While so many Oilers forwards not named Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl have struggled for to find some offence in the first quarter of the NHL season, one of the pleasant surprises has been role-playing winger Mattias Janmark.
Janmark, who is playing 12:55 a night, has 10 points in 22 games, eight coming even-strength, one short-handed — a dandy feed to Darnell Nurse against New York Rangers last Saturday. He has just one goal, but, again, he has 10 points.
The only Oilers forwards in double digits (points) are 97, 29 and Janmark.
“Janne has played extremely well for four weeks,” said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch, who currently has the Swedish forward on right wing on the third line with Adam Henrique and Jeff Skinner. “He rarely has a bad shift and we obviously rely on him on the penalty kill (with partner Connor Brown) with our forward group. A really nice play to Darnell short-handed. He carried the puck up, had an opportunity to shoot, then a wraparound try but he held it and found Darnell coming in late.”
“We talk about players who do all the little things right and that’s Janne.”
Janmark is never measured on his offence but after signing a three-year free-agent deal in July for a $1.45 million AAV he is very much underrated. While the Oilers lost lots of speed over the summer — Warren Foegele, Dylan Holloway and Ryan McLeod up front — Janmark is sneaky fast, turning 32 in two weeks.
“I don’t really think about points much. I know when I’m playing good or not (points aside),” said Janmark, whose career high in points for a single season is 34 when playing for Dallas.
NHL forwards coming into the league are always looked upon to put up points but that’s never been Janmark’s deal. When did points cease to be important to him?
“When you’re younger you rely on them a bit more. You get hard on yourself if they (points) aren’t coming and then you go through stretches in your career when you’re simply not scoring. To stay in this league you have to find other things” apart from points, he said.
Janmark was excellent in the Oilers playoff run last spring, especially in a penalty-kill role, but he also beat Sergei Bobvrovsky on a breakaway early in the first period of Game 7 in Florida to tie it 1-1 after Carter Verhaeghe’s Panthers’ goal.
“I had a tough regular season, not many points (12 in 72 games), but you go through a good playoffs, yeah, it gives you confidence that you can do it at the highest level,” he said.
SHOTS TO GOALS
Edmonton Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ career shooting percentage is 11.9, with his out-of-nowhere 18.4 in 2022-23 when he scored 37, but it’s 4.5 this season. He has 40 shots on net (80 attempted) and only two goals.
“A forward’s average shooting percentage in the NHL is between nine and 15 percent. There’s a few players above that, exceptional shooters. Like Leon,” said Knoblauch. Draisaitl’s at 26.7 right now, with 16 goals on 60 shots and a career average of 18.5.
Draisaitl was 14.3, 16.9, 12.3 shots-to-goals his first three seasons, but hasn’t had one under 18.5 over the past six years.
“Leon can obviously shoot the puck well. That one-timer from a bad angle is difficult for a goalie to save if you hit the net. Also if you miss, well, that doesn’t count against the shooting percentage,” said Knoblauch.
“Sometimes you have an outlier season where you’re shooting really well. Last year, Zach Hyman’s was 18.6 per cent but he is typically about 13 or 14. There’s a lot of luck, circumstances dictating scoring goals,” said Knoblauch.
Nugent-Hopkins’s 4.5 per cent mirrors the scoring difficulties of most of the Oilers forwards. He was 9.8 per cent last season, with18 goals on 183 shots, so it’s going down.
“Maybe you could say Nuge isn’t taking the same quality of shots as he should. The last two or three games, though, Nuge ripped one shot off the crossbar and hit the butt-end of the goalie’s stick in the Ranger game. That’s two goals, and his shooting percentage is 10 per cent,” said Knoblauch.
This ‘n that: Newcomer Kasperi Kapanen and Derek Ryan were absent from Tuesday’s practice along with the injured Viktor Arvidsson and Hyman. “Kapanen had an immigration appointment,” said Knoblauch, in the wake of the Finnish winger’s waiver claim from St. Louis to Edmonton. “Ryan was sick.” … Phil Esposito, who scored 717 goals, many from the high slot, said recently he used to employ a paddle like Draisaitl’s. Good company … Evander Kane, who had surgery two months ago to repair two sports hernias and tears to two adductor and abdominal muscles, was seen walking around the Oilers dressing room Tuesday, with no visible movement issues. The time frame for a return is unclear but doctors said five to six months. He seems ahead of schedule. Would anybody be surprised if he’s back in January sometime? … Unless the Oilers wanted to give up winger Matt Savoie, 20, to try and get Columbus right-shot defenceman David Jiricek, who turns 20 on Thursday and is unhappy there, is there any conceivable way the Oilers and Jackets are a fit? Savoie was the ninth-overall pick in 2022, Jiricek was sixth … Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner, who got Marc-Andre Fleury’s stick autographed last week, wants to get more. “I’d like to get Vasy (Andrei Vasilevskiy) and (Sergei) Bobrovsky. I would have loved Carey Price’s. But I guess that won’t happen now. I did see him once in a hallway (during practice when Montreal was in town several years back). He said, ‘How are you doing?’ I, said, ‘Uh, good.’ I didn’t know what to say,” said the awestruck Skinner … The Oilers will likely be adding a forward for their upcoming three-day trip to Utah, Colorado and Vegas. They’ll probably bring back fourth-line winger Drake Caggiula, who has been recalled twice for four games and who was sent back to Bakersfield for salary-cap reasons … Seth Griffith was just named Bakersfield captain. Brad Malone was the former captain before retiring and taking a job as an assistant coach in junior in Oshawa … Nashville got a fourth-round draft pick from Pittsburgh for forward Phil Tomasino on Monday. Must be the going rate now for former first-round draft forwards, with Oilers the giving Vancouver a fourth-rounder for Vasily Podkolzin in August … Savoie and Noah Philp are percolating on the farm. The organization wants to leave them in the AHL to learn more. Barring a run of injuries here, you likely won’t see either player until the New Year … James Hamblin remains out with a lower-body injury in Bakersfield … Winger Roby Jarventie, acquired in the Ottawa Xavier Bourgault summer trade, remains out on the farm. He did play two games there after missing all of camp with a knee issue and had two points, but GM Keith Gretzky says they were maybe pushing things a little fast. The knee, different from the one operated on while playing in the Senators’ organization, isn’t strong enough for games just yet.