A better effort from the Edmonton Oilers in Florida on Thursday night, but the end result was the same: a 4-3 loss to the same team that eight months earlier ruined their entire summer. Yet another regulation defeat, the fifth straight for a squad that is struggling to get out of its own way just now.
Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch was not entirely effusive in praising his troops, though.
“We had some pretty good performances by some guys, but to get out of a funk like this when things aren’t going well… we need everybody. I thought there were a few passengers. For the most part, most of the guys did everything they could.”
No names were mentioned, which has the unfortunate byproduct of tarring everyone with the same brush. Leaving observers like this one to wonder, who exactly did the coach have in mind?
He wasn’t talking about a rookie, given there were none in the line-up. For the SCF rematch Knoblauch chose to sit out 21-year-old Matt Savoie to ice a deeply veteran line-up which was missing only Darnell Nurse to injury. 15 of the 18 skaters were at least 28 years of age, that entire group having each amassed at least 500 games of NHL experience. Only defencemen Evan Bouchard (25 years old, 324 GP) and Ty Emberson (24 y.o., 87 GP) along with forward Vasily Podkolzin (23 y.o., 196 GP) could remotely be considered young players.
Macro passengers
Doesn’t take deep statistical analysis to zero in on a trio of leading candidates, with “zero” being the operative word. That is the number of shots on goal recorded by the line of Mattias Janmark – Adam Henrique – Connor Brown at even strength.
Indeed, Janmark and Brown didn’t even attempt a shot. Both ended the night with an 0-6 shot share in about 9 minutes of 5v5 play, with the Panthers converting on 3 of those shots. The pair of defence-first forwards wound up with matching boxcars of 0-0-0, -3, a poor showing by anybody’s standards. Their expected goals were 6% and 7% respectively.
Henrique was scarcely better. In slightly less even strength time (7½ minutes) the Oilers went 0-4 in shots and 0-2 in goals. He was credited with a shot on net when his 169-foot clearance on the penalty kill had to be fielded by Sergei Bobrovski, but at even strength mustered nothing.
The same trio had performed brilliantly in this very barn during the Stanley Cup Finals, and all were re-signed on Jul 01 with expectations that would continue in that vein. On this night, however, they were hard-matched against Florida’s own third line of Anton Lundell between Eetu Luostarainen and Jesper Boqvist, with both units primarily teamed with third pairing defenders. Alas, the Oilers group had no answer for Lundell in particular, as he rode impressive boxcars of 1-2-3, +3 to first-star honours.
In short, Florida’s third line crushed Edmonton’s third line. Our video analysis at the Cult of Hockey tagged each of Henrique, Janmark and Brown with a defensive mistake on a goal against.
But credit where due, the penalty kill is a thing. Last night it was a positive in the sense that the Oilers killed off all 6 of their shorthanded situations over a combined 10:14 (5 full kills plus a trace amount at the very end of the game). Henrique, Janmark and Brown ranked 2-3-4 behind only Ryan Nugent-Hopkins among Oilers forwards in SH TOI, with each in the range of 4 minutes.
Make no mistake, though, Edmonton’s primary PKer on this night was netminder Stu Skinner, who faced — and stopped — 13 shots during those 10 minutes. Among them, 5 Grade A shots, with Janmark an identified culprit on 2 of them, Brown and Henrique 1 each.
Harsh to call them “passengers” all the same. I saw it as more lack of performance than of effort.
Two other depth forwards also stood out for mustering exactly zero shot attempts, a distressingly familiar stat for the forward corps on this road trip in particular. Kasperi Kapanen played 8 minutes on the fourth line, mostly filling it at centre and looking out of his depth in that position, especially in the defensive zone. Right winger Corey Perry also didn’t attempt a shot, but did engage in an early fight in an attempt to fire up the troops, was on the ice for 2 Edmonton goals and was deployed for the late game goalie pull. Hard to imagine Knoblauch put the 39-year-old Perry in the “passenger” department.
On the back end, Troy Stecher posted very bad numbers, with shot shares of 0-6 at 5v5 and 0-7 on the PK, but “passenger” would be a poor way to describe his playing style, not to mention an unfair one. The #7 defender was pushed into action due to Nurse’s injury, and delivered his level best as he always seems to.
Micro passengers
The game is 60 minutes long of course, with each minute subdivided into 60 seconds. A fatal error can oocur in any one of those 3600 seconds, especially if committed by multiple players.
Which brings us to the third-period goal that put Florida ahead to stay. It came just after the midway point of a fairly cautious frame that had arrows pointed to overtime and with it, a much-needed point with a chance at another. Then this happened:
“This” being what may well rank as the worst line change of the entire season. Afetr an Oilers attack fizzled, the puck went the other way, and had actually reached the Oilers fefensive zone at the time of this freeze frame. Far behind the play in the blue square, all three of (L-R) Zach Hyman, Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid have completely stopped skating and are two-footed gliding to the bench. In the orange square, their replacements, the aforementioned Brown, Henrique and Janmark, are in position to hop over the boards to take their places, but are already doomed to be far behind the play.
Florida too is in the midst of a line change, except their replacements are already on the ice and accelerating towards the action. To the far right (red square) is none other than Nate Schmidt, soon to be the goal scorer, while the primary playmaker, AJ Greer, is busting straight up the middle. Flat nobody is in position to check either man.
Here’s another freezeframe of that exact moment as captured by the brilliant Goal Visualizer feature at NHL.com, which animates the movement of the puck and all players on the ice. (Alas, I don’t have the chops to import the animation; to see it for yourself, scroll down to the Schmidt goal here and click on “Goal Visualizer”.) Both Oilers defenders have been sucked over towards the puck carrier (Lundell) leaving the whole left side of the d-zone wide open. For the Oilers, Brown and Henrique are scrambling over the boards to replace Hyman and Draisaitl, while Janmark will follow as soon as McDavid makes his way to the gate.
Leading to this about 3 seconds later. Greer and the trailing Schmidt have flooded the left side of the zone with only one defender in the lane. A third Panther (#12 Jonah Gadjovic) charges towards the slot to provide more traffic and a passing option. From here Greeg drops the puck to Schmidt, who fires an uncontested wrist shot from inside home plate which beats Stu Skinner, rings the inside of the post and finds the net behind.
Would Oil fans like a save on that shot? Yes, of course. It was a well-placed shot on an odd-man rush from inside “home plate”, but not exactly from a high-end sniper.
Would you prefer there is no shot at all because your team can execute a basic line change? Also yes. In this particular moment, all 3 of Edmonton’s highest-priced forwards lost their focus with a devastating consequence.
One such consequence befell the unfortunate trio of Janmark-Henrique-Brown who got tagged with another dash-1 on this fire drill. Life isn’t always fair, and that definitely extends to hockey.
Accountability
One might expect after a comment from the coach about “passengers”, that there might be changes afoot for the next game to the degree that extra players are available. Instead, at Friday’s practice the Oilers unrolled the exact same lines and pairings. The only change is the expected insertion of Calvin Pickard in goal for Saturday’s game at Carolina that mercifully wraps up a disastrous road trip.
Nurse did take the ice towards the end of practice and may be close. But Savoie continued to skate as the extra forward, normally a sign that he will remain the odd man out come puck drop.
Which leaves one to wonder, what the heck was all that about?
Recently at the Cult of Hockey
LEAVINS: Player grades from 4-3 loss in Florida
STAPLES: Is this clutch goaltender a perfect fit for Oilers?
McCURDY: Another reclamation project on the Oilers blueline
STAPLES: McDavid in a rut, Bowman in a quandary
McCURDY: Player grades from another discouraging loss at Tampa
LEAVINS: 9 Things, Feb 23 edition
and on Bluesky Social @brucemccurdy.bsky.social
LEAVINS: 9 Things, Feb 23 edition
and on Bluesky Social @brucemccurdy.bsky.social
Follow me on X-Twitter @BruceMcCurdy
and on Bluesky Social @brucemccurdy.bsky.social