Game Day 11: Edmonton Oilers vs Nashville Predators
This in from Edmonton hockey pundit Tom Gazzola, news that Connor McDavid was skating today. “Some early positive signs on the Connor McDavid injury front. McDavid was on the ice for a skate this morning testing out his ankle at Rogers Place (DCA due to UFC & Arkells concert this weekend on main rink).”
NHL insiders have been weighing in on McDavid’s absence and what it might mean.
Said Ray Ferraro on the Ray & Dregs podcast:
“The one thing, just to keep an eye on, when they (Edmonton) lose and they look like they’re susceptible to speed. That’s something to be a little bit concerned with is. They definitely did get slower over the off season. And at some point, you’d think they might have to address that.”
Ferraro mentioned the loss of fast skaters Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway, Ryan McLeod and Warren Foegele, while bringing in players like Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner, who aren’t as fast.
On Oilers Now, NHL insider John Shannon said it’s fair to hold the Oilers to high standard, even without McDavid in the line-up.
“They have to feel that they can tread water over this period of time. But there are some talented hockey players on this club, and they have played some pretty good hockey over the last couple of years when Connor hasn’t been in the lineup.. . You can only hope that Leon (Draisaitl) becomes that catalyst for a team to dig deeper. Zach Hyman needs to get a goal somehow, someway… Ryan Nugent-Hopkins needs to contribute more. I start to think that he hasn’t contribute enough because he’s been such a useful player for the team for so long. He’s the Swiss Army knife of the club, but those are the types of guys that have to dig this team out of a hole. Adam Henrique has to do more.”
On The Dustin Nielson Show, Sportsmet commentator Luke Gazdic said, “I always love seeing which guys step up. Like there’s 22 to 25 minutes of ice time that a number of guys are going to get elevated minutes and elevated roles. And, you know, Leon’s one of them, but I just consider him to be the leader and the driver. I think it’s a really cool story with Noah Philp getting to play tonight. It’s pretty cool to see how things worked out for him… It’s pretty much four balanced lines here. Like you heard Knobs (Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch) yesterday after practice, he said there’s more rhythm and flow and room for third and fourth line guys to get going. I think he’s just going to roll these guys over and it’s gut check time baby.”
Gazdic concluded: “Listen, I know that they don’t have the record they want right now, but this is still early enough in the season that you can try things out. Like this team will be fine.”
My take
1. What a weird start to the year. Oilers are getting an edge in Grade A shots and the subset of the most dangerous of all shots, the 5-bells blasts, but are getting badly out-scored, 1.3 goals per game. In a low event game like hockey, it’s hard to under-estimate the impact of goaltending and puck luck over a short period of time when it comes to scoring goals. That said, Edmonton only has the same Grade A shot differential, +2.6 per game, that it had in the 2024 playoffs. Problem is, Edmonton isn’t playing Los Angeles, Vancouver, Dallas and Florida in their playoff beast modes. They are playing weaker teams and have not been able to dominate as much as they did under Knoblauch in 2023-24, when they were +4.6 in Grade A shots per game and +1.5 in 5-alarm shots per game and +1.0 in goals per game.
In other words, the Oilers simply have not been as good as they were under Knoblauch last season. They have slipped a notch, no surprise given Edmonton’s loss in the departments of speed and aggression. For all the praise Jeff Jackson got in July, the Oilers failed to improve over the summer, at least those being the early returns on his work.
2. I’m an Oilers optimist — or have been so in the past — so I’m inclined to be positive about what may come with McDavid being out. The last time he was out for long-ish — a six game stretch in 2019-20 — Leon Draisaitl played so well that he changed the outcome of the Hart Trophy voting. Big Drai proved the Oilers were not just a one-man team, as so many were saying, and made it clear he’s a real superstar. Draisaitl has the chance to do so again, cranking up his play and putting his name in the running for the Hart Trophy again this year.
3. The Oilers line-up projected line-up is:
Podkolzin – Draisaitl – Arvidsson
Skinner – RNH – Hyman
Janmark – Henrique – Brown
Caggiula – Philp – Perry
Ekholm – Bouchard
Nurse – Dermott
Kulak – Emberson
I like that Knoblauch is sticking with Vassily Podkolzin on a top line. Edmonton can use his speed and aggression up there, with Draisaitl and Arvidsson working the puck between them. RNH has not historically been a strong driver of a line, but he’s certainly got two strong linemates in Hyman and Skinner. The third line needs to ramp things up and play like they did in the Stanley Cup Final, while the fourth line has been desperate for an injection of some size, speed and aggression, so we’ll see if young Philp can bring it. Glad to see Caggiula also get into the line-up.
The problem is on defence where Nurse has struggled since January 2024, with his defensive game weak again just now, after an OK start to the year. Dermott has also struggled mightily. If the pairing can avoid getting scored on tonight, that will be huge.
4. Solid Twitter X thread from former Cult of Hockey contributor Jonathan Willis:
For the Oilers, season-by-season:
The blue line shows goal differential in Nurse’s 5v5 minutes. The orange line shows goal differential in non-Nurse 5v5 minutes.
Context (partners, time with McDavid) follows in the next tweet(s).
·
Season: main partner / % time with McDavid
15-16: Sekera (on weak side) / 31%
16-17: Gryba / 28%
17-18: Larsson / 35%
18-19: Russell / 38%
19-20: Bear / 49% (!)
20-21: Barrie / 58% (!!!)
21-22: Bouchard / 45%
22-23: Ceci / 36%
23-24: Ceci / 21%
24-25: Stecher / 15%
Before we get into the rest of this, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the breathtaking stupidity of walking Nurse right to the cusp of free agency, and then gluing him to McDavid a whopping 58% of the time in 2020-21.
Just incredible, inexcusable, slack-jawed idiocy.
The model to get the most out of Nurse – failing making him a full-time appendage to McDavid – looks like 2017-18 to me. A good partner, tough opponents, and a balanced rotation with strong teammates up front.
That’s more-or-less what the Oilers did in 2022-23, with Ceci approximating the role of “good partner.” If you’re wondering whether he was or not, the massive gap between those results and the 17-18 Larsson numbers should answer the question (no, no he wasn’t).
The problem for the Oilers at present is three-fold:
– Nurse is overpaid, thanks to the lunacy of 2020-21
– They don’t want to give him McDavid minutes
– They don’t have a Larsson or near-Larsson equivalent partner
It’s very difficult to square that circle.
For what little it’s worth, in the Oilers’ shoes I’d be:
– trying not to repeat the Nurse mistake with Bouchard (61% of his 5v5 time has been with McDavid)
– trying to make Nurse useable, both by going to a more balanced McDavid TOI rotation and by finding him an actual partner
P.S.
This in from Edmonton sports commentator Allan Mitchell, his comment on the Cult of Hockey’s Grade A shot project, “Today on the Lowdown, I mentioned to Bruce McCurdy that the CofH measurement of HD scoring chances is the gold standard. He mentioned there is no other team to compare the Oilers numbers. SO, is there a way to get this started/find someone doing it in other NHL cities? NST is good, but it would be good to have a comparable measure to it across the NHL. Thoughts?”
Lowetide is as eloquent and thoughtful a hockey commentator as you’ll find, so this is high praise indeed. We’ve been doing video review of all goals for and against the Oilers since 2007-08 and of all Grade A shots since 2010-11. We’ve gone over thousands of goals by now and tens of thousands of Grade A shots. In that time if I’ve learned one thing, it’s this: the most dangerous shots in hockey come from the danger man, not the guy with the puck but the guy coming into the play (often unnoticed by the defence) who takes the pass and fires it on net.
Great defensive players are always on the look-out for the danger man. From what I’ve seen of Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch, he’s well aware of this unique threat posed by the danger man, and is working with his team to cover off that player. The issue is that some players love to watch that puck and go after it, even when that’s not the best choice. It’s a hard habit to break but Knoblauch is making progress with this team. He has a system in place that accounts for the Danger Man threat. It worked last year. It’s going to be counted on more than ever with McDavid out. Edmonton has now got to play exceptional defence or it’s going to struggle to keep up in the standings.
P.P.S. Staples on Oilers Now podcast
At the Cult of Hockey
McCURDY: Oilers on a shallow foundation just now
McCURDY: Oilers shuffle lines, pairings, goalies, powerplay
McCURDY: McDavid out 2-3 weeks with ankle injury, Oilers announce
STAPLES: Oilers looking “more aggressively” for blueline help