I can see it now. Hemsky enters the zone, Yakupov gets open in the slot for his one-timer, Hemsky circles around the net back to the point, meanwhile Yak has been covered by two players, Hemsky tries to force a pass cross ice through 3 players, it gets picked off for a 3 on 2 rush against.
I hope I'm wrong but I just dont see Hemsky as an Oates, Backstrom, RNH type of playmaker. I could see them having some chemistry on the PP where there is more space to work.
I agree with this assesment.Hemsky is a zone entry machine,but the problem is that he takes it in to far which he must to be consistantly effective,there are a few plays which are gamebreakers Hemmer could work on with a guy like Yakupov but we want Yakupov to be bringing the puck into the sweet spots in the offensive zone and making his moves early,we dont want him to become a static target for Hemmers passes.Hemsky belongs with Smyth who works the front of the net and thats why Hemmer uses that around the house move so much actually,so thats where they need to keep him,on the 3rd line with Smyth.No two ways about it Hemsky has to convert at least 1/3 of his o-zone entrys into immediate shots or drives to the net on his own,he CANNOT play god with the puck anymore on any line we put him on,the further he got from the 1st line the more important it became for him to shoot the puck.
Yakupov is very smart ,he will work well with MPS and Gagner on the 2nd line,I think they will find immediate chemistry.Gagner understands he needs to play off of Yakupovs shooting with terminal shooting of his own,one of those two will be going terminal on every zone entry--MPS has enough speed to keep up and enough size to threaten the far wing enough to open up the middle for the snipers,I watched Magnus anchor the 2nd line in OKC by becoming a bigger threat entering the zone and by working sucessfully on controlling the d-man and retaining possesion below the halfwall and making excellent reads and setups.Add his natural defensive awareness with speed to get back and its a nice fit.I think this line would give the Oilers enough secondary scoring to solidly make the playoffs and go deep.Not many teams will be able to shut down this type of high octane offense on the 2nd line.With two creative offensive minded players who can snipe working off of a big fast defensive minded body who has learned to work the side-wall like Magnus has we have a recipie for sucess.It will be important to limit penaltys this year and if our 2nd line can keep the offensive pressure up and not be forced to play defensively we will see less penaltys especially with a winger like MPS.
Hemmer will never maximise his style of play here again because he wont crack the top six with his patented move as it is an ultra sucessful specialised move with limited options unless you are a sniper first and use the zone entry as such as a priority,Hemmer is NOT shoot first--cant be-- so he needs a net presence to capitalise on his possesions,and at this point I really dont see him becoming a shooter no matter what happens to be honest,so he forces us to play him with Smyth or Hartikainen.Omarks spin moves just inside the blueline were as consistantly effective as hemmers zone entrys and at least Omark was always thinking and projecting shot first.NHL wide Omark can beat guys with that specific move--no one ever solved him they just took penaltys,we could definately still use him the little powerplay generator--imagine how many times he would be setting up our PP guys per game.
The Oil need to be a shoot and re-shoot type of team,taking every single good shot opportunity,not waiting for high percentage ones,just taking everything they get near and working on the up-speed man corraling the rebounds for the 2nd shot.We have so many sets of sticky hands now that our offensive transitions should always be crisp,snappy and at high speed and we should be converting zone entrys into first and second shots at a very high rate.Not exactly Hemskys forte.
Lets not forget that Hemmers keeps possesion for a long time and his passes also usually come back out to the front AFTER d-men are recovered and can often be suicide passes that get players laid out--he doesnt create his offense off of the rush he trys to create it after the rush.