PLAYING WITH FIRE! Post-Game Fan Reaction: Oilers vs Islanders

PLAYING WITH FIRE! Post-Game Fan Reaction: Oilers vs Islanders

The Edmonton Oilers lose to the New York Islanders in what was a continuation of a lackluster effort against the New York Rangers. It reared its ugly head again tonight with the lack of puck management, the giveaways, the bobbles, the the the deciding that when you’re in the slot right in front of the goalie, you’re just not going to shoot the puck. Conor McDavid, what are we doing? Conor McDavid, what are we doing? Conor McDavid. That opportunity late in the third period and he tries to defer to Troy Ster for some reason. Not sure what that’s all about. Also, we are gonna talk about Evan Bousard because that was definitely a game to forget for Evan Bousard. My goodness gracious. Now, Evan Bousard, we’ve seen games like this in the past. They are much rarer than fans think though. Don’t let the media push the narrative that this is a regular occurrence from Evan Buchard. It is not a regular occurrence. I would say 90% of the time Bousard is one of the reasons why Edmonton is able to even win hockey games. 10% of the time he has a game like this where the giveaways are really really bad. He’s flatfooted. There’s breakaways going against him when he’s on the ice. He’s not manning the power play well at all. Everything that could have went wrong went wrong tonight for Evan Bousard. It was a very very tough game for him. An unacceptable game in my personal opinion. Uh but again at the same time because we know Buchard generally for the most part plays very very well is an elite defenseman. Uh it’s one of those games where I can forgive a little bit because the Oilers lost. It’s a lot harder for fans to forgive in this moment and I understand that. It’s two games in a row that have been very very difficult to watch as fans and it is very very unfortunate that the Oilers um I would say two games in a row did not deserve to win. They beat the Rangers but there’s only so much Steu Skinner could do tonight against the Islanders. Two goals on breakaways, one goal uh in the in the middle slot area from Horvat on the power play. the one-timer that beat him. But Steuart Skinner, I thought he played great. I thought Steuart Skinner, I mean, he really was the reason why the Oilers even had a lead heading to the third period. But the Oilers all night long, you’re playing with fire. Play with fire. Play with fire. What happens if you play with fire over and over and over? You are going to get burned. And that’s what happened tonight. And uh I wanted to look at some of the goals on the Edge Visualizer. As of the recording of this video, I cannot get NHL.com to load. I don’t know what is going on with their website, but when I try and load it, I’m just going to show all of you. Um, it’s it’s just stuck on a loading screen here. I’ll just move this back a little bit. It is just perpetually There it is. It’s it it’s just loading, right? I try and go to NHL. I try to go to scores. Oh, maybe it’s going to work now. Will I actually get to talk about the game or is it just going to be stuck? Oh, it might just be stuck. But this is what it’s been doing since I ended my stream tonight. Uh, I have not been able to get the game to load. So, unfortunately, I am unable to go over the Edge Visualizer on a couple of the goals, but there are a couple things I do want to talk about uh before I do my video tomorrow where hopefully the website’s working and I can kind of collect my thoughts and discuss. It’s going to be a quick turnaround for Edmonton because Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon I should say, they play the Devils and then Sunday afternoon they play the Detroit Red Wings. So, not much time to turn around here. They are about to play three games in four nights if you include the game tonight. They they play a backto-back Saturday, Sunday. It does not get any easier for this team. The Oilers shooting themselves in the foot all night. All night they were shooting themselves in the foot. Uh Steuart Skinner, like I mentioned, could only do what he could. And Chris Knobblock’s utilization of certain players needs to be addressed here. I know it’s still early in the season. I know we’re not trying to overreact here, but I’m going to show you all uh a tweet that was posted by B Kurlock. Um great follow by the way. You should be following him. also does writing for Oilers Nation, I believe. Um, really good with the prospects. But here’s the time on ice per game for forwards so far this season. Conor McDavid and Leon Dry Settle are one and two in the entire NHL for time on ice per game. This is completely unsustainable. You cannot keep playing your top two players, forwards, mind you. It’s a little bit different if you’re playing defenseman a little longer because defenseman can it’s a different play style. But what Connor and Leon are being asked to do right now, the amount of ice time they’re being given, the lack of production is not very nice. The lack of production is not optimal, I should say. Uh but tonight when the Oilers had their goalie pulled, they looked exhausted because if you keep playing them this much, by the time the third period rolls around, it doesn’t matter how in shape you are, you’re going to be feeling that lactic acid. You’re not going to be able to move your feet nearly as well, and you’re not going to be making decisions as well, too. When you’re tired mentally, you’re not always focused and making the right decisions. We saw that with Conor McDavid deferring in the slot right in front of Dave Riddick to Troy Stetcher for some reason when McDavid’s all alone. It doesn’t make sense why McDavid wouldn’t shoot that. Not saying that fatigue is the reason why. And the players will never say their fatigue. McDavid and Dry Settle, they’ll never admit it. Chris Knobblock will also never admit it. But Chris Knobblock as a head coach has to start trusting different players. He has to start trusting other players on this team. He has to start utilizing these two players in better situations. It is not good that we are already having this discussion four games in Conor McDavid and Leon Dryidle. I in my opinion if you take a look at the Oilers lineup tonight. This this was the lineup tonight. This is how the game started. This isn’t how the game finished. This is a deep team on paper. There’s a lot of potential and a lot of good players uh that can produce. Mapani produced earlier in the season. First two games of the year. He had a couple goals. Uh hasn’t hit the score sheet since, but again, that’s a player that you will bank on probably at least 20 25 goals this season. Tomasek, he’s kind of the wild card. Comes over from um overseas. He’s still finding his footing. I like his game, but he’s not trusted. He doesn’t get a lot of ice time. Nan Hopkins had a goal tonight. Really good goal from Nan Hopkins. Nice snipe, the patented nude wristster. Uh he went over the glove this time instead of low blocker like he likes to do. And then you have Roselic who they just signed. Again, these are players that traditionally put up points. They put up production. Pud Coulson, brand new contract. Frederick is a player that they were banking on because they signed him for eight years. And then Casper Kappan also chipping in. And then fourth line, you have Howard, Henrique, and Seavoy. And then, of course, Noah Phelp in the press box for some reason. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the team overall hasn’t played very well in the two games that Philip has not been in the lineup. Might just be me. Might want to get Noah Phil back in this lineup. Personally, that’s just my opinion. Uh, this is a deep forward group. Yes, there are question marks. There’s uncertainties. You don’t know how Seavoy and Howard are going to play at the NHL level with consistent ice time, but they’re not being given consistent ice time. They’re being given 9 or 10 minutes a night. And yes, you have to earn everything in the NHL. I totally get that. I understand that you have to earn your ice time. But my goodness, man, the Oilers have a deep forward group. Stan Bowman went out and he really bolstered this forward group. really uh f tried to find some like good value deals. Tried to find players that he could put in this lineup. And I do think again tonight it’s a team effort. Team effort wasn’t there. It’s not just on uh Chris Knobblock, but tonight was a night where again Chris Knobblock is just not properly utilizing his players. I would like to see him utilize players a little bit better. We are going to open up the money puck um advanced stats for this game just to take a look see how things played out. We’ll take a scroll here. Hopefully this stays loaded up for us. The deserved to win meter basically a 50-50 split. The Oilers had good chances. The Islanders had good chances. Uh the short-handed goal, by the way, that the Islanders scored. Yikes. Cringe. And then the late penalty that Trent Frederick took, I am not very happy with Trent Frederick on that. Um expected goals in all situations tonight. Islanders led the way just slightly. Uh the expected goal for that empty neter was a 94% chance of a goal. uh at basically all situations it was pretty even until that empty netter but again it’s it’s not like Edmonton played good enough to win this hockey game. Pud Coulson probably the best player on the ice. I think the eye test shows that Frederick had a great game until he took that just boneheaded penalty. My god, is Trent Frederick going to be the new of Ander Kane where he just takes really dumb, untimely, undisiplined penalties in the offensive zone because he can’t keep his stick on the ice? Cuz that’s what I’m feeling right now. on the fans. This is the first year of an 8-year contract. The fans are going to turn on Frederick very, very quickly if he keeps doing stuff like that. Frederick is I would rather Frederick check people and get into fights than do what he did tonight that led to the game winner. Again, I don’t think the Oilers were going to win this game even with that penalty or not. Uh if we take a look at the ice time tonight, Dry Settle played 2522, Conor McDavid played 2520. Um, Tomasek only played 1257. Andy had an assist. Like, this is what I mean when I talk about Chris Knoblock. What are we doing here? Rosik played 13 minutes. Kappan only played 1117. Howard 819. Pod Coulson only 10 minutes. Frederick 10 minutes. And it’s crazy too like you can say, “Oh yeah, Frederick didn’t play a whole lot because of the penalty.” Well, he didn’t take that penalty till there was four minutes left in the third period. Trent Frederick, Vasil Pod Coulson, and and and um Casper Kaepern was Edmonton’s best line tonight and they were not being rewarded. They weren’t being rewarded. The Chris Knobblock and and just like coaches before him, they just go right to McDavid and Dry Cidle. Oh, first sign of trouble, it’s got to be McDavid and Dry Cidle. Chris Knobblock’s entire argument before the season started for putting McDavid and Dry Settle together on the same line was that in his own words, he said it balanced out the other lines. It gave other lines more ice time. Let them get into the game more. Are you sure about that? Are you sure about that? Cuz that’s not what it looks like you’re doing right now. Um I don’t have much else to talk about. We’ll try and figure things out uh moving forward. Tomorrow, I don’t know if I’ll have a day after discussion because the turnaround is so quick. They play Saturday afternoon. So, tomorrow afternoon, tomorrow evening, you might get my pregame report up. I may do a day after/ pregame report. It might be in like one video. I haven’t decided yet. If you enjoyed tonight’s video, hit the like button if you really liked it. Make sure you are subscribed to the channel and uh we’ll see you soon. All right. Tell us that you love them. Let me know all of your thoughts in the comments section below. I want to know what all of you are thinking. There’s going to be a lot of Bard discourse tonight. Uh, I look forward to reading all the comments. I’m sure everyone is going to be I’m sure nobody’s going to overreact just like we never overreacted with Stu Skinner after the first game of the season, right? Maybe. Tell us that you love them. And as always, fight like a kid, fight like Ben. Let’s go Oilers. We’ll see you in the next one. Take care.

The Edmonton Oilers sloppy game vs the Rangers two nights ago continued into tonight against the Islanders, with Evan Bouchard, Connor McDavid, and others having forgettable nights on the ice. Kris Knoblauch’s line shuffling and time on ice allocation is going to run the big guns into the ground. Austin Hockey discusses the teams’ issues and more in tonight’s Fan Reaction! #oilers #edmontonoilers #nhl

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