Hockey

Game #56 – Hawks vs. Oilers Spotlight: Leon Draisaitl’s Funny Numbers

By Sam Fels 1290 0

There’s a statistical quirk to Leon Draisaitl’s league-leading points-total (85). The German has a chance to be the first player to lead the league in scoring while being a minus-player, as he’s currently -11, since Wayne Gretzky pulled it off 28 years ago with the Kings. Does it mean anything? No, probably not, but it’s fun to think about. And it’s fun to dig deeper into.

First off, Draisaitl’s -11 is something of a false flag. The Oilers have scored 51 goals at even-strength when Leon The Ladies Man has been on the ice, and given up 53. He’s had the misfortune of being on the ice for eight shorthanded goals against, which is just kind of the worst luck possible. No one would pin that on a specific player, but certain bad bounces or misplays or a lack of saves.

Still, it’s hard to believe that the Oilers can’t even do better than break even when Draisaitl or even Connor McDavid are on the ice, which gives you some indication of just how big of a talent drop-off there is from them to the rest of the Oilers. For comparison’s sake, both McDavid and Draisaitl are in the top-ten for the amount of goals scored at evens when they’re on the ice, but they’re the only ones who don’t have a significantly positive goals-percentage for that work (Panarin leads with a 59-31 split).

It’s easy to point to the .897 SV% the Oilers get when Draisaitl is on the ice and say that’s the culprit right there. And it sure explains most of it. And if you dip into expected-goals, trying to measure the kinds of chances they’re producing, Draisaitl is again in the top-ten. But he’s also in the bottom-five in expected goals against, which has nothing to do with his goalies (so’s Patrick Kane, in case you want to detect a pattern). Now, you’d probably say the Oilers would be content just trading chances when Draisaitl and/or McDavid are on the ice, given that they’re always more likely to bury more of them than the opposition. But that hasn’t really happened, as we’ve seen, thanks to their goaltending. Both McDavid and Draisaitl have seen more pucks go into the net than they “should” have, given the expected numbers. But again, if everything was working out as it “should” the Oilers would still be just about even with them on the ice.

Another strange quirk is that no one’s metrics seem to get that much worse away from Draisaitl than they do with him. Some of that is that when they’re not on the ice with him, they’re on the ice with McDavid, and that will always even things out for just about anyone that can stand up in a pair of skates. Still, see for yourself:

Leon Draisaitl – Teammates – On Ice – Natural Stat Trick

When you get to relative metrics, Draisaitl is behind the team-rate, though in the past he’s had some years significantly ahead of it when it comes to expected goals.

All of it makes for a slightly more muddled picture than we might have thought before. Here’s a player that is consistently in the top five in scoring in the league, and this year he’s done it with a fair amount of time at center away from McDavid. The Oilers are in the playoff chase for once, so it would seem pretty clear that Draisaitl is a league-foundational piece. And yet you look a little deeper, and also consider how the Oilers have gone nowhere almost all the time, and it feels like a ton of scoring that’s just spinning wheels.

Now, put a real goalie behind Draisaitl and he’s probably +20 and the Oilers would be running away with the Pacific. Or maybe a defense that could limit chances would help. But it’s fun to consider what is actually going on instead of what we’re told surface numbers mean.

Hockey

Game #56 – Hawks vs. Oilers: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1048 0

These affront-to-The-Lord Orange Jerseys: It’s so sad, because the throwback blues of the 80s Oilers are almost perfection. They pop off the screen in HD. They harken back to the only time the Oilers mattered, which you’d think they’d want to hold onto given they’ve spend nearly three decades in the wilderness since. And now these orange things, which look like a hallucination on bad shrooms, don’t even have the right shade of blue. When will teams learn brighter is better? Their Alberta neighbors to the south get it, as the Flames are going all-retro next season. Imagine the old blue Oilers skating against the old school whites of the Flames? That’s a slice of heaven there. Instead, we’re left with this trash.

Zack Kassian: Look, we’ve all dreamed of punching a Tkachuk, whichever one happens to be available at the time. And maybe Kassian had a point with Tkachuk running around and then not answering for it. Except you can’t jump the guy and punch him on the ground. Also, Kassian is a doofus. And hiding behind some “code” or “hockey ethics” only makes you a bigger one. He can fuck off, except the Oilers just extended him believing that his production with McDavid is what he really is, instead of realizing some jerkoff peeing in the sink in the 300 Level of Rogers Place could get 10 goals on his wing.

Mike Smith: Too bad Shaw won’t be around for this one. We’ll just have to settle for Smith torpedoing the Oilers playoff chances in the last week of the season, which you know he will.

 

Hockey

Game #4 – Oilers 1, Hawks 3 – It’s Not Enough to Feel It, It Needs to Overwhelm You

By Rose Rankin 1916 0

It finally happened, folks! The Hawks played a solid game nearly the full 60 minutes, they had even-strength goals, Corey Crawford was back to his old self. And all is right with the world (well, not really, but for like this very minute it kinda is).

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

–The big news (aside from the win, obviously) is that the Hawks didn’t get domed in the second period. And not only did they avoid playing like shit, they were actually dominant in that period. They outshot the Oilers 17-6, led 32-8 in attempts, had a 75 CF% at evens, and of course got the only goal of the period thanks to a quick shot from Kane off a faceoff win by Dylan Strome. And it was an even strength goal—who knew they could still do that? Beyond the numbers, they passed the eye test too. Brandon Saad had two excellent chances in the period, both off lovely feeds from Dominik Kubalik just above the circles. Darnell Nurse made a great play on the first one to break up Saad’s momentum and the second one he hit the post, but despite the lack of finish they were exactly the plays and chances we want to see. And Connor Murphy made the same feed to Caggiula in the second so if any of these guys could learn to finish, we may have that air raid offense we keep talking about.

–There was, however, an element of luck to all this. Yes, the Oilers did not play all that well tonight but Connor McDavid‘s speed is still other-worldly even on an off night, and he nearly tied it after calmly stealing the puck from Ryan Carpenter (who otherwise wasn’t bad) and driving right to the net. He lost control a bit and the contact with Crawford negated the goal, but if he had stopped about six inches sooner the second would have ended tied.

–And that exemplified how even in this dominant period, it felt like the Hawks’ lead was tenuous—that they were one bad break away from losing their grip on things. The Oilers seemed confused as to why things weren’t going their way, why all the bad bounces and classic Crawford saves were thwarting them, and it wasn’t until the second goal in the third that it began to feel like the Hawks were in control.

–Alexander Nylander got that go-ahead goal—did you think you were gonna hear that? We like to give Nylander a lot of shit around here, but it actually was a nice takeaway from McDavid of all people (again, he had an off night). It was a badly needed insurance goal. So they’re going to still try and make Fetch happen, get ready. I’m of the opinion that one good play does not a useful player make, but the Hawks NEED this trade to work so despite being marooned on the fourth line, he’ll worm his way into the lineup again and they’ll keep Fetch around for a little while.

–Crawford was fucking great. He had a .964 SV% and made the point-blank saves we know and love him for. He absolutely deserved to be the first star of the game, and everyone who was freaking out that he’s lost his touch should sit down.

–Speaking of things working, can we keep Kubalik-Kampf-Saad together? They had a 79 CF% on the night, and to put it another way, they were largely responsible for keeping McDavid-Draisaitl-Kassian to a 41 CF%. It’s telling in and of itself that Beto O’Colliton put 8-64-20 out against one of the best lines in the entire NHL and not the ostensible top line. And it made sense, seeing as McDavid’s line had some of their most productive shifts against Strome’s line in the third. Like everyone else, I’m confused if Toews is hurt or if he’s just in a slump or if it’s a sign of a course correction after his renaissance last year. It’s probably too soon to tell, but signs aren’t good thus far.

–The penalty kill was marginally better. There was a shot off the post in the first, so again, a bit of luck, and obviously the Oilers converted late in the third which really created some unnecessary drama. But, even aside from those issues it was still better, going 2-for-3. The power play…meh, I guess it was slightly better at times but that’s not saying much. They avoided the frustrating stand-around-and-wait-for-Kane bullshit, but they got held to the outside, which they still struggled to do on their own penalty kill. So special teams are a work in progress, is what I’m trying to say.

–Brandon Saad worked so damn hard to get a goal and even that empty netter was like there was a force field on the goal line but he PERSEVERED people. Four shots, one goal, 72 CF%…he had himself a night.

Obviously we hope this is the start of the Hawks turning things around—getting some reliability with the lines, less awful special teams, people shutting the hell up about Crawford. But it remains to be seen, for now, onward and upward…

Line of the Night: “They’re sellouts but there are still tickets available.” —Foley doing the mandated wheel pose about the sellout streak and GREAT SEATS STILL AVAILABLE at the same time

Beer de jour: Lagunitas Daytime (yes, it’s nighttime, I know, leave me alone)

Hockey

Game #4 – Oilers vs. Hawks Spotlight: Now We’ll Find Out Where Ken Holland Was Born

By Sam Fels 1369 0

Due to the decade-plus-long streak of Red Wings exceptionalism, it was just a given that Ken Holland was a genius who prolonged the mid-90s dominance constructed by Jimmy Devellano by unearthing gems like Nicklas Lidstrom and Niklas Kronwall and Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. And yeah, that’s quite a foursome to back up the free-spending ways of the Bowman Years.

As time went along, it appeared more and more that Holland simply kept Forrest Gump’ing his way into great players, and as the cap took more and more hold of the league, he simply couldn’t adjust. There were some hideous contracts handed out (Frans Nielsen and Trevor Daley, hello!), while the pipeline went dry for years (remember when Tomas Jurco was going to change the sport forever?). That core that ran the league in the mid-to-late 2000s got old and had not support. And then it all collapsed, and the Wings are still trying to get out from under it. Some began to wonder what Holland’s actual legacy was. Was he just born on third in Detroit?

We’ll find out now, because for some reason Holland decided to take on one of the few bigger messes than Detroit in the NHL, and that’s the Edmonton Oilers.

Perhaps like a couple coaches have, the allure and glow of Connor McDavid is just too strong to ignore. Perhaps the name-recognition of Holland in the sport delays any inklings McDavid might have of demanding out (they have to be there, right?). Or maybe it’s just the truckload of cash dropped at his door. Whatever the reason, Holland is certainly up to the knee in it now.

One thing Holland might be hoping is that simply not being Peter Chiarelli buys him a season or two to assemble a couple more draft picks. The Oilers only hope is to get production out of players on minimal deals to offset the shovelful of horseshit they’re getting from some of their higher-paid players.

Salvation might not be as far away as everyone likes to joke. The Oilers only have McDavid, RNH, Draisaitl, Neal, Chiasson, Klefbom, Russell, Koskinen signed for next year, though they only have $23M in space to fill some 13-14 spaces. The only player they are likely to want to keep is Darnell Nurse, but his play has hardly warranted paying him like the angry Seth Jones we thought he might become a year or two ago. Perhaps Phillip Broberg and Evan Bouchard can join the blue line for cheap help in the next couple seasons. Then again, Broberg was Holland’s first pick and was widely panned. Tigers can’t change their stripes, after all.

Which continued the tradition of what Holland had done in Detroit. Over his last nine drafts in Motor City, after they had stopped picking in the high-20s due to on-ice success, Holland provided only Anathasiou. Mantha, Larkin, and (if we squint) Tyler Bertuzzi. There’s some hope for Svechnikov and Hronek, but needless to say no jury is anywhere close to being back from lunch on them. Without reinforcements from within, all the while swearing that they were just overcooking in Grand Rapids, the Red Wings main roster aged and expensed its way out of competence.

One way to goose the process would be to find a trade, but the Oilers don’t have much to make a splash with. Draisaitl and McDavid are immovable and you’d never get fair value for them anyway. The window to move Ryan Nugent-Hopkins along might very well have passed. He has one more year on his deal after this one before hitting unrestricted free agency, and he’ll only be 27, so the time would be at this deadline. Waiting until the offseason will only lower his value. But then the Oilers would have to find another center or winger to make up for Draisaitl moving back to his natural pivot spot. It’s going to have to be more than Kailer Yamomoto, that’s for sure.

While it would be un-hockey-like, there must be a ticking clock hanging over McDavid as well. If any player could pull an NBA-style “Get Me The Fuck Outta Here” power move, it’s Run CMD. He’s seen the playoffs once in five seasons and patience must be thin. If Holland hasn’t presented something of a plan to his captain, he’s going to have to soon.

Holland needs at least one more year of high picks though, and maybe collecting a few more by selling off whatever’s not tied down. Except there isn’t anything. What would be worth anything at the deadline? Kassian? Maybe Benning? Those are worth low-round picks at best. RNH to someone desperate might be his only hope.

Does Holland have the patience for a slow burn that he didn’t show in Detroit until it was too late? Does he have the luxury considering what McDavid’s mood might be? We’ll see what he’s made of now.

Hockey

You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: Edmonton Oilers

By Sam Fels 1515 0

And now this disaster. I was thinking earlier this morning that there really isn’t a parallel to the Oilers wasting one of the best players of all-time for years, but of course there is. It’s the Anaheim Angels. Mike Trout appeared in the playoffs once, and his team has been weighed down by incredibly bad contracts and journeymen and kids who were never up to it. And the same goes for Connor McDavid. Other than Leon Draisaitl, they’ve been surrounded be either old trash or kids that just haven’t popped the way it was thought (looking at you directly, Darnell Nurse). And this season doesn’t look to be any different. We can only hope this is the one where McDavid snaps and demands a trade midseason or in the summer, to give us some proper drama.

Let’s get through it together:

2018-2019

35-38-9  79 points (6th in Pacific)

2.79 GF/G (20th)  3.30 GA/G (25th)  -42 GD

47.9 CF% (25th)  46.6 xGF% (26th)

21.2 PP% (9th)  74.8 PK% (30th)

Goalies: Sweet Jesus God. As we said with the Flames preview yesterday, the two Alberta teams pulled an indirect goalie switch, with Mike Smith, his .900 SV%, and his cantankerous nature landing behind an even worse defense than the one he had in Calgary that had him throwing whatever he could fit under the bus. Won’t his go well? Smith had a promising playoff performance while under constant carpet-bombing from the Avalanche, but that won’t be a worry here. Though the carpet-bombing might be. Smith is also 37, and I guess the hope here is that being reunited with coach Dave Tippett will help them rekindle the sporadic and greatly overblown success they had in Arizona. Good luck.

Backing him up is Mikko Koskinen, who earned a three-year extension from Peter Chiarelli, which must have been the last straw as Chiarelli was fired the very next day. Which might lead one to ask how you’re letting a GM you want to shitcan sign anyone to an extension, but keep in mind EdMo is where logic freezes and then is pissed on for sport. Koskinen’s .906 last year really inspired the masses, and as he’s 31 now there’s little reason to think it’s going to get much better. Sure, Tippett can batten down the hatches and try and create trench after trench in front of him. But with this outfit, what would that matter. Fun fun fun!

Defense: The “definition of insanity” quote isn’t actually real. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results just makes you the Oilers. So once again, these clowns are going to roll out Oscar Klefbom, Darnell Nurse, Kris Russell, Adam Larsson, Matthew Benning, and even Brandon Manning, and then be truly perplexed why McDavid is bringing a machete to the dressing room that he keeps sharpening and whispering something about the time of purification being at hand.

Nurse just has never blossomed into the atom-smashing, puck-moving loudmouth he promised as a junior, and is basically just kinda there. Klefbom, while allowing for a bunch of Tom Jones jokes, is just an ok possession-driver. Larsson is great at putting all his equipment on. The rest you know. They must hope Evan Bouchard can stick this time, though he seems to be a bit of a plodder and will need to quicken up to be effective at this level. Ethan Bear is going to keep Bouchard in the AHL for now, along with something called Joel Persson, because you always want to trust 25-year-olds making their NHL debut to really impact your roster. The hope must be for Bouchard to bludgeon the AHL for half of a season and then be up.

Forwards: Zack Kassian is going to be on McDavid’s line. I don’t know what more I have to say.

Once again, the Oilers will keep having the debate of whether Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins should play center or be moved to McJesus’s wing to give him any talent to play with, and once again there really won’t be a right answer. They’ve reassembled the bad parts of the 2015 Wings with Riley Sheehan and Tomas Jurco here, and remember that Wings team sucked. James Neal escaped his hell in Calgary to stand still and fire here with whatever passes McDavid or Draisaitl can get him. Which should actually work for 20-25 goals or so.

Sam Gagner has come home again, even though you were pretty sure he was dead. Tippett will find a way to keep Kailer Yamamoto off this roster, even though it could use all the dash it can find.

Prediction: This is where I’m supposed to say that Tippett will tighten things up and at least lower their goals against to keep them competitive for a while. But Ken Hitchcock couldn’t do it, and that’s all he does. And Todd McLellan is no idiot and he couldn’t either. Even if you trusted the goalies, which you shouldn’t, the defense has no top pairing player anywhere. Maybe if Tippet is finally the one to unlock Nurse, things could improve. But how many coaches is it going to take?

Tippett surely isn’t known for getting max scoring out of a team, and this team was short on scoring even with McClavicle, RNH, and Leon The Ladies Man. They still think Kassian can do anything. Neal might pop for a few goals, but not enough. They’re simply miles behind Calgary, Vegas, and San Jose, and you can’t see them running with any wildcard contender either. It’s another lost season up in EdMo, barring some miracle.

Save yourself, Connor. No one else here will.

Everything Else

Ladies And Gentlemen…The Edmonton Oilers

By Sam Fels 1532 0

To try and add to this would be the definition of overwriting, overthinking, overdoing the story, but that’s what we do around here.

Ever since the rumors started over the weekend that the Oilers brass has backed up an armored truck or six to the door of Ken Holland, and then it came to fruition, I’ve hardly been able to contain my glee. The Oilers evolution has moved from simply trying to cash in on the names of the past from their own organization to cashing in on the names of the past from other organizations. Resumes don’t matter as much as name recognition, and as long as the accomplishments on said resumes are at least 10 years in the past. It’s just so perfect. “Well, we tried hiring our famous alumni, so let’s try hiring someone else’s! That’s the ticket”

To be fair to Ken Holland and what awaits him, there is just about nothing anyone could do here. They have something like $13M in cap space, and need like, six wingers and three d-men. And a goalie. And that number could go down if they re-sign Jesse Puljujarvi, which they kind of need to because they can get him cheap. But things may already be broken between him and the team.

So essentially what the Oilers need, or needed now, is a GM who can be creative and unearth some real gems for real cheap. See things that others wouldn’t. They need this to extricate themselves from the mess their last GM put them in. Which is exactly the kind of mess Ken Holland created in the place the Wings brought in Steve Yzerman to Jazzy Jeff him out of.

Contracts to Andrej Sekera and Milan Lucic don’t look all that different than the ones given to Trevor Daley or Frans Nielsen. Again, to be fair to Holland, Dylan Larkin, Andreas Anathasiou, and Filip Hronek were found with mid-first round or later-round picks, and that’s going to be vital for the Oilers. If he can do that again, maybe two years down the road things will start to be ok.

But you wouldn’t bet on that, because Holland didn’t pick enough of them (until maybe recently) to keep the Wings from being also-rans for the last five years. It’s just so Oilers. A team that thinks its name still carries the most weight in the league and anyone associated with it receives gloss from that simply by being around goes for the only name outside the organization they recognize. Holland was never able to produce another batch of players after his first one, which he may have just stumbled upon anyway. That’s a common affliction in hockey circles, of course. We’re seeing it here with the Hawks, whose current regime was handed the core that produced three Cups and has struggled to feed the the production line behind it. Same for the Kings. The Penguins had to find a new GM to create a second reign.

The Oilers await their first wave, though. What they needed was an outside-the-box thinker, not someone who says, “Thomas Vanek could help.” Someone who can find a way to get out from under a bad contract or two and fleece another GM for a piece or two. Find another Mathieu Perreault or Nino Neiderreiter, a player who is highly effective, not expensive, and probably not rated by their team. What was the last trade Holland won? What was the last signing that portended to any kind of vision?

But vision isn’t what the Oilers do. Seeking headlines is, as well as perhaps satiating their ravenous press corps. Holland is a name everyone knows, he won a Cup or two once upon a time, and that’s all the research the Oilers did. “This will buy us some time,” had to be the overriding thinking.

It’s hard to think of another player the level of Connor McDavid who’s going to see his career chucked down the incinerator by his organization’s incompetence. There was the first batch of LeBron’s, but he was wise enough to fuck off before his prime went away. Mike Trout comes to mind, as the Angels scramble for shore or dock dragging around Albert Pujols and previous mistakes. That’s probably as close as you get, and they’ve each only seen the playoffs once.

At least Trout has the Southern California sunshine to bask in, and the thought that his team is actually trying. How McJesus would love anything on par with Shohei Ohtani. McDavid just as early sunsets and a biting wind, the emptiness between the ears of his bosses.

It would be sad if it weren’t so funny.

Everything Else

Why Aren’t The Hawks Considered The Oilers?

By Sam Fels 1792 0

As long as we’re firebombing everyone, let’s get out the heavy artillery and mercenaries with no soul to wield it.

One team is considered the laughingstock of the entire league. One team is viewed as just a down-on-their-luck powerhouse instead of a Den of Incompetence, which it just might be. They both have 76 points. What’s funny is that the Oilers finished with more points last year, and were only six points behind the Hawks the year before that when they both made the playoffs. Except the Oilers actually bothered to win a round, or even a game.

I know, I know. The Oilers have the exact opposite pedigree of the Hawks before that. This is where I’d also point out that Peter Chiarelli was the width of a post in double OT in Game 1 of the ’13 Final from being a two-time Stanley Cup winner, one behind ol’ Stan there. So while the team might not have any of the glow, the two GMs who built these current messes are more similar than you think.

And you may say, “Yeah, but the Oilers only have 76 points because Connor McDavid is Dark Phoenix and he’s got a really good running buddy in Leon Draisaitl and another pretty good one in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and otherwise they’d be the Senators.” You wouldn’t be wrong. Except then I’d say the same thing about Patrick Kane, and then Alex DeBrincat and Jonathan Toews. And Kane and Toews are older than McDavid and either RNH or Draistail, take your pick.

And then you might say, “Ok, even if I give you that, the Hawks haven’t handed out a patently stupid contract like Milan Lucic.” Here’s one for ya: Milan Lucic over the past three years has two more points than Artem Anisimov, and for only a million and a half more per season. And Lucic only cost money, whereas Anisimov cost you Brandon Saad the first time as well as his money.

We’ve laughed and scoffed at the inability of the Oilers to build a defense, and that’s the main reason they suck. Ok, so heading into next year, which blue line would you take?

Oilers – Klefbom, Larsson, Nurse, Benning, Sekera

Hawks – Keith, Seabrook, Gustafsson, Murphy, possibly some comb of Forsling, Dahlstrom, Jokiharju.

And before you answer, remember the Oilers rank ahead of the Hawks in every defensive category and they’ve gotten essentially the exact same save-percentage this season.

Well sure, the Hawks had to hold onto guys longer, you’d say, considering what they’d accomplished, which hampered their flexibility, whereas Chiarelli basically got to build the Oilers from scratch. Somewhat fair, but the only holdover for the Hawks now who has become a foul-smelling, maggot-infested corpse is Seabrook. Yes, Keith isn’t what he was and has actively sucked or not cared or both at times. But he could almost certainly fill out a second or third-pairing role for you, and it isn’t his fault that the Hawks have literally found no one to move him into that, other that MAYBE Connor Murphy.

There are differences. The Hawks don’t have an obviously franchise-sinking trades like Hall-for-Larsson. They do have a collection of deadline and offseason deals that netted them nothing that has helped yet. Off the top of my head: Sharp trade, Bickell trade, Leddy trade, Danault trade, Hartman trade. Shaw trade got you DeBrincat, so there’s a win!

In reality, I don’t think the Hawks are the Oilers. The Oilers are also capped out for next year, and that’s with pretty much this as a roster. Evan Bouchard appears to be their only prospect to get excited about, and we’ll see with Kailer Yamamoto. The Hawks can at least boast about Jokiharju and Boqvist (maybe on both), and Sikura, Perlini, Kahun, Kampf are at least “guys” to fill out the bottom of a roster on a good team. But the connections are closer than you think.

 

 

Everything Else

Game #54 – Hawks 6, Oilers 2 – I Set Out Running but I Take My Time

By Rose Rankin 1889 0

It was worrisome for a minute, but then the Blackhawks remembered they were playing the Oilers, and their confidence that they weren’t the shittiest team in the league, or run by the biggest dumbasses in the league, or from the most miserable, cold location in the league managed to just overpower a confused Edmonton team, who also suddenly remembered they were the Oilers. By the end, all Run CMD could do was watch. To the bullets!

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

– Things started well enough but then the last half of the first period went to shit for the Hawks. They took four straight penalties, some of which overlapped leading to 5-on-3s, and Leon Draisaitl was having his way with the Hawks, scoring two goals in about two minutes, both on power plays. The defense looked generally lost, and in particular Seabrook got absolutely smoked by Connor McDavid. I know that’s not shocking and shouldn’t even be news, but in real time it was ugly to watch.

– Prior to the penalties and the Hawks basically falling to pieces for a while, our favorite beneficiary of the Fels Motherfuck, Erik Gustafsson, potted his 11th goal of the year and it came…wait for it…on the power play. We talked about it on the podcast last night, and I’m telling ‘ya, someone is going to take Gus for a real defenseman and if the Hawks play their cards right, they can cash in off the results of this motherfuck. We’ll be waiting by the phone for the kudos and our share of the spoils.

– But enough of all that—five goals in one period! If it had been against any other team I wouldn’t have believed it. But this is the Oilers, and despite Ty Rattie have a good night with three shots, Draisaitl scoring twice and Connor McDavid being Connor McDavid, it still wasn’t enough. And once the Hawks rattled them with Hayden’s goal, a fourth-line goal that was the result of a quick passing play from Marcus Kruger early in the third, the Hawks just kept scoring at will. In fact is was a DLR in the span of one period, and Ken Hitchcock had no idea how to help his team respond. Which is hilarious, except when you think about a generational talent being wasted on this shit organization.

– And I have to say, I’m bummed FOR McDavid. Sure, he makes a shitload of money and no, I’m not actually losing sleep or anything, but it’s hard to see a game like this, and records like what the Oilers have, while also seeing his capabilities and not rue the fact they’re being so blatantly wasted in this mis-managed and poorly coached dumpster fire of a team.

– But before it sounds like this was just another example of the Oilers fucking up royally, let me state for the record that the Hawks got their shit together and played better as soon as the second period started. They came back from the first intermission being on the PK but killed off the last of that string of penalties, and they bounced back from being underwater in possession in the first period to a 60 CF% for the second. The Kane-Toews-Caligula line in particular had a number of strong shifts in the offensive zone. Ward had a highlight reel save against Rattie to keep it 2-1. They played WELL during the second and just carried that into the third, which is when it translated into goals.

– The second line looked really good tonight as well. They only scored one goal (only! We can say only one because there were so many!), but they had a 67 CF% and had strong shifts all night. And not only did Dominik Kahun get an assist on Strome’s goal, he got one of his own in the barrage later in the third period.

– You know I love to complain about the defense, but get this: every Hawks defenseman had a 50 CF% or better, and as a team they only gave up 27 shots tonight. Despite the incident of McDavid lighting Seabrook on fire, and some early struggles during the bad half of the first, this was actually a relatively competent defensive effort. Is this the end of days?

So here we are talking about the Blackhawks being three points out of a playoff spot. Let that insanity sink in. To be completely honest, I don’t think this is actually a playoff team, and what we’re seeing is them benefiting from shitty opponents, a good power play, Patrick Kane, and a large dose of luck. But whatever, they’re on a hot streak right now and are beating the teams they should be beating. So I’m not going to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, and let’s enjoy it while it lasts. Because it won’t last. Onward and upward!

Beer de Jour: Slalom King, Crystal Lake Brewing

Line of the Night: “The senior citizen behind the Oilers bench…” –Foley, attempting to throw shade at or be polite to Ken Hitchcock, I’m still not sure which…

Photo credit: Chicago Tribune

Everything Else

Game #54 – Hawks vs. Oilers Preview/Postcard Party: And Now Here’s Some Tripe

By Sam Fels 1557 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Hawks 20-24-9   Oilers 23-24-5

PUCK DROP: 8pm

TV: WGN

EdMo Dee: Oilers Nation

The Hawks conclude this post-break, three-game road trip in the NHL’s “Beyond The Wall,” the hellscape that is Edmonton, Alberta (I assume). And when I say hellscape, I really mean the team that you’ll find there. Though a city that cold can’t have that much going on, no matter how much oil money flows or freezes in the streets. I’m sure the Hawks will thank the schedule makers for a five-day trip that spans three timezones and a collective temperature of “go fuck yourself.”

You may have heard about the Oilers, Biggest laughingstock in the league, despite having two more points than the Hawks. If the Hawks were to win tonight most Oilers fans would take being level on points with them as rock-bottom, just to give you a clear vision of what the Hawks are right now. Have the best player in the league as well, these Oilers. Can’t seem to make that count. Recently fired their addled GM two years too late. Now everyone is waiting with giddy excitement to see what drunken, near-sighted clown they hire next. He’ll almost assuredly have played on the Oilers in the 80s, because the one time they tried not to do that they ended up with Peter Chiarelli and his bent vision of reality, which basically involved whatever signing caused him to grab his groin aggressively. So clearly they have to go back to what didn’t work before. God bless this organization.

On the ice, the Oilers have center-depth and literally nothing else. Run CMD, Leon Draisaitl, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are by far their three leading scorers, and at various times this season have played with each other. Now they’re all back at their natural center positions, but when you look at what surrounds them it’s enough to make your food turn septic in your digestive track.

Milan Lucic is “skating” with McDavid, except you can’t call what Lucic does skating anymore so much as “thrashing about as the air currents push him ever so slightly.” Alex Chiasson is a second-line winger. Jujhar Khaira and Zack Kassian are somehow on a NHL third-line together instead of loading up on Skittles at a truck-stop somewhere during an AHL bus ride. “Putrid” doesn’t even come close to starting to describe this, and now you know why they are where they are. They’ve broken Jesse Puljujarvi, if he was anything to begin with, and he’s skating with Kyle Brodziak and Brad Malone in a chilling vision of what the future as a tomato can will look like.

It’s not any better on the back end. This is a team that traded FOR Brandon Manning, remember. And he plays. Adam Larsson is parading around the top pairing with a Kings castoff. Darnell Nurse will occasionally flash the modern-Pronger bit we thought he was destined for, and then remembers he’s spent almost all of his career with Kris Russell and retreats into sadness done in blue and orange again. Andrej Sekera wanders the arena looking for whatever fell off of him this week. It’s bleak.

And when the Oilers have threatened to be good in the past, it was because Cam And Magic Talbot could bail them out. He hasn’t this year, and this is where they are. They’re trusting Mikko Koskinen, a 30-year-old whose flights got crossed up and ended up signing here from the KHL rather than try and figure out how to rebook. In Chiarelli’s final act of lunacy, he re-signed Koskinen for three years to kind of just stand there, which is what he does. But his .908 is better than Talbot’s .893.

The Oilers tried to salvage this by hiring Ken Hitchcock midseason, because his track record of success is so blaring over the past 12 years. They’ve gone 14-14-4 with Hitch, a massive improvement over the 9-10-1 they managed with Todd McLellan. You know it’s bad when Hitch is longing for Jay Bouwmeester and Alex OrangeJello again. He gave up his Civil War reading for this?

This is maybe the biggest mess in the league, and whatever stooge they install as GM is going to find it nearly impossible to extricate. There’s barely any money coming off the books in the summer, really only Talbot’s $4M+ hit. And this team has no wingers. Lucic is in Seabrook territory at this point, and Kris Russell isn’t far behind. That is if the Oilers were inclined to move Russell, but they still seem oddly infatuated with him, mostly to sneer at most of the hockey world pointing out he sucks.

And really, that’s all the Oilers have been for nearly three decades now. Most of the hockey world has been pointing out they suck since 1991, and they still point and gloat about five Cups won before most of you could form a sentence. They’re convinced that run that started 35 years ago still makes them ahead of the game and won’t hear otherwise. This organization has accomplished exactly dick since their glory days, save one goofed Final appearance the first year of the lockout when nothing made sense and is something Chris Pronger clearly erased from his memory (the Blues traded him for Eric Brewer, by the way. Take a moment to think about that).

Anyway, tonight’s challenge is simple enough. Hitch will throw McDavid out against Keith and Seabrook as often as he can, unless he still thinks it’s 2013, and he might. Failing that, Forsling and Gustafsson will be similarly tortured. If the Hawks can somehow keep McJesus on a leash, they should have a good chance at this one. The Oilers recently gave up four power play goals in a game, so the Hawks’ PP should barely be able to keep from slobbering when they get their chance.

As for the Hawks, no word yet on who starts but one would hope Delia gets wheeled back out there. Ward’s had two decent starts in a row though and we know Coach Cool Youth Pastor will shit himself if he has to tell any veteran other than Chris Kunitz anything bad, so you never know. Perlini should stay in ahead of Kunitz, but that’s about it.

As we said at the weekend, the schedule is pretty shitty now, so if the Hawks are insistent on chasing playoff spots that don’t really matter, this is where they’ll make their run. With the Canucks and Wings at home next, they could actually put together a substantial winning streak. Then again, this is just about the same outfit that got worked by the Wings at home last year. The Hawks have lost to the Oilers twice already this season, but hey, they’re both under .500 so maybe they’re not good enough to beat anyone three times.

We’re in this together.

 

Game #54 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #54 – Hawks vs Oilers Spotlight: Second Cousin Of Puljujarvi The Rabbit

By Sam Fels 1412 0

There are so many decisions that Oilers fans would like to mold into a physical object, make it as blunt as possible, and then use it to beat the recently-departed Peter Chiarelli over the head. The Lucic signing, the Hall trade, the lack of any d-men that truly matter, or the lack of wingers that matter even less, and we could keep going. Stalin wishes he could have scorched the Earth quite like this. But one that goes under the radar a bit, because of his age and hope, is that #4 pick on Jesse Puljujarvi.

It’s always easy to play this game, because everyone misses on someone pretty much every year. And really, the only player that Oilers fans can lament that was there instead of Puljujarvi is Matthew Tkachuk, which stings even more as he’s four hours down the road in Calgary driving everyone nuts (in a good way). Still, it’s almost certainly a different landscape for the Oilers if Tkachuk is running alongside Run CMD and leaving either Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or Leon Draisaitl, or both, to play center. So we’ll leave that there. There’s also the idea of what the Oilers might have gotten for that pick in a trade, given that they were already lousy with young, pedigreed picks. Perhaps that winger or d-man they’ve been looking for for a decade or more?

Oilers fans could excuse that pick if they thought Puljujarvi was handled right. You won’t find one that thinks that, though. Puljujarvi was tossed into the NHL right from draft day at 18, and most agreed at the time that was a leap. The Oilers were still on a seemingly-endless playoff-less streak then, they would make it that year, and were adding talent wherever they could find it for what they knew to be a serious push with a fully healthy McDavid. Figuring Puljujarvi could just ride shotgun at some point might not have been ludicrous, but it was hopeful at best.

And it’s not like every top-five pick goes straight to the NHL. In the past five drafts, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Michael Del Colle, Dylan Strome, Mitch Marner, Olli Juolevi, Miro Heiskanen, Cale Makar, Elias Pettersson, and Barrett Hayton this year have all taken at least a “gap year.” For some, it’s worked a trick like Marner, Heiskanen, Pettersson. Others are still hoping to prove it was worth the bother, including Strome here in town. There is no hard and fast rule on these things.

Still, those who didn’t come to the NHL right away pretty much made a real impact as soon as they did, and if they haven’t there’s some doubt if they will, like with Strome and Del Colle. Those like Puljujarvi who came straight to the NHL have been impact players from jump street, with names like Kotkaniemi, the dreaded Laramie Tkachuk, Svechnikov, Dahlin, Matthews, Eichel, and the like.

Every player is different obviously, but the thinking is starting to get to be if Puljujarvi were going to be anything, you’d know it by now. 17 goals in 134 games at the top level, and being yo-yoed from the AHL to the NHL is not anything, at least not yet.

When left alone in the AHL his rookie year, Puljujarvi did produce, 28 points in 39 games. Not eye-popping, but the AHL is weird and that’s enough to notice. And that really should have been a platform for him to go on from there. And he hasn’t. And Oilers fans will tell you he still needed more time in the AHL. But these days, impact young players are ready to go pretty damn quickly, or they don’t get there. Maybe they get a year in the AHL, but that’s about it. Look around to most teams and if they have a key piece under 25, chances are they got there pretty swiftly.

On the plus side for the Oilers, Puljujarvi’s lack of sparkle means he won’t make anything coming out of his entry-level deal this summer, and the Oilers need all the cap space they can find. If they can lock him up for even two years on a prove-it deal and he does, that’s production over the investment they’ll be making, which is the exact opposite of everything they’ve been doing. And if he doesn’t, they won’t be out much financially but they’ll be out the opportunity of what they might have had with that #4 pick. And they’ll have to find a way to plug that hole he was supposed to be filling, which could be expensive. Which is how they got into this mess.

 

 

Game #54 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built