Sooooo how about Evan Bouchard's defense last night

[ijuka]

he is what he is.

A premier offensive defenseman who is prone to making bone head mistakes.

The good far outweighs the bad.

A premier defensive defenseman as well.

Bouchard actually ranks #3 out of all defensemen in the entire NHL for fewest shot attempts against per 60 minutes of ice time.

The two defensemen ahead of him are Shayne Gosthisbehere and Sean Walker, and both are on Carolina Hurricanes that are the absolute corsi dominators of the league.

Bouchard had a rough start last year as well. I am 100% confident that he will get back to his dominant self in short order, if he’s not there already.

At his best he is an offensive force who is at least adequate in his own end. But for some reason he seems to always start the season slow.

top 5 in the league in advanced stats both offensively and defensively = "rough start"?


It's just this typical confirmation bias. Ignore 99% of the body of work, highlight a couple of bad plays, and think that those plays define him as a player. This last night's game? He was fantastic, but I assume no one will mention or think much of that. Then in a couple of games when he has a bad individual play? People will again come out like vultures.

So stupid.

 

[phrenssoa]

A premier defensive defenseman as well.

Bouchard actually ranks #3 out of all defensemen in the entire NHL for fewest shot attempts against per 60 minutes of ice time.

The two defensemen ahead of him are Shayne Gosthisbehere and Sean Walker, and both are on Carolina Hurricanes that are the absolute corsi dominators of the league.


top 5 in the league in advanced stats both offensively and defensively = "rough start"?


It's just this typical confirmation bias. Ignore 99% of the body of work, highlight a couple of bad plays, and think that those plays define him as a player. This last night's game? He was fantastic, but I assume no one will mention or think much of that. Then in a couple of games when he has a bad individual play? People will again come out like vultures.

So stupid.

I don’t know. I watch every Oilers game and so far this year (as was the case early on last year), Bouchard has been prone to making some egregious decisions that lead to prime scoring chances against. Not all scoring chances are equal and some of his mistakes are of the highlight reel variety. I agree that he is better defensively than he gets credit for, as long as he minimizes those mistakes.

He did play a beautiful game last night though. Hopefully that continues the rest of the year.

 

[895]

A premier defensive defenseman as well.

Bouchard actually ranks #3 out of all defensemen in the entire NHL for fewest shot attempts against per 60 minutes of ice time.

The two defensemen ahead of him are Shayne Gosthisbehere and Sean Walker, and both are on Carolina Hurricanes that are the absolute corsi dominators of the league.


top 5 in the league in advanced stats both offensively and defensively = "rough start"?


It's just this typical confirmation bias. Ignore 99% of the body of work, highlight a couple of bad plays, and think that those plays define him as a player. This last night's game? He was fantastic, but I assume no one will mention or think much of that. Then in a couple of games when he has a bad individual play? People will again come out like vultures.

So stupid.

Have you considered that if a metric shows that Shayne Gosthisbehere and Evan Bouchard are two of the top three defensive defence men in the NHL, it’s the metric that’s flawed, not everyone else?

 

[Norwegianoiler]

Poor as these highlights are for Bouchard, it must be said that we have an interesting question on our hands. During last season, the Oilers were a win away from the Stanley Cup. Yet, all their defensemen save for Ekholm are terrible at almost everything. Their forwards are one dimensional and have next to no defensive acumen. Their goalie is among the worst in the league pretty much always. It seems that we have been deceived. The Oilers did not in fact come this far, because they weren't good enough. I am starting to suspect they didn't even make the playoffs last year. "Discuss".

Lots of teams make the SCF one year and flame out the next. But nice effort.
As for discuss? They have a generational player and an elite sidekick who can overcome a lot of deficiencies in the lineup. Can they drag them deep into the playoffs by both having yet another historic post season with an even worse supporting cast?
Discuss.

Thanks for the kudos on the effort. That was nice, and you didn't have to give me that compliment. This made my day

This Oilers team might never come as close to a cup again as they did last season. Much has to do with luck and overcoming deficiencies, but it is certainly not out of the question to go far yet again. The odds are against them to win it all, but not particularly because the change of personnel. It will be hard to be as good on the PK again, to have the bounces to win key games the way they did, and so on, but they have room to grow as well.

To go deep in the playoffs, however, you cannot simply rely on a couple of players, no matter how good they are, especially if they are forwards. This is the beautiful nature of hockey, more than any other sport it demands that the team works as a whole, for too many minutes on ice are without the absolute stars. So, I just wanted to challenge the rather silly idea that every Oiler save for a couple are either just terrible or merely propped up by McDrai. It is far more difficult to describe what exactly is going on when a team "clicks", and players hit their peak form at the same time, they work more coherently and dilligently, getting more out of (almost) everyone at the right time. The Oilers did that last post-season, not only due to the stars.

Did you not see McDavid literally put up numbers only Gretzky has?

See above.

Obviously McDavid was encouraging him from the bench otherwise that play never happens.

Also, Marc-Andre Bergeron (praise onto him) could easily do that too, if he would just dig the f*** in.