LEADERSHIP | Post-Game Fan Reaction: Oilers vs Red Wings

LEADERSHIP | Post-Game Fan Reaction: Oilers vs Red Wings

Man, do you all remember when the Oilers used to lose games, but they would outshoot their opponent like 40 to 24 and you just sit there and go, “Ah, you know what? They got goalied. They just got goalied. You know, they get goalied a lot.” And that’s frustrating. But, you know, keep it up. Keep playing the way they are. They’ll turn it around. And then they always do. This team last year, they started slow in October. They started the season 0 and3. But their advanced metrics showed that they were going to turn things around. The year before before Jay Woodcraft was fired, they were 29 and one to start the season. But again, their advanced metrics showed that things are going to turn around and they did. Chris Knobblock took over. He calmed the the room down. There was a lot of overthinking going on. But right now, we are seeing a team that looks disinterested, that can’t make a two-foot pass. Uh their best players are not their best players right now. Noah Phillips scored, so I assume he’s going to be healthy scratch for the next 10 games. Can’t wait to see that. Uh, they’re not playing their young kids. Here’s a great idea. By the way, EMTT Finny, by the way, Emtt Finny on the Detroit Red Wings. What a game. What a game. Scores his first ever NHL goal. Love that. Congrats to Emtt Finny. And this is not sarcasm, by the way. I’m making an example here of Chris Nlock. EMTT Finny, right? First NHL goal ever playing next. Who is Emtt Finny playing next to? Who is his centerman? It’s Dylan Lurin. EMTT Finny is given an opportunity to succeed to play hockey next to a very skilled star player in Dylan Larkin. You know where Ike is and Matthew Seavoy? They get about eight minutes a night on the fourth line. They have yet to have a proper look with Conor McDavid and Leon Dryidle. Now Ike Howard, you can maybe understand. I kind of understand the argument. Howard just hasn’t shown a lot at the NHL level yet. Very unproven. Probably needs some seasoning in Bakersfield. Fine. But what is the excuse to keep Matthew Seavoy away from skilled players? You’re playing Matthew Seavoy next to Adam Henrik every single game and Trent Frederick. And of course, Matthew Seavoi is not going to produce because those guys are black holes. Trent Frederick can’t even stick handle. Adam Henrik is is closer to 40 years old than he is 30. Like, what are we doing here? I I’m trying not to crash out because it is still it’s still early. And you know, I hate that. Ah, it’s still early. What happens when it’s still early turns into, oh, it’s only December. Ah, it’s only January. Oh, they’ll turn it around after the Olympic break. Uh-oh, suddenly that runway gets shorter and shorter. If they don’t turn things around very, very soon, we’re going to have some big, big problems here in oil country. Big problems. The Oilers lose this game by a score of 4-2. They deserve to lose this game by a score of 4 to2. The offense is completely anemic. Chris Knobblock has completely nullified any attack that this team has. Chris Knobblock’s system, and it’s a good defensive system. I’m not arguing that. I’m not saying Chris Knobblock is a bad coach tactically. He’s actually a great coach tactically, but his system allows for zero creativity. There is no creativity on offense for this team. They are predictable. You load up McDavid and Dry Cidle together. If you shut down that line, who the heck is scoring for Edmonton, no Phillip apparently, but that gets them benched for some reason. And when the other lines do get chances, I know Nan Hopkins has four goals this season. Love that for Nooj. When the other lines get chances, it’s not because of a specific creative play. It’s not because they are doing something um you know interesting or or creative. it it’s just them dumping and chasing, working the cycle, a shot from the point, and they either deflect it in or they get a rebound. By the way, the Oilers lead the entire NHL in shots from the blue line at five on five. That’s not a good thing, by the way. Sure, that’ll pump the Corsy up. That’ll pump the shot metrics up. That doesn’t pump anything else up, though. You’re just willingly taking low danger shots be because now is that a Chris Knobblock thing? Is that their new defensive coach? Paul Coffee is not on the team anymore. And speaking of the defense, there is not one defenseman on this team that is playing good right now. Not one. Maybe Brett Kulak, you could argue Brett Koulak might be playing pretty good. Ty Emerson is is stable. I wouldn’t say he’s playing great. I would say he’s stable though. But Darnell Nurse, Matias Ecom, Evan Bousard all stink. They stink. Evan Bousard, his outlet passes are horrific. The giveaways that he’s having are horrific. Matias Ecom tonight couldn’t handle a pass, couldn’t stick handle, couldn’t make an outlet pass and was caught on the ice for three goals against just standing around. And Darnell Nurse, don’t even get me started on Darnell Nurse for the love of God. Oh my god, does Darnell Nurse ever need a babysitter? How is it that Darnell Nurse, who until this season was the highest paid defenseman on the team, always needs someone to babysit him? Why does Nurse always need someone to babysit his play? Why does he always need a D partner to settle him down? He’s making the money that should make him be able to settle other players down. Darnell Nurse is chaos on the ice. How many unforced icings did Darnell Nurse cause tonight where he’s just trying to pass to nobody? His outlet passes stink. He’s just icing the puck. And then when he gets the puck at the blue line, instead of looking for a play, it’s just a weak wister towards the net that’s always picked off, that’s always blockered into the corner by a goalender. And then the other team always comes in on transition. It is brutal. This team is brutal to watch. They at least in years past when this team lost, they were at least exciting to watch. And like I mentioned at the beginning of the video, they would outshoot their opponents. They would have all these scoring chances and you just go, “Oh man.” Ah, you know, they just couldn’t beat whoever was in net. That’s not the case right now. They are not generating anything. We’ll take a look at the game score card here uh from hockey stack cards. Now, Brett Kulak, I mentioned his play. He had two assists, had a good game. Pud Coulson, he had an assist on Noah Phillipskull. Dry Cidle, by the way, we need to look for those who didn’t catch the game. What do you think happened here? Do you think uh A dryidle shot the puck and Gibson made a save or bryidle skated over the puck, lost it, and then Detroit scores on in the empty net not long after? What do you think happened? I’ll give you one second to answer. Yeah, Dry Settle didn’t get a shot on net. Okay, speaking of Leon Dryidle as well, speaking of Leon Dryidle before Dylan Lin’s second goal, now I cannot I cannot play the full clip because I will get copyright stried, but I can go frame by frame. When this puck goes behind the Red Wings net, John Gibson is controlling it. Now, Dryidtle reads this perfectly. He knows Gibson is going to rim it around the boards. What Dry Cidle’s trying to do here, which is the right play, is try and stop the puck so that he can keep possession because you have McDavid in deep applying pressure. This is fine. This is not the problem on this play. Puck comes around. Dry Cidle puts his hands up in the air like he just doesn’t care, right? Put your hands in the air like you just don’t whatever. The puck hits a stansion. Unlucky bounce. It bounces past Dry Cidle. Okay. And look at Dry Cidle’s reaction. Oh. Oh, that sucks. Not Oh, crap. I should probably Look at the transition for Detroit. They have four guys in transition now. The Oilers are caught. Dry Cidle puts his head head up like, “H, that sucks, man.” And then you know what he does? He goes for a line change. Yep. Yeah. Leon Dryidle gets frustrated. He gets pouty. He goes for a change with Detroit on transition. What are we doing? And then Larkin with a shot from a area that should never go in. I don’t think Stu even saw it. I He didn’t react to it. But Leon Dryidle’s attitude in that moment. Horrible. And he admitted after the game that he needs to be better. And that’s great. That’s great that he’s taking accountability. I have no problem with guys taking accountability. Dry Settle knows better. We know he’ll beat better. Early last season, he had a game. game I forget who it was against where where he had a bit of a pouty game. It might have been against Philly. I can’t remember what it was. And then Knobblock sat him for a couple of shifts and then Dry Cidle ended up having arguably the best season of his career, especially as two-way play. Didle talked about wanting to be a Selky candidate in the Selky conversation before the season started. And that’s the type of effort that we’re getting in game six of the regular season. What are we doing, man? That’s horrible. Binny, of course, two goals and an assist. Now, Dre Cidle, he kind of made up for it in the third period. He was in the right spot. Nice play by Kulak to find him. He bangs in a puck into the open net. That’s that’s all well and good. Good job. We’re We’re happy about that. We’re Duttle makes up for it, but it doesn’t it’s not enough to make up for the fact that him and Conor McDavid, Matias, Evan Bushard, these guys have not been anywhere near good enough this season. Now, McDavid led all forwards tonight in time on ice. Dry settle was second in time on ice. Rosik third in time on. What has Rovic done to earn that ice time? Zero shots on goal and he gets he gets three more minutes of time on ice than Nan Hopkins. Now Kaan, he was hurt. If you’re going to look at Captain be like, “What happened to Kappa?” Uh, he tried to throw a hit and injured himself. That’s just how the season’s gone. Frederick already starting to lose faith from the coaching staff. He only played 1121. By the way, we’re six games into an 8-year contract for Trent Frederick. That’s awesome. If Trent Frederick is already uh in in the in the doghouse from Chris Knoblock. Uh-oh. Eight years. The first four years of that are a full no move by the way. Love that. Howard 12 minutes. Phelp only played 1226. He was a plus one. Had a goal. Seavoy had a few more opportunities tonight. 1447. I will give Knobblock some credit. He at least gave Seavoy a couple opportunities. And somehow somehow in this game, BT Dubs, somehow Detroit did not get a power play. If you’re a Red Wings fan, you’re probably questioning how Detroit did not get a power play because they had the puck for three quarters of this game. It felt like we take a look at defense. Well, Evan Buchard led all defenseman in time on ice. He was a minus two. Nurse minus two. Echo minus3. It’s nowhere near good enough. Their their their leadership group. It’s the It’s their top players and leadership group. This team always talks about starting the season on the right foot. We got We got to get off to a good start, right? There’s always that narrative that the team starts slow. Why? Why is that even a thing? Other cup contenders don’t get off to slow starts. Look at Colorado right now. Like, I don’t understand. I don’t get it. This team is baffling. Uh the and and it’s crazy that I’m even frustrated because this team likely does turn it around, but the advanced stats right now are not as favorable as they used to be. And for me personally, before this game started, by the way, uh David Tomasekk was announced as a scratch. Is he hurt? I don’t know. Is he sick? I don’t know. They didn’t announce, they didn’t say why he’s not played. I’m assuming Chris Knobblock looked at the advanced stats and went, “Oh, David Tomasekk, he’s second in the league in hiding chances on the power play. second in the entire NHL in high danger chances on the power play. Now we got to scratch him. He’s getting good looks. David Tomasic is doing the right thing with the puck. He’s bringing the puck into areas. He’s crashing the crease. Nobody on this team crashes the crease, by the way, except for Zack Heyman, who’s obviously been out for a while. David Tomasek is one of the only players that is playing like a power forward to generate any opportunities. And he got scratched today. I I don’t know. This is my reaction as a fan now. Maybe Chris Snblo’s doing the same thing. Well, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know. And it doesn’t get any easier. You know, the goal is to go three and two on a fivegame road trip, right? At at minimum maybe 22 and one. 500 is the goal. The Oilers have lost three straight games after shutting out the Rangers, which they didn’t deserve to win, but Steuart Skinner showed up. I would argue the Goenders are the only ones that have showed up on this entire road trip so far. What is the team doing? They’ve lost three straight games. They lost to the Islanders, they lost to the Devils, and now they’ve lost to the Red Wings. If you beat Ottawa on Tuesday, which will be your third game in Fortnite, so incredibly unlikely. But if you beat Ottawa on Tuesday, congrats. You went two and three on a road trip. Not good enough. and the effort hasn’t been good enough. That game against Vancouver, the second game of the season, that first hockey night in Canada of the year, the Emily outshot Vancouver something like 30 37 to like 17 or something like that or 37 to 15. I I don’t remember what the shot total was, but Edmonton completely dominated that game. They rolled their lines. Noah Phillips scored his first NHL goal that game. It was the best I’ve seen this team look since probably one of the games against Dallas in the playoffs last year. And then Chris Knobblock immediately after that game switched everything up. And I honestly think Chris Knobblock is becoming a problem here. I’m not outright calling for him to be fired because how many coaches has this team gone through? And Knobblock just signed an extension as well. So does he get fired? No. Do I think he should be fired? No. Do I think he should allow for a bit more creativity? Yes. And should he be a little bit more stable with the lines? Absolutely. There’s a lot of question marks with this team moving forward. When Yanmark’s healthy, who comes out? It’s probably I Coward. When Heyman’s healthy, who comes out? Seavoy. Uh-oh. Is it or is it going to be Tomasek? Wman, he’s close to returning. Alec Regula is on the IR now. probably got concussed from Evander Kane, which by the way, Noah Phelp protecting his teammate and then gets scratched for three straight games. If if Chris Knobblock scratched Noah Phelp for protecting his teammate in against Vancouver, big big problems here. Big big big problems. Not saying that there is a problem right now, but Chris Knobblock is starting to become a problem. He’s starting to become part of the problem that this team is facing. It is his system. It is his team. It is his job to make sure that these guys are ready to go. And it’s nowhere near good enough right now. Not even close. They want to talk they they talk about being cup contenders. Dry settle talks about being a Selki finalist. They talk about getting off on the right foot, making sure that they get off to a good start. Well, technically they did start off good. 20 and one to start the season. They beat Vancouver handily. They lost to the Flames in a shootout in a game that they probably should have won. Stu had a tough night on one of the goals against and then their other win came against the Rangers where Stu was absolutely lights out and nobody else on the team could do anything. But I would say out of the six games that has played, they’ve only deserved two wins and they have two wins to show for it. That’s not good enough. Teams got to get going. They got to get going. The runway becomes short very, very quickly. We’re not overreacting, but there are there are bigger narratives and things that we’re going to be talking about very very soon in oil country if they don’t turn this ship around. And the fact that we have to keep talking about them turning a ship around at the start of every year is frustrating. It’s annoying. I don’t want to have to do this as a fan. It’s not fun. It’s annoying. But what is fun is making content for the best fans on the planet. Doing live streams, hanging out, pregame reports, postgame fan reactions. If you enjoyed today’s content, make sure you hit the like button. If you really liked it, make sure to subscribe to the channel. Daily content here on the Austin Hockey YouTube channel. Tomorrow I will have a day after discussion podcast episode up where I will talk about not just this game against Detroit, but kind of break down the road trip so far because the Oilers have stunk for three straight games. So, I do want to kind of talk about this road trip in general, what they can do to improve, and we’ll go from there. It’s uh it’s a it is a it is a marathon, right? You do not sprint to the playoffs. You have to pace yourself to get there. But this team’s got to really turn it around. And it starts with the leadership group. Starts with their best players. They got to be better. Straight up. No ifs, ends, or buts. Tell them that you love them. Let’s go Blue Jays. Maybe they get a win tonight against Seattle. I would love to see them force a game seven. And uh fight like a kid. Fight like Ben. Let’s go Oilers. I’ll see you in the next one. Take care.

The Edmonton Oilers lose their third straight game, 4-2 to the Detroit Red Wings. Leon Draisaitl and Noah Philp scored for the Oilers, and Stuart Skinner made 20 saves in the losing effort. Connor McDavid still has ZERO goals this season. Austin Hockey breaks it all down in today’s Fan Reaction. #oilers #edmontonoilers #nhl

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