It was a rough outing for Edmonton Oilers on Monday, occurring as it did in an internationally featured game-of-the-week against the same team that perforated their dreams in last season’s Stanley Cup Finals. The sloppy affair included a number of glaring errors by feature players, from Evan Bouchard blowing a tire on the first goal to Connor McDavidblowing his coverage on the last, with a discordant quartet of weird-ass Panthers goals blowing in the wind between times. To summarize: a distinct kicking motion; a double bounce off Stu Skinner‘s crest and Ty Emberson‘s numbers; a botched line change/scrum during which the Oilers seemed to have zero forwards for several seconds; and a sniper’s bullet off Skinner’s noggin and in.
Even at that, just barely enough mistakes to cost the Oilers the hockey game against the Cup champs as Florida Panthers rallied for a 6-5 comeback win after being shut out in both Vancouver and Calgary. A tough pill to swallow for Oil fans.
It was an out-of-character game for Kris Knoblauch’s squad, the first of the 31 the Oilers have played this season in which both teams scored more than 3 times. The squad had previously been 15-0-0 in games they had scored as many as 4 goals, never mind 5 without so much as a Bettman Point. The kind of loss that puts the ugh in ugly.
It’s a day later and still a dollar short, but surely there are a few positives to be drawn from such a high-octane affair. Most of those occurred in the offensive zone, where the Oilers have been cooking with gas. Consecutive outbursts of 7, 6 and 5 goals against NHL powers Minnesota, Vegas and Florida is impressive. In the first of those the Oilers got the sort of favourable bounces that went the Panthers’ way Monday night, and won by 6 goals. Whereas vs. FLA, even with all that chaos they were within a dazzling Sergei Bobrovsky stop of a Leon Draisaitl drive of forcing OT in the frantic final seconds.
Draisaitl had scored earlier in the contest, as had Zach Hyman with two. Both firmly belong in the category of “primary scoring” which among Edmonton forwards is exactly four deep, at least among players healthy enough to play just now. All four of them — McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins — have been ensconced as full-time members of the Oilers’ record-setting first powerplay unit since Hyman first donned the blue and orange in the fall of 2021.
In the three full years since, here are Edmonton’s top six (with ties) forwards for each regular and playoff season. It is wondrous to behold:
Not just the same four guys, but pretty much the same order every time. McDavid always #1 with other-worldly boxcars, Draisaitl always #2 somewhere within shouting distance of his buddy, then Hyman and Nugent-Hopkins swapping out at #s 3/4. One lonely instance of another Oiler interrupting the mix, that being Evander Kane slipping into third during his first playoff run in 2022.
Which of course, is what they are paid to do, with the same players occupying the same positions on Edmonton’s salary cap register. Connor #1 at $12.5 million, Leon #2 at $8.5, then the troika of Hyman, RNH, and Kane at just above $5 million apiece. Given these results, it’s hard to argue that anyone but the injury-riddled Kane hasn’t delivered the goods.The Big Four get the ice time, the powerplay time, and the results.
Same as the ’80s, seems like. The same four forwards piling up the numbers every year, a special one elevated from the rest. Now as then, the question turns to who else is providing secondary scoring after the big guns? Who is the Willy Lindstrom, the Pat Hughes, the Craig MacTavish for the modern Oilers?
We’re far enough into the new season to get a taste. Once again the same four guys top the charts, though with a couple of twists: Draisaitl is maintaining a small lead over McDavid, who missed 3 games earlier in the season. RNH and Hyman continue to battle it out for third, though their own separation from the rest of the pack is much smaller than usual. That’s partly due to the powerplay that feeds the scoring totals of all four guys has been down a couple of quarts. But beneath them has emerged a coterie of six forwards who has each chipped in 9-13 points. Here’s the full list of roster forwards.
Anybody’s guess which of them might “top” this list (as in, fifth place!) at season’s end, but at least there is strength in numbers.
On Monday night it was Connor Brown who put the Oilers ahead 3-2 in the middle frame, then Kasperi Kapanen who squeezed one home to tie the score at 5-5 deep in the third. Big goals both, even as they weren’t quite enough in the end.
That secondary scoring has been coming on strong for awhile. I wrote in my recent review of Games 21-30 how depth production had ramped up, up, up from the first set of 10 games through to the third. Today let’s “forgive” that slow October entirely, and under the “what have you done for us lately?” principle will consider just the 20 games since the calendar turned to November. This time we’ll include a few more columns, notably even-strength scoring highlighted within the orange box.
Oilers forward scoring, Nov 01-Dec 16
Brown has been the hottest member of this group for some time now. After a slow start (just 1 point through 13 games into early November) he’s come on strong with 12 in his most recent 18. In cherry-picked isolation, that’s an impressive 55-point pace, splendid (and most unlikely unsustainable) for any depth forward outside the powerplay rotation.
Last night’s snipe was his third in 3 games and the 100th of his ten-year NHL career, now 550 games deep. That he buried a one-timer past a big time goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky was icing on the cake.
- RELATED: ‘A lot of hard work’: Oilers’ Brown notches 100th NHL goal by Jim Matheson
10 of the listed points have come at even strength, third most of any Oiler over that span behind only You Know Who and You Know Too. The other 2 counters came on special teams. Not the powerplay where fattening point totals is part of the gig, but the penalty kill. Indeed, Brown has points on all 5 shorties the Oilers have scored dating back to the playoffs and has proven to be a persistent threat on the unit.
Speaking of which, Brown’s PK partner, Mattias Janmark, has been producing at a decent rate himself with 11 points in 20 games. Just 1 goal all season — and that an empty netter — but he’s been a playmaking demon, including apples on both of EDM’s shorties.
Next on the list is Vasily Podkolzin, like Brown a $1 million bargain who has not only been scoring, but out-scoring (+10 in his last 20 GP). Acquired from the Canucks for a fourth-round pick in a terrific August trade, the Russian winger has been doing his damage from up the line-up. He’s seized his chance and been stapled on Draisaitl’s wing in the absence of Victor Arvidsson and the uneven play of Jeff Skinner, early favourites to be Leon’s wingmen. For his part Podkolzin has been a very pleasant surprise who brings vital elements of youth, speed, and physicality as well as his admittedly erratic scoring exploits.
Adam Henrique is another who endured a very tough start with just 2 points through 17 games. He’s gradually been picking up the assists — and the pluses — in recent weeks. He has also emerged on the first PK unit.
More scoring down the line-up, where Corey Perry has 6 goals on the season and recent waiver pickup Kapanen 3 in just 11 games. The biggest disappointment of the group has likely been Skinner, a projected top-sixer who has found himself in Knoblauch’s doghouse at times for defensive woes. He has, however, managed to deliver 6 goals on the season, not great but also non-zero. In his most recent 8 games he’s posted 2-3-5 with +2.
Arvidsson has missed the last 15 games with a health issue that was originally described as day to day. That’s worrisome for a veteran with a history of injury, though he is practicing and is reportedly close to returning to the line-up. Problem is, who comes out to make room for him? Best guess is Derek Ryan whose own scoring has started to drop off at age 37, even as he brings value as a right-shot faceoff specialist.
- RELATED: The shifting fortunes of Arvidsson & Skinner by David Staples
Then there’s Kane, a true power forward who is recuperating from major surgeries and waiting in the wings. Still months away, his chance may not come until after the trade deadline or perhaps not until the playoffs. He has a history as much more than a “depth” scorer, having netted 62 goals in 161 (regular season) games as an Oiler, a pace north of 30 per 82. Add in 20 more snipes in just 47 playoff games, an even higher per-game rate. His various health issues have made him an afterthought for now, but at such time as he ever gets healthy he can be a force.
If it ever happens that all these guys are healthy at once, the Oilers will have 14 NHL-calibre forwards vying for 12 positions. It’s called depth and it’s a very good thing.
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