There’s not enough lipstick for this pig.
Through the first two league games of this season the Edmonton Oilers, who were so suffocatingly efficient in the playoffs last spring they only gave up four shorties in 70 penalty-kills through 25 games, have given up five shorthanded goals in their six tries.
For sure, it’s only been two games this season, so a little early to panic, but…
The pig right now looks bad and smells bad.
How bad? Well…
With Calgary Flames coming to town Sunday, riding a 2-0 start, the 0-2 Oilers have given up five goals on the five total shots they’ve given up on the PK.
And, on four of the shorthanded goals they’ve allowed, the Winnipeg Jets and the Chicago Blackhawks have scored in half a minute or so.
Game 1 in the 6-0 loss to Winnipeg:
*Kyle Connor (nice shot) on Stu Skinner, 29 seconds after a Ty Emberson hold.
*Mark Scheifele (deflection) on Calvin Pickard, 35 seconds after a Leon Draisaitl trip.
Game 2 in the 5-2 loss to Chicago:
*Tuevo Teravainen (sharp-angle shot that pinballed off Darnell Nurse’s skate) and beat Pickard, 10 seconds after a Connor McDavid roughing call.
*Teravainen (low corner) that beat Pickard, 18 seconds after a Draisaitl hold.
The only PP goal that took any time was Seth Jones’s 45-footer Saturday for the Hawks that took 65 seconds, a shot that squeezed through Pickard with one of the Oilers best PK forwards, Mattias Janmark, in the penalty box.
Strange stuff.
In the two-month Oiler playoff run last spring, the Oiler penalty killing machine was the feel-good story through the wins over Los Angeles, Vancouver, Dallas and in the final Game 7 heart-breaker to Florida. Only the Canucks, with three PP goals in the seven-gamer in round 2, got to them. The Kings and Stars didn’t get any PP goals, Florida just one by Evan Rodrigues that ended a run of 34 penalty-kills in a row.
Again, just four PK goals given up, 94.29 per cent.
Florida was next best with nine allowed.
Through the first two games this week, the Oiler PK is 32nd at 16.67 per cent.
Not getting the saves
They say your goalie has to be your best penalty-killer, right?
But they’re not getting the saves.
We know, Stu Skinner and Calvin Pickard have been beaten 11 times overall in 40 shots over 120 minutes, but they’re not getting any stops on the PK. Literally. Part of the Oiler PK woes right now can also be traced to not having one of their PK forward pairings of Warren Foegele, who signed in Los Angeles, and Ryan McLeod, who was traded to Buffalo for Matt Savoie. Plus, they don’t have defencemen Cody Ceci, dealt to San Jose for Ty Emberson, and Vinny Desharnais, who signed with the Canucks to be tough in front of the net, clearing people out, blocking shots.
Those are the facts, but…
The Oilers still have Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Derek Ryan, Janmark and Connor Brown as their top two forward penalty-killers, but against Chicago they were all guilty. They’re also breaking in Adam Henrique and Viktor Arvidsson as a third F pair, and they need more reps, clearly, but they didn’t escape either.
On defence, Brett Kulak, who got a fair bit of work on the PK as the playoffs went on last spring, got 2:12 against the Jets with the newcomer Emberson also getting 1:43. Against the Hawks, it was Nurse (1:42) and Mattias Ekholm (1:24) on the back-end.
Whatever, the goals keep going in.
Knowing when to pressure
“Mostly, it’s not having the right pressure points,” said coach Kris Knoblauch.
“We’re out of position and they’ve made some nice plays. It’s a four-man unit out there and everyone has to be in sync, knowing when to pressure… they’ve got to know when somebody’s going to push down (to check) and the other guy has to strike.
“As I said, the other teams have made some nice plays but we’ve allowed them to make those plays, it’s everyone not working together. It’s about everyone getting on the same page,” said Knoblauch.
In the playoffs, chapter and verse, you couldn’t score on the Oiler PK. Not only that but the PK scored three shorthanded goals. Janmark and Brown, especially, became playoff heroes.
Does breaking in new people have a bearing on the PK now?
“Absolutely, yeah a little bit. There’s some new guys getting familiar with the system, knowing who’s on the ice and when to pressure… everybody was locked in and in sync in the playoffs,” said Knoblauch. “But we’ve been scored on when the four guys (forwards) who were here last year have been on the ice together, and we’ve been scored on with the new guys. To say it’s just the new guys…vthat’s not good enough (reason).”
In game 1, Nugent-Hopkins and his partner Ryan were on for the Connor snipe, and Henrique and Arvidsson were out for the Scheifele tip. In game 2, Henrique and the new guy Arvidsson were on the PK for Jones’ PP score, but the other two by Teravainen, it was Ryan and Janmark together as a forward pairing.
“Sometimes there can be a bit of an adjustment with new faces,” said Nugent-Hopkins, who picked up his 700th point, an assist on Draisaitl’s PP goal.
“But I don’t think it’s new guys or the personnel… it’s about getting back to what makes our penalty-kill tick. Two games in we can be much better and we know we will be,” he said.
The Flames are 3-for-8 on their PP through two games.
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