Holloway has 9 goals in 29 games, so Skinner actually has a higher goals per game in that period.

Skinner gets barely any playing time with McDrai and basically no PP time. All his goals are even strength goals.

How many players do that here in the last 10 years? I don't think even RNH or Hyman could do that if you took away almost all their McDrai and PP time.

Knob is an idiot with his forward deployment, he just relies on McDavid and Draisaitl to overwhelm opponents and calls it a day. Woodcroft was brain dead defensively, but I think he was the only coach here that's really ever tried to get a full compliment of scoring from all the forwards.

The same Jeff Skinner has 8 goals in his last 31GP. Thats the trouble with close cropping a sample and then saying "hey 28 goal scoring rate"

The same Skinner that scored 3 in last 2 games had only scored 5 in the previous 29 games.

As far as production comparisons Skinner rarely gets assists, and so doesn't come close to matching expected production of a topsix player. I mean all the players we gave up on have way more pts than Jeff Skinner. Which I said they would at seasons start.

lol at the combo of Skinner, Arvid, Pods having around 30combined goals and we're nearly finished the season.

 

[Soundwave]

The same Jeff Skinner has 8 goals in his last 31GP. Thats the trouble with close cropping a sample and then saying "hey 28 goal scoring rate"

The same Skinner that scored 3 in last 2 games had only scored 5 in the previous 29 games.

As far as production comparisons Skinner rarely gets assists, and so doesn't come close to matching expected production of a topsix player. I mean all the players we gave up on have way more pts than Jeff Skinner. Which I said they would at seasons start.

1.) 8 goals in 31GP isn't some kind of flex that's still a 21 goal rate.

2.) Those goals are all even strength goals, no PP gravy, very little time with McDavid or Draisaitl, mostly bottom 6 time.

3.) The coach is actively trying to bury this player even though he just keep keeps coming back and producing and has even cleaned up his defensive game. No complaining or bad attitude even though he has just cause to be pissed off.

Dylan Holloway has 9 goals in his last 32 GP (I think it's 33GP actually after tonight) for the Blues. And the Blues are actually giving him a fair shot, lots of PP time, lots of time with their top players, not this gong show organization that's trying to actively do everything they can to stop Jeff Skinner from scoring goals.

 

[Drivesaitl]

McLeod is also overrated by the team he's on. In Buffalo a decent talent like him can get offensive opportunities and linemates that he can't get on a deep team.

Trouble is at what point does a Savoie find consistent topsix on even this team? The same org that wasn't going to afford it much to McLeod, Holloway, Foegele etc, and now Skinner?

Could see another quagmire of the org continuing to think X player isn't ready, keep sending him down, and when he is up playing him limited minutes bottomsix. its how this org has rolled for a decade now. Savoie has to beat the doors down to be noticed. A guy thats running near PPG numbers this season wasn't even properly noticed here as a prospect. Thats the rub. We got a futures for McLeod on an org that just deals them off or lets them walk when they see the next thing.

 

[Drivesaitl]

1.) 8 goals in 31GP isn't some kind of flex that's still a 21 goal rate.

2.) Those goals are all even strength goals, no PP gravy, very little time with McDavid or Draisaitl, mostly bottom 6 time.

3.) The coach is actively trying to bury this player even though he just keep keeps coming back and producing and has even cleaned up his defensive game. No complaining or bad attitude even though he has just cause to be pissed off.

Dylan Holloway has 9 goals in his last 32 GP for the Blues. And the Blues are actually giving him a fair shot, lots of PP time, lots of time with their top players, not this gong show organization that's trying to actively do everything they can to stop Jeff Skinner from scoring goals.

Foegele had 20G just last season playing vast majority bottomsix and adds assists as well.

Holloway is young and a futures player. of course he's worth the growing. Almost any org would recognize that. There is no future in recruiting 32 yr olds like J Skinner. Thats the nature of hockey. 32 your old= Limited to no future.

Any org you'd think would hold onto their assets and especially if they are better players, already, at the tender age of 22-23.

Skinner isn't even covering the bet this season and there is no future. He's only going to decline in time. Arvid already has.

That said no qualms coach should be playing Skinner now while he's playing decently. We'll see what happens rest of the way.

 

[Soundwave]

Foegele had 20G just last season playing vast majority bottomsix and adds assists as well.

Holloway is young and a futures player. of course he's worth the growing. Almost any org would recognize that. There is no future in recruiting 32 yr olds like J Skinner. Thats the nature of hockey. 32 your old. Limited to no future.

Any org you'd think would hold onto their assets and especially if they are better players, already, at the tender age of 22-23.

Skinner isn't even covering the bet this season and there is no future. He's only going to decline in time. Arvid already has.

Skinner would have 20 goals right now if he was actively used properly by Knobbrain. He has 14 ES goals mostly from the bottom 6 as is.

Foegele would have like maybe 10 goals in a season if this is the usage he got (very little time with Drai or McDavid) we saw that for 3 years he couldn't produce much.

This is just a dumb organization, on one hand they're crying over losing those players, on the other hand they're actively trying to sabotage a player who's actually f***ing producing at the same rate the players they're crying over are.

You can't even make this shit up. This is hands down one of the dumbest orgs in team sports.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Skinner would have 20 goals right now if he was actively used properly by Knobbrain. He has 14 ES goals mostly from the bottom 6 as is.

Foegele would have like maybe 10 goals in a season if this is the usage he got (very little time with Drai or McDavid) we saw that for 3 years he couldn't produce much.

This is just a dumb organization, on one hand they're crying over losing those players, on the other hand they're actively trying to sabotage a player who's actually f***ing producing at the same rate the players they're crying over are.

You can't even make this shit up. This is hands down one of the dumbest orgs in team sports.

Even 20 goals for J Skinner, if you said that at start of season people would've said failure. There was a plurality of posters here expecting 30. Somehow.

Agreed that the org is awfully dumb. Not gonna argue that point. I did amend my post to say that presently Skinner should be playing and granted minutes, and more minutes. Albeit he had 17 last game and thats pretty good for no pk play. He was on PP too.

 

[McShogun99]

Or Tommy Salo. My big fear is with that one..That this is our goaltending heading into playoffs and I know the org as usual will start Skinner almost all the games.

Even last night against an awful club our goaltending was a sieve. Call it myopic focus but its such an important spot in hockey.

I meant Jeff. He’s going to score at least one huge goal for us.