Post-Game Talk: Skinned again

[guymez]

I like how easy their D made it look too. To just stand up and use their range to stifle our offence. When you are big and fast, everything is just easier to do in this League. And that pays dividends in the playoffs.

For sure. I am not sure how big their D is but they play big.
Their D pressured the puck carrier and they didnt give up their zone defending the rush either.

The Oilers were rarely allowed to access the Wild D zone and setup without having to deal with a Wild player taking away time and space.

 

[Soundwave]

Just listening to the GYB podcast. Rob Brown makes a very good point.

Against non playoff teams this is team is 9-3.
Against playoff teams this team is 1-6.

That is very revealing.

Rob Browns point about why...intensity.
This team just isnt invested nearly enough and its related to the lack of physicality.

So ... basically the same as last year? lol.

They didn't really win against anyone good in regulation until beating Carolina in like December. Vegas they choked away a 2 goal lead in regulation to recover and win in a shoot out.

I'm not as worried about this aspect, we very easily could have won the Vegas, Toronto, and Carolina games, made some dumb correctable errors.

The PP needs to get going, without though this team is going to be in for a bumpy ride if that doesn't correct itself. Hate to say it but for regular season especially the PP has been the bread and butter of the team for a long time.

 

[The Panther]

My prediction before watching this was 6-2 for Minnesota. I was so close...

Oilers are simply not a good team right now.

Against "good" teams this season (Winnipeg, Dallas, Carolina, Jersey, Vegas, Toronto, Minnesota), the Oilers' record is 0 and 7, and they've been outscored by 29 to 10. (If you consider Vancouver a good team, the Oil have 1 win this whole season over a good team, but I'm not yet convinced Vancouver is actually good.)

The Oilers are a top-heavy team that can't score. They have surprisingly competent but unspectacular defenders, by far the most dependable of whom is a 34-year-old with a lot of wear and tear who is (the past few weeks, visibly) starting to slow down.

For good teams facing Edmonton, all they have to do is roll four lines and put their top line against McDrai, who may or may not get a point, but will inevitably lose the 5-on-5 battle and give up chances.

Finally, Stu Skinner has lost even his defenders (like me, previously) at this point. I think, tonight, he was beaten on something like 4 of the first 7 shots, but one was called back, one didn't count because of a premature whistle, and one hit the inside of the post on an outside shot. I can't fault him on a couple of goals, but two or three were very stoppable and just ONCE IN A WHILE it would be nice if he could steal a game.

I also question the coaching decision to start Skinner in this one. The Oil are facing the League's best road team, who always beat them, and Skinner just won a game after a rough patch. Now is a good time to play Cal, who may lose anyway but will always get the fan sympathy vote. What little was left of Stu Skinner's confidence should now be eroded.

Not that there was ever much doubt in the outcome, but I knew this game was done when it was 3-2 Wild and McDrai had a nice rush down the ice -- the puck ended up on Draisaitl's forehand, directly in front of Fleury (himself shakey all night), in prime scoring position. Drai, a 50-goal scorer who co-leads the NHL in goals... passed to Podkolzin, who was covered, and has 0 goals.

 

[guymez]

Interesting that every single Oilers Center was 50% or better on the dot.

Also...Ekholm played almost 27 minutes in this game. Thats way too much.
Probably felt like 35 minutes for Ekholm because he was partnered with Bouchard who had an awful game.

 

[The Panther]

Interesting that every single Oilers Center was 50% or better on the dot.

Oh, they're great at face-offs! If face-offs were the Stanley Cup, we'd be good.

Also...Ekholm played almost 27 minutes in this game. Thats way too much.

Watching the Cult of Hockey now, and they're griping about this, too. It is crazy. It's the Oilers' third game in four nights (in three cities, no less), and the coaches played the 78-year-old forwards (Perry and Ryan) in every game of this stretch, and then exhausted Ekholm and McDavid in this one.

I wonder if the summer of 2024 is going to go down, historically, as the off-season that killed-off the McDavid-Draisaitl era of competitiveness. I hope not.

 

[guymez]

Oh, they're great at face-offs! If face-offs were the Stanley Cup, we'd be good.

Watching the Cult of Hockey now, and they're griping about this, too. It is crazy. It's the Oilers' third game in four nights (in three cities, no less), and the coaches played the 78-year-old forwards (Perry and Ryan) in every game of this stretch, and then exhausted Ekholm and McDavid in this one.

I wonder if the summer of 2024 is going to go down, historically, as the off-season that killed-off the McDavid-Draisaitl era of competitiveness. I hope not.

Please do post that Cult of Hokcey podcast in the Sports Radio Podcast thread.
Sounds like its worth a listen.

 

[Fishy McScales]

4th game in 6 nights coming off a road trip playing against an excellent team they've always struggled against? Yeah no wonder they looked super flat.

Would be nice to get a save, though.

 

[Fishy McScales]

Embarrassing
Perry saying “everyone is playing their highest level against us”
This is the crystallization of the problem with this group
Here’s a vet, a leader saying this crap

OF COURSE THEY ARE PLAYING AT THEIR HIGHEST LEVEL, ITS THE NHL!

“it’s their fault because they are trying hard”

Unreal
Annoying

I agree he shouldn't say that out loud but he's not wrong. McDavid alone produces that effect.

This is the reason the Oilers seem to crank it up after Christmas. Fewer teams have something to play for, and for the rest every game demands full attention, not just when they're up against Connor.

 

[Heavy Dee]

Jeff Skinner with the predictable garbage time meaningless goal to pad his stats. I saw that last shift and Wild not even defending anymore and figured Skinner was gonna bag one. Of course lol.

Want to get pissed off. Watch Skinner on the bench. Give a f*** entirely disappeared with this player years ago. He's have his smartphone out but that would be too obvious.

Its the whole thing. You can't have so many passengers in a lineup that just don't care. How the hell did people applaud this guy coming here? Been an absolute passenger and he even knows it.

That's on Jeff Jackson.

 

[tardigrade81]

So, what shall we complain about tonight, Fellas?

Skinner is a f***

 

[harpoon]

Skinner is terrible but enough people are talking about that. What should shock everybody on this board is that we are 21 games into the season and no forwards (except 29 & 97) have hit double digit points. Zero. No forward even playing at a 0.5 ppg clip. That is unthinkable.

If you take out dmen, the corpse of Corey Perry is tied for third in team scoring with 4 goals. That’s pretty decent for him actually. If he can keep that 15 goal pace going all year nobody should have any reason to complain. But c’mon, four is a number that reflects extremely poorly on the meat of this roster that is expected to score. And paid to score. Stuart Skinner isn’t the only guy who needs to be taking a long look in the mirror and questioning his pride as a professional.

 

[Zguy370]

I've been saying this for years on these boards but everyone's so conditioned to stand up for the golden boy that I just sounded like a dick apparently

Despite being such a highly touted prospect he never had the drive to work on his deficiencies at any point in his career. He never got better at faceoffs or put on any sort of strength so eventually had to move him to the wing. He doesn't have the compete to drive a line despite coming out of junior with all the skill that #1OV picks have so he gets saddled with generational centers. If McDavid or Draisaitl aren't firing, he has no chance at picking up any slack or producing independent of them. Do you recall any time when he stepped up when those 2 went dry? His production lives and dies off their sticks. This season it doesn't even live. It only dies.

My complete sentiments. Never could've understood the love affair between this guy the org and fan base. Let's slap him with an A on his jersey. It tells you something about the org, they're running the show like a family affair and not a business. Does Nuge even need to shower after a game? Between him and Skinner they can't get TFO soon enough

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Scheduled losses are annoying. They should have taken the night off and had a bag skate.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Scheduled losses are annoying. They should have taken the night off and had a bag skate.

To me it looks like they did take the night off. We've had a lot of pretty lifeless performances lately.

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

It’s almost like loading up McDrai is a strategy that has continuously failed.

It's not like splitting them up has worked either...

 

[brentashton]

It is beyond sad to see this team, after going to Game 7 last year to be in this state at this point in the career trajectory of the core players.

The team has been somewhat torn down from last years edition, versus being built up. It continues to have significant effort and consistency issues and obvious gaps in goaltending, defence, and forwards beyond 2-3 players. Depth is shit.

It will take divine intervention for all of this team’s short comings to be corrected within the season and TDL. The league doesn’t allow for this many warts to be fixed within season. It’s why FA season is such a feeding frenzy.

They will not see the SCF this year unless they buy a ticket.

The window is closing faster every year.

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

In fairness to Jackson, who could've seen the massive regression by the secondary players coming. Nugent Hopkins with 2 goals, Hyman with 3, Arvidsson was good last year.

I mean some of us talked about how the window is closing due to these secondary players aging and slowing down, obviously nobody thought it would be this bad.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Scheduled losses are annoying. They should have taken the night off and had a bag skate.

Bag Skates save percentage would still have been higher than Stu Skinners and we would have still lost.

 

[Kerberos]

Hadn't seen this. Guys... I think we're maybe a bad team.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

It's not like splitting them up has worked either...

The Oilers got as far as they did last year because they kept them apart. The times they did reunite them didn't typically end well. The team doesn't score enough to hamstring the rest of the forwards like that.

Speaking of last year, I think in a roundabout way the poor start helped them because I think a lot of teams looked past them until it was too late. This year everyone is well aware of how good they can be so they bring their best game and we simply aren't matching that. Last night was a very DoD Oilers game. They even got a couple of gifts and just refused to put in the work necessary to win. Seen it too many times with this team. Fleury lets in a laugher and you'd think the Oilers would try and take advantage of that but they didn't.

 

[BlackDogg]

Unlikable group again.

A burden to watch.

 

[94 Oil Drops]

It was a scheduled loss anyway.

 

[Salvaged Ship]

When your team gets to this stage this is the exact time you do not want Stan Bowman making decisions. It kind of reminds me of the years after the Blackhawks won their last cup (I know the Oil haven’t won it but as close as you can get last year). He made some desperate moves that sunk the roster, screwed the team cap wise, and cost draft picks and prospects. Now the team has glaring holes, is too old, and has stars desperate to finally win a cup. Bowman could screw the franchise for a decade in this position.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Interesting that every single Oilers Center was 50% or better on the dot.

Also...Ekholm played almost 27 minutes in this game. Thats way too much.
Probably felt like 35 minutes for Ekholm because he was partnered with Bouchard who had an awful game.

face offs continue to be the most overrated stat in hockey

 

[McBigYak]

Oil made a big gamble they could run on a very thin blue line and add some key players at the deadline due to the accrued space.

Clearly not working. If Skinner is playing well it's likely salvageable but you can't have that thin of a back end with a goalie who's not playing well.

I just don't think they're in the position to do anything. Who makes a significant hockey trade at this point of the year. Nobody.

Whole season hinges on Skinner really. If he is playing well the D core is good enough to get them into a solid position to add some big players at deadline.