Where's the dead weight?

[tinfish]

This is the correct answer. Great post.

 

[OilTastic]

^yup, failed president, failed GM and the Columbus failed GM.

 

[AJGass4]

I like our forwards.

I hate our defence, minus Petry. He may not hit but he certainly has a good stick.

I hate our coach. Can't stand him. He is an idiot.

Our goaltending has cost us more games than they have won us.

Would hope our GM can find a diamond in the ruff somewhere out there in regards to a goaltender because there isn't a team in the league that is going to give us one.

 

[thadd]

I hate our defence, minus Petry. He may not hit but he certainly has a good stick.

I'll say he doesn't often hit hard, but he does initiate contact quote often.

 

[Beerfish]

The following player is not dead weight by any means but is a bit of a sacred cow in all aspects of his game.

What is with Boyd Gordon being on his knees or on his ass after every single faceoff? Boyd snowpants is more appropriate than the other owner of that moniker. He is never in position to make a hockey play after a draw whether he wins it or loses it.

 

[CornKicker]

yep followed closely behind is this

 

[The Nuge]

I think some guys aren't dead weight but are playing too high in the depth chart (Ference, Arcobello)
I think Nikitin and Purcell are straight up deadweight, especially at their contracts

I agree. Nikitin is the one that frustrates me most, because he's shown he has a high level, and has been our best defenseman a couple games. He just doesn't play at it much. I've come to terms that Purcell just flat out sucks.

Fasth is a big one as well. If Scrivens had another guy who could challenge him for the starting job, I think he would be better. He's very driven, but he seems to thrive on competition. He'd make an awesome 30-40 game a year 1B goalie

 

[The Human Torch]

You forgot:

 

[Mcnotloilersfan]

The following player is not dead weight by any means but is a bit of a sacred cow in all aspects of his game.

What is with Boyd Gordon being on his knees or on his ass after every single faceoff? Boyd snowpants is more appropriate than the other owner of that moniker. He is never in position to make a hockey play after a draw whether he wins it or loses it.

He is one of the few things that is right with this team...

 

[thadd]

He is one of the few things that is right with this team...

I agree. with the complaint that he's on his ass after many face-offs, he knows the tendencies of many guys and he choses to get in a lower body position against some guys to win face-offs.

 

[Mr Positive]

Our players take turns being terrible. It would be great if there were one or more players that were obviously the problem but we dont have that luxury.

Nikitin was deadweight but he was practically heroic against the Sens. Scrivens can go from goat to saviour on a dime. Eberle too. RNH and Hall are fairly consistent but still need to improve if they are to be ranked next to the elites of the league.

 

[Moose Coleman]

The following player is not dead weight by any means but is a bit of a sacred cow in all aspects of his game.

What is with Boyd Gordon being on his knees or on his ass after every single faceoff? Boyd snowpants is more appropriate than the other owner of that moniker. He is never in position to make a hockey play after a draw whether he wins it or loses it.

It's the technique that allows him to win 57% of his draws. That's top 10 in the league.

 

[Beerfish]

He is one of the few things that is right with this team...

As I said, a sacred cow. Guys that win draws and play defense are totally immune to examination of any part of their game as opposed to offensive guys who have their game picked apart to a microscopic level.

Player one: "Oh he's pretty good but needs to just be better on the back check."
Player two: "He can skate but why doesn't he ever pass to Yakupov?"
Player three: "He's wonderful in all aspects and should not be criticized."

I think my comment is legitimate. Watch him over the next few games. Every single faceoff he is out of the play after the draw whether he wins it or not. He's on the ice. He should be able to win draws and at least not be on his knees.

 

[thadd]

Scrivens/Fasth. I hate to pick on goalies, but these guys haven't brought it

I refuse to believe that it's their fault.

So many goalies have come here and become much worse goalies after playing for us. I blame it on our goaltending coach.

Before they came here, Scrivvens and Fasth were looking like guys that could handle 40 games a season before they came over here and they're now looking like guys that shouldn't be playing any more than 20 gams a season.

At this point I'm blaming it 100% on our goaltending coach.

 

[Moose Coleman]

I think my comment is legitimate. Watch him over the next few games. Every single faceoff he is out of the play after the draw whether he wins it or not. He's on the ice. He should be able to win draws and at least not be on his knees.

This is the essence of nitpicking. It's a technique that allows him to win more draws than he loses. Why mess with success because it looks awkward?

 

[The Nuge]

The following player is not dead weight by any means but is a bit of a sacred cow in all aspects of his game.

What is with Boyd Gordon being on his knees or on his ass after every single faceoff? Boyd snowpants is more appropriate than the other owner of that moniker. He is never in position to make a hockey play after a draw whether he wins it or loses it.

Is this sarcasm? You have to get low to win the faceoff. Boyd Gordon couldn't be farther from what's wrong with this team

 

[nabob]

As I said, a sacred cow. Guys that win draws and play defense are totally immune to examination of any part of their game as opposed to offensive guys who have their game picked apart to a microscopic level.

Player one: "Oh he's pretty good but needs to just be better on the back check."
Player two: "He can skate but why doesn't he ever pass to Yakupov?"
Player three: "He's wonderful in all aspects and should not be criticized."

I think my comment is legitimate. Watch him over the next few games. Every single faceoff he is out of the play after the draw whether he wins it or not. He's on the ice. He should be able to win draws and at least not be on his knees.

The one guy on the club who is probably the best in the league in his role and you are saying he deserves criticism??

The only thing he could possibly improve on is hitting. As he's a very gritty player but doesnt hit much. But hitting more would wear him down more and cause him to be less effective. Gordon getting injured would be the biggest loss to the team outside of Hall and Nuge. He's that important to the team

 

[thadd]

As I said, a sacred cow. Guys that win draws and play defense are totally immune to examination of any part of their game as opposed to offensive guys who have their game picked apart to a microscopic level.

Player one: "Oh he's pretty good but needs to just be better on the back check."
Player two: "He can skate but why doesn't he ever pass to Yakupov?"
Player three: "He's wonderful in all aspects and should not be criticized."

I think my comment is legitimate. Watch him over the next few games. Every single faceoff he is out of the play after the draw whether he wins it or not. He's on the ice. He should be able to win draws and at least not be on his knees.

Well you can complain about him being on his knees if you like, but I honestly think that's flat out crazy. He's one of the best face-off men in the league. Sure he falls down, but he gets us the puck and by the time we're ready to do something with the puck he's usually back up there.

The negatives outweigh the positives a ton IMO.

Can you remember how hard it was for Edmonton to get 18 shots on net before Gordon game here?

 

[thadd]

The one guy on the club who is probably the best in the league in his role and you are saying he deserves criticism??

The only thing he could possibly improve on is hitting. As he's a very gritty player but doesnt hit much. But hitting more would wear him down more and cause him to be less effective. Gordon getting injured would be the biggest loss to the team outside of Hall and Nuge. He's that important to the team

I agree. You can't give any more minutes of Hopkins.

Leon isn't ready for 20 minutes a game and I really don't want to see Arcobello play that many minutes per game.

I must say that I'm surprised with how Joensu has come back to play some good hockey this year. I thought he was going to be waiver fodder before training camp started.

 

[Beerfish]

This is the essence of nitpicking. It's a technique that allows him to win more draws than he loses. Why mess with success because it looks awkward?

It has zero to do with looking awkward. Zero. I'll repeat, watch what happens after a faceoff. Win it and he's on his knees, lose it and he's on his knees. I see a lot of the good faceoff guys getting down very low, no doubt about it. I don't see anyone on the ice after every single face off.

 

[Beerfish]

Is this sarcasm? You have to get low to win the faceoff. Boyd Gordon couldn't be farther from what's wrong with this team

typical sacred cow answer. Getting low does not mean being on the ice and out of the play for a couple of seconds.

Gordon = Good defensive player, excellent face off player, poor offensive player, sacrifices positioning to win a draw.

My point stands, some players can do literally do no wrong even if they have things that are not perfect. Others just get hammered on their play for every little thing.

 

[Moose Coleman]

It has zero to do with looking awkward. Zero. I'll repeat, watch what happens after a faceoff. Win it and he's on his knees, lose it and he's on his knees. I see a lot of the good faceoff guys getting down very low, no doubt about it. I don't see anyone on the ice after every single face off.

Given that his technique seems to be working for him and given that he's seldom out of the play for long (anymore than any other faceoff taker), then yeah, there's no substance to this criticism. Could he take faceoffs in a different technique? Sure. Would he be as effective? Perhaps not. Why mess with something that works and has no real downside? This is like saying Ryan Smyth scored too many garbage goals.

 

[misfit]

Purcell and Nikitin for me are the two biggest examples of players who could be removed with little-to-no negative affect on the on-ice product. The fact that they also carry a combined $9M cap hit for not only this year, but next year as well, makes it that much harder to swallow.

Ference is on the list too, especially with his $3.25M price tag for the next 3 seasons, but I could live with him in the mix if it wasn't for the others taking up space. I don't like him in the top 4 and I don't like him as captain, but I do think it's good to have these types of guys in the locker room, especially with such a young team.

I'm not anywhere near as down on Schultz as the entire Oilers internet fanbase is, so I'll reserve judgement there. I will say that he's nowhere near as good as the organization seems to think he is today, and not nearly as likely to become that player that they believe either.

 

[Lacaar]

The defense

They rotate each game of who has a bad game and the rest are just decent with one a little above average.

We never get a great game from anyone on the blue line.

There's no one of impact back there.

I've seen everyone of our defenders have multiple garbage games.

The only one I'll say positive about is Fayne.. He's only had a one or two.

 

[cj354]

I agree with some of the previous posts .. You can't judge this team fairly without first having an NHL caliber coach behind the bench. The fact that Jason Gregor mentioned in a post yesterday that we're still not practicing with enough pace/intensity, and our preparedness for the past two games tells the story right there.

This is how the convo went yesterday ..

@ Jason Greogor

Hey Jason,

Long time reader, first time poster.

In regards to your comment about the pace/intensity of the practice ... I still don't understand how this is a problem at the NHL level. Especially with Eakins' mandate on training/nutrition, and Captain Andrew "iFitness" Ference leading the charge!

I appreciate the fact that Eakins is a new(er) coach with a young(ish) team, and this is generally a recipe for a lot more teaching/learning in practice as opposed to a vicious pace. But we've been called out publicly by multiple former players and it is still an issue.

Have you ever mentioned anything when doing an interview or in a media scrum? And if so what was the response from the team?

Thanks for all of the great articles over the years!

Colin

Response from Gregor ...

I have asked about it often. They swear their pace is fine. I disagree, but all I can do is keep bringing it up.