FlameChampion
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- Jul 13, 2011
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Good point. 8 games is brutal after such a long season last year.
News Article: Training camp & Preseason News & Notes
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Good point. 8 games is brutal after such a long season last year.
94 Oil Drops
SKINNER(S!)
I know this is a long shot but if Matt Savoie becomes our version of Brayden Point, the rest of the league is f***ed.
Holloway taking the bag and leaving definitely opens an opportunity for him. Wouldn't be surprised if he gets called up around Christmas and plays the rest of the season.
SupremeTeam16
5-14-6-1
I agree that Lavoie needs a chance but I think Perry is going to be the 12/13 fwd, Lavoie needs to be in the top 9 with some talent to show what he can do. If Kane is out to start the year Lavoie has a good chance of starting in his spot.
Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
For rehabbing injuries, and the Oilers had several by playoffs end, its far more important to be rehabbing injuries, and in gym or in therapy to regain maximal health then it is to rush back on skates. Even Drai had mentioned this.
I'm very much in favor of the players having the utmost time to repair, recover, relax and start the season in optimal health. This rushing back to captains skates every year now just doesn't do that and the Oilers have started poor out of the gate with captains skates. Seems no reason to have these but here we are again.
My own take is that its Type A behavior, but not necessarily the most advisable or constructive activity. In the 70's and 80's when players were less likely to look after health and condition in offseason maybe these would be good. I see no purpose in it for todays well conditioned athletes. its hamsters on a wheel stuff.
SupremeTeam16
5-14-6-1
Could be they want to get a good long look at some of the fringe options and younger guys. I’m guessing the first 2-3 games we won’t see much of the top 2/3 of the roster and then they’ll start cycling in more vets and top end guys on the back end of pre season.
I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the regulars don’t play more then 4 games each.
Stauf4Prez
Designated Survivor
I would love nothing more than to see him make a big splash in training camp/pre-season and to earn a roster spot. Force Knob's hand to not play Derek Ryan until we absolutely need to. Also a long shot.
Fixed to Ruin
Come wit it now!
BarDownBobo
Registered User
I wonder if they look at leaving the Janmark-Henrique-Brown line together at least to start the year to take the harder bottom 6 matchups and have one of Hamblin/Pederson center the other line, with Podkolzin/Perry/Lavoie rotating on the wings to ride the hot hand a bit. I definitely think it’d be smart to plan for Perry to play no more than 50 regular season games so he’s still got some juice come playoff time, him and Lavoie rotating a bit would make a ton of sense.
Behind Enemy Lines
Registered User
I agree with you about injuries and rehab situations. I'm not at the rink so hard to tell the context of intensity and duration of these pre-camp skates. Some organized drills. There's so much sports science and year round training done so I think there's some reasonable due diligence and consideration of the work load. The summer/pre-camp work likely gets done whether in a team setting in Edmonton or group skates/training wherever the players are.
McDavid and majority of the team have more direct information about the energy and health reserve needed to win a Cup. He's spoke directly about dialing back the training camp approach from last year with effect on his performance and the team. The pre-camp gathering seems part of their culture and identity building. Somewhat like how the Dynasty 80's team practised fast and with intensity.
It's a short summer for them so I can appreciate your point of view.
Behind Enemy Lines
Registered User
I think it's safe to say money is a critical driver. Knoblauch's already said he would anticipate the elites maybe playing 3 or so games. Looking at fringe players and prospects maybe has a bit of value. However pre-season games are played at a different tempo and highly volatile quality of rosters so how much you draw from those situations is questionable. We've seen our share of training camp wonders fade when the regular season games and intensity ratchet up.
I'd prefer this veteran team with a largely secured roster to minimize pre-season play to protect against injury and have the reserve tank when needed in deep playoff competition.
Yup. 8 preseason games is nuts. 6 is fine. 4 is perfect.
joestevens29
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- Apr 30, 2009
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I have to expect Lavoie is going to be on PK and PP during pre-season.
Knobs is very much a guy that wants to try have everyone playing some sort of special teams to try and keep players a little more engaged in the game.
Was going to be his plan with Holloway this year to get him more minutes and you'd have to think that would be similar to Lavoie who could get stuck on the 4th line.
Knobs is very much a guy that wants to try have everyone playing some sort of special teams to try and keep players a little more engaged in the game.
Was going to be his plan with Holloway this year to get him more minutes and you'd have to think that would be similar to Lavoie who could get stuck on the 4th line.
FlameChampion
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Will be interesting to see who Lavoie, Savoie etc play with. Previous seasons it seemed like those type of prospects got stuck with guys like Malone, McKegg, Esposito etc and then people were shocked when they couldn’t get any traction on those lines against NHL players.
I hope we see a bit more empowering and putting prospects in better situations than Woodcroft/Holland did.
joestevens29
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For us right now I agree less is more, but there are other situations where you'd want more. Our roster is pretty set, but other teams that have 5 or 6 open spots really do benefit from more games
To be fair we just watched the Panthers do the exact same thing and it didn't seem to hinder them at all.
The biggest issue for Lavoie getting into our lineup is going to be the PK. During his interview on Oilers Now yesterday, Knoblauch reiterated that he believes the bottom 6 players need a clearly defined role. He also wants 4 regular penalty killers, with at least one or two more players in his lineup that he can swap in if players are tired or if someone gets hurt in game. He explicitly mentioned RNH-Ryan and Janmark-Brown as two pairings that worked well, and named Arvidsson and Podkolzin as players who can play PK as needed.
To his credit, Lavoie recognized this and apparently approached the Condors coaching staff midway through last season and asked to start killing penalties. If he can convince Knoblauch that he's an NHL PK option, I think he has a real chance at being on the team as a 12th-13th forward. If he can't do that, I just can't see him cracking the roster.
Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
To be fair to my pov even McDrai and Drai agree with me. So I'm not sure why this is happening.
BLOG: Oilers begin to arrive in Edmonton for informal skates | Edmonton Oilers
Leon Draisaitl was the latest player on Thursday to join the growing group of Oilers who've already began taking part in informal skates this week at the Downtown Community Arena in ICE District
www.nhl.com
“I went with a little bit of a different strategy this summer,” McDavid said in the interview. “In years past, it's just been very volume heavy, Very go, go, go. Throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks. That strategy, as well as it's worked for me, I think about the beginning of last year. I was just very tired and fatigued from a long summer of training, and was not feeling very good on the ice. And it translated.”
its funny to hear McD point this out verbatim, and he is very very much a harder faster type A person which is why he's a training demon, as is Leon. But he's learned that theres limits and to cut back a bit. But its different than people had stated. its not that the Oilers weren't ready for start of season its that they traning peaked long before the start of season and were tired at the start of the season. Very fatigued as McD says.
Overtraining is a thing. Been deredundat.
I'm not completely out to lunch all the time.
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His comments aren’t really what people are disputing though, he had lots of time off already and now they’re just getting back into the motion of it with low intensity skating/drills.To be fair to my pov even McDrai and Drai agree with me. So I'm not sure why this is happening.
BLOG: Oilers begin to arrive in Edmonton for informal skates | Edmonton Oilers
Leon Draisaitl was the latest player on Thursday to join the growing group of Oilers who've already began taking part in informal skates this week at the Downtown Community Arena in ICE District
“I went with a little bit of a different strategy this summer,” McDavid said in the interview. “In years past, it's just been very volume heavy, Very go, go, go. Throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks. That strategy, as well as it's worked for me, I think about the beginning of last year. I was just very tired and fatigued from a long summer of training, and was not feeling very good on the ice. And it translated.”
its funny to hear McD point this out verbatim, and he is very very much a harder faster type A person which is why he's a training demon, as is Leon. But he's learned that theres limits and to cut back a bit. But its different than people had stated. its not that the Oilers weren't ready for start of season its that they traning peaked long before the start of season and were tired at the start of the season. Very fatigued as McD says.
I'm not completely out to lunch all the time.
Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
2months isn't much. Agreed that they might be taking it a bit less intensity this time round. Its a marathon, not a sprint. NHL seasons and playoffs are the most rigorous of any sport on the planet.
They still need to be in hockey shape for training camp, so I’m not too sure that they agree with your pov, since you don’t think they should be doing captains skates.
Both of them are on the ice.
That line was f***ing magic in the playoffs man. Can't wait to see it again!
Jimmi McJenkins
Sometimes miracles
Arvidsson, like Ekholm before him, will be a huge fan favourite imo.
