Tough Finish. Post-Game Fan Reaction: Oilers vs Wild

Tough Finish. Post-Game Fan Reaction: Oilers vs Wild

All right, Oilers fans. Couple ways we can look at this one tonight against the Minnesota Wild. And by tonight, I mean this afternoon. I’m recording tonight, though. It did take me a while. I do apologize. Thank you for your patience. I hope you enjoyed what you could of the game. Obviously, it was not ideal. But, like I said, couple ways to look at this here. And however you want to look at it, that’s up to you. You fan how you want. I am not here to tell anyone how they’re supposed to feel. I’m just here to bring some different perspectives and then, you know, talk about the game as a whole. see how we feel heading into the game against Vegas tomorrow. Now, if we look at this glass half empty, which some of you are probably doing right now, uh, not having Tristan Jarry is a big big loss. Calvin Picker got the start, gave up four goals again. I’m getting I’m getting to it, right? This is not me blaming Pickard, right? I’m taking a look at the different different perspectives. Glass half empty. Picker gave up four goals again, which is very unfortunate because his goals against average this season is almost exactly four goals against. And I’m rooting for Calvin Pickard. They’re going to need him to be stellar really. And the team in front of him has to be stellar. The team in front of Picker today was not stellar. You could tell it was the final game of a fivegame road trip. And those are always tough. It’s always tough on the body, tough on the mind. They’re thinking of that game tomorrow. They’re thinking of getting back to their beds. Not an excuse either, right? Not making excuses. Minnesota was the better team. They deserve the win. Full props. Now, in saying that, we can look at this glass half full where if we break the road trip down as a whole, you get three wins out of the five games. That’s good, right? You beat Toronto, you beat Boston, and you also defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins. Are they all amazing teams that you beat on the road trip? No. But they banked points against teams that they should be banking points against. Their losses came to Minnesota and Montreal. Now, Montreal, they’ve had their fluctuations this season, but overall, they’ve been pretty decent. Minnesota has just been unbelievable this year. Whether it’s the cups of Cinnonet or Walstead. Uh so three wins out of five on a fivegame road trip. That is something where we can take positives and go, you know what, that’s a good road trip. We take those. We know that Edmonton is about to feast on home ice for quite a while here. I mean, January, their their home schedule in January is crazy. I think they play 10 of their 15 games at home, maybe even more. In any case, was today’s loss frustrating? Of course it was. And did I want better for Calvin Pickard? Absolutely. And Chris Knobblock continuing to galaxy brain the decisions with the lineup. Right. You you won three out of four on the road trip going into today. And Chris Knobblock goes, “Hm, let’s start the game with Trent Frederick on the second line. Why are we doing that? I don’t know.” Chris Knobblock might have had an idea, a thought. Hey, maybe if we put Frederick on the second line, maybe Seavoy on the third line with Henrik and Mapani, maybe that gets those guys going. And then Chris Knobblock in usual Chris Knobblock fashion after one period of play or 20 minutes, you’re down 3-2 after the first. A late backbreaking goal, didn’t like that goal. I thought overall though, Calvin Pickard played really solid. He gave the team a chance to get back in it, but by the time the third period rolled around, the Oilers just had no energy, no more gas, and Minnesota just controlled the game. Another thing with Minnesota, too, that I I got to give lots of props to the Wild. We’re going to we’re going to go through the edge visualizer. We’ll go through the box stats, the money puck, and then we’ll kind of talk about the game tomorrow. And I’ll also answer some questions from the fans. I haven’t done that in a while, but I did put out a tweet, and there are questions um that have been submitted to me, so we will talk about those. But one thing that I will give Minnesota like in just amazing credit for is the defensive group that they have put together. They are mobile. They are fast. They are good on their feet. They’re not overly physical, but the way Minnesota plays defensively, it makes it really hard to forche against them. If you try and dump and chase against Minnesota, they’re too fast to pucks. You can’t get to the puck in time to get in on the cycle, get in on the forche. And Minnesota, they’re also very good at moving the puck out of their zone. Not only are their defense mobile and getting Quinn Hughes is like instrumental in adding even more mobile and offensively gifted defenseman to their core, um their outlet passes are just fantastic. They’re quick with them. They’re snappy and it’s it’s a tough one. A lot of fans are very upset that I predicted Edmonton to lose this one in the pregame report. It’s not that I don’t want the team to win when I do that. It’s it’s just one of those games just sometimes you get a feeling and I’ve had that in other games in the past and then the Oilers go out and prove me wrong they’ll win like 5-1 or something. It’s like hey that’s great but at the end of the day the Oilers did come up a little bit short here and it does not get any easier. Tomorrow they play Vegas and Connor Ingram is going to get the start. Connor Ingram has struggled in Bakersfield but you never know sometimes, right? The chaotic play in the AHL is not the same as what’s going on at the NHL level, but the team in front of Ingram tomorrow has to be better than they were in front of Calvin Pickard today. I actually thought it was very unfair to Calvin Pickard and what they were expecting from him. And you know, as a fan, obviously, I want my team to win, but holy smokes, the team overall has to play better. Chris Knobblock has to utilize his players more, which is a running theme this season. But let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about this, folks. Let’s go over the edge visualizer. Now Minnesota, they got off to an early one- nothing lead. Matt Baldy on a breakaway. And that’s a really tough one for Calvin Pickard to deal with. I think that was the second or third shot of the whole period. And breakaways, they are what they are, man. Sometimes you save them, sometimes you don’t. Calvin Pickard made four or five breakaway saves in that game against Montreal. Could not make the save on Baldi in this one. What do you do? And then Baldi again on the power play. It was a slap shot. And again, you want a save, but there’s traffic in front. tough to ask your goalender to keep bailing your team out. You’re short-handed. Uh the power play that Minnesota had on this though. Dry Sutter was called for cross-checking and then he got an extra two minutes for arguing the call. Kelly Sutherland is just absolute baby soft. Baby poop soft mentally I would say is Kelly Sutherland. What an absolute uh loser that guy is. Now the officiating is not why Em lost. Minnesota fans, I’m telling you whether you had that power play or not, you were winning this hockey game. I just like to comment on Kelly Sutherland specifically because he’s just not very good. He’s not good no matter where he officiates. Majapani though, he made it a one-goal game and love to see Mapani getting back on the score sheet. Bard got an assist. Mapani with a beautiful tip in. Uh the Oilers had the McDavid and Dry Cidle line out. Uh it was uh basically after that power play and that second goal for Minnesota, they loaded them up. Nice shot from Bousard and a nice fly by tip by Mapani and he desperately needed that. Desperately needed it. And I’ve talked about Majapani a little bit in the last couple games here where the process is there, the underlying metrics are there. He’s eventually going to get going and the pucks are going to go in for him. We had one go in for him today. Overall, I didn’t mind his game, but again, Chris Knobblock, I think he’s got to find a way to put guys in a position to succeed. And Majapani is not going to succeed next to a guy like Adam Henrik. Henrik is just too slow right now. Seavoy. The logic of Seavoi on that third line, I understood it. But Frederick on the second line to start this game made absolutely no sense. Eventually Quinn Hudson was getting some shifts with Leon Dreidle and Vasili Pod Coulson, which is good. But as the game wore on, the teams trying to fight back. They stopped getting shifts together. Quinn Hudson only played about nine and a half minutes tonight. And you know, with the second half of backto-back tomorrow, McDavid, who scored, we’re going to talk about this on the edge visualizer, played over 25 minutes. And you’re going to you’re going to wear him out, man. You’re going to wear him out. But McDavid’s goal on the power play. Puck was kind of sitting in the crease. Dry Cidle was poking at it. It came loose and then McDavid ended up putting it in. Secondary assist to Zack Heyman who gets on the score sheet once again. Zack Heyman has been great as of late. Hartman though, this is the back breaker. And they’re not going to show Oh, they are. Okay, so Dry Cidle, he tries to put Dry Cidle, man. Watch Dry Cidle on this shift. This is not good enough from Leon. I know he had two assists up to this point, but you just tied the game. All you have to do is get out of the first period tied. Really good road period. You start to feel good. Maybe you’re the team that starts pressing in the second. However, Dry Cidle, a no look backhand pass down the boards. Nobody home, right? So Quinn Hughes, he picks this up and then Dry Cidle, he’s got two, he’s got a forward here, right? Dry Cidle tries to step up on Hughes. Now, Seavoy almost picked that pass off, which I mean, hey, if he would have grabbed that, that would have been awesome. But then Minnesota comes in. There’s no defensive coverage at all. Uh, it’s just it’s not good enough, man. Uh, Stillman, Stillman, Stillman, Stillman. He’s got to be better on that. But Dry Cidle’s initial giveaway and then he tries to step up at the blue line. Now, the Oilers did have the right number of guys back, but Stillman getting caught at the blue line here. Not good. Uh, the initial mistake was Dry Cidle. Well, okay, first two mistakes. First mistake, the backhand to nobody along the halfall. Then the second mistake from Leon was stepping up at the blue line when Minnesota had transition coming down the ice and then Stillman made a mistake at the blue line. He allowed Hartman to get by him and you know that’s kind of why Stillman doesn’t play regular NHL shifts. Can’t put everything on Stillman though. Third period Terasenko he makes it 42. puck was kind of bobbling around in Bousard’s hands and feet. And I think if you’re Bard I what would have been nice was just kind of throw the puck forward. If it’s kind of in your body, just try and find a way to get rid of it. But then he drops it into his feet and then he’s stumbling around. Terasenko, they get it. They shoot and score and that’s unfortunate. And then Sturm, well, they get the empty netter. 5-2 Minnesota. If we take a look at the overall shots in this game, um it was 37-30 shots after the first. 16-4 for Minnesota. 10 to6 Minnesota in the second and then 11-10 Minnesota in the third. The Oilers, they tried to come back. They had some good looks, good chances. Gus in with some big saves. But at the end of the day, Minnesota, they had the better looks, the better chances. Calvin Pickard battled in there tonight, just couldn’t find a way to back stop them. It’s that third goal, man. That 3-2 goal for Minnesota. That’s that’s the backb breakaker. That’s the one where you’re like, would have really liked to save there. But Leon, he’s got to be better, too, right? I am the first person to call out certain players on Em when they struggle, when they’re not playing good enough, when they make mistakes. And just because Leon is one of their best offensive players, and just because Leon is my personal favorite player, does not does not mean that I won’t call him out when I have to. Uh Leon on that one definitely needed to be called out. Uh penalty minutes, they each were one for two on the power play tonight. Faceoff percentage, they were dead even 50/50. But if you take a look at the block shots, Minnesota had 21 block shots. They were getting in the lanes. and the Oilers, they just weren’t getting in the lanes. Minnesota had a lot of actual shots on goal. So, I think, you know, part of that is trying to let Calvin Pickard see the puck. When Pickard can see it, he can make those saves. So, I don’t know. I maybe you want a few extra block shots. I don’t think that really would have made a difference, though. If we go to the box score for the Oilers, time on ice, McDavid played 259. That was almost 3 minutes more than Zack Hyman, who was second. Deta was third, 2207, but he was in the box for almost four minutes. So, you know how that goes for Leon. He had two assists. He was a minus two. Hyman was a minus3 with one assist. McDavid was a minus two. It’s the Big Guns. The Big Guns were on the ice for most of the goals against, of course, the empty netter. I don’t count that. I don’t really count that as like a true minus. That’s it’s it’s a minus in the box score, but true plus minus, that is not a minus. Uh, if we take a look at the least amount of ice time, Max Jones, who I actually thought had a pretty effective game, Quinn Hudson, 917. It’s nice to see these guys get a bit more ice time, right? Quinn Hudson, he’s been slowly getting more ice time each game. Liked Hudson’s game. Mapani liked his game, but but and there’s a big butt here. When Yanmark, Henrik, and Frederick are getting more ice time than Mapani and Hudson, that’s not very good. Max Jones is Max Jones, right? I don’t think you want that guy playing 13 or 14 minutes a night. But you should be rewarding players who are playing well. Trent Frederick, he continues to get more ice time than guys he shouldn’t. I don’t think he should have more ice time than Mapani in any world. Uh Trent Frederick 1149 almost had as much ice time as Matt Seavoy. Now I don’t know what the coach is doing with Seavoy as of late. He’s It started in the Boston game. Chris Knobblock took Seavoy off the second line. I don’t know what’s going on here. Seavoy has deserved to stay up in that top six. He’s deserved to stay next to Pod Coulson and Dry Cidle. But now Seavoy’s ice time is going down for some reason. And like let’s take like look at Seavoy. We’ll take a look at his game log because I do want to I do want to talk about this. He played 1544 against Pittsburgh. That dropped to 1313 against Boston and then 1242 against Minnesota. It’s gradually gone down. And there’s no reason for this. I like Seavoy’s game. There’s no reason for the coach to have suddenly changed this up when Seavo has been playing good. He’s a solid plus player. His offense was getting going. He’s had a few goals lately. It’s just a weird thing for the coach to just suddenly change up when it comes to Matthew Seavoy. Hopefully hopefully he’s able to get a bit more ice time tomorrow against Vegas. They’re going to need some speed and skill and a little bit of offensive flare if they’re going to beat the Vegas Golden Knights who as of this recording are currently playing the um the Calgary Flames. Now, if we take a look at the money puck, oh my goodness, look at all those circles, all those dots in and around those high danger areas for Minnesota. If we take a look at the money puck here, expected goals in all situations 3.6, 5.5 in favor of the Minnesota Wild. Very even game after the first. pretty even game after the second and then Minnesota they’re like I said they they started pulling away here they got that fourth goal Oilers didn’t really get a you know nothing really solid after Minnesota made it a twogoal game and then of course the empty netter adds a bit of an extra expected goal and not one Oiler was above 50% in the expected goals for department at five on five in this one Hopkins was the highest rated Oiler 47.1% Buchard 44.39 McDavid 42 and then you had Stillman and Emerson who had a really really tough game here, which is unfortunate. Another player who I didn’t really talk about so far, Stashny liked his game a lot. I thought he played real real solid. The advanced underlying metrics are going to show that he didn’t, but overall, I liked Stashny’s game. I like his foot speed. I like what he’s doing. And then Calvin Pickard, he actually was positive in the goal saved above expected department, plus 0.18 goals saved above expected. So, tough to put this one on Calvin Pickard. He had an 88.9 save percentage. Honestly, they just got to play better in front of him. They gave up way too many shots, too many chances. They got to they got to get back to their, you know, kind of stingy, keep things to the perimeter, boring hockey, right? I call it boring hockey. Not fun to watch. But for a guy like Calvin Pickard in the crease, you got to play like that, right? You got to play like that or you got to, you know, get in front of pucks, start blocking, be physical in front of your net, play the way they did against Tampa, um, defending that onegoal lead as long as they did before Tampa eventually came back a couple weeks ago. Now, let’s go over a couple questions from the fans. I put out a tweet if you ever want to send me questions or comments. Uh, definitely just follow me on Twitter, Austin HockeyYT. First one comes from Oil Doug. Goalending and Dzone awareness is still a problem. Would be nice to see this lineup fully healthy. I could not agree more. Uh, we haven’t seen a fully healthy Oilers lineup in quite some time. Don’t know who comes out of the lineup when guys are healthy, especially guys like Rosik and Kaan. I know who I would personally be taking out of this lineup. And they rhyme with Manmark and uh Scre, right? Those aren’t even real names or real name, but that that’s who they that’s that’s what they rhyme with. Those are the two players that I’d be taking out for those two. Uh Buchard believer asks, “Any thoughts on Stashney so far? It’s too early to tell, but I think he’s filled Koulak’s shoes so far.” I agree. Uh Stashny, the more he gets accustomed to Mton’s system and once he’s able to get some practices, too, right? The Oilers made the trade, but you can’t practice when you’re on a road trip like Edmonton was just on back to back tomorrow. They don’t get any real practice time until after Christmas. So, it’ll be nice for him to be able to have a full practice with the group, with the coaching staff, work with Mark Stewart, who does work with the defensive pairs. Um, it’ll be nice to see what he looks like once he’s kind of more established in Edmonton system. But overall, for what Stash is being asked to do right now, coming in, brand new team, new systems, trying to just figure out his place on the team, I’ve liked Stashney a lot. I’ve liked Stashney a lot. Hopefully, he can keep that going. And I find that him next to Nurse has actually been pretty good. I haven’t minded Darnell Nurse in the last two games next to Stashney, so hopefully he can keep that going. Erica says, “Threegame win streak versus the Mton Oilers, hydrogen bomb versus coughing baby, three-game win streak versus the Oilers. Just I guess Em just refuses to win three games in a row this season. Kyle’s up next. Mapani finally scores. How did you think about Pickard’s game? I liked Calvin’s Pickard’s game today. The only goal that I didn’t like on him was that third goal at the end of the first period. Again, Stillman let his guy through. Stillman, he’s just there’s no reason for Stillman to have done what he did at his own blue line. There’s no reason for Dry Cidle to do what he did when he gave the puck away. It’s one thing if you give the puck away, which is going to happen. Leon, he creates so much offensively. You’re going to give the puck away sometimes, right? It’s the decision that Leon made after he gave the puck away that I did not like. But again, I thought Calvin Pickard played good. This game does not fall on him. The goals against average does not look good, obviously, cuz it seems like every time Pickard is in the net, they have to score at least five goals in a game to win. Uh, and that’s just not where the offense is at right now, unless they’re wearing their cream jerseys. So, maybe you can get away with it. Maybe you can get away with this when you’re wearing the cream jerseys, but if you’re not in the cream jerseys, it’s not going to work. Then the last one comes from the oily nook. What sort of rituals or sacrifices should we perform to support our only hope, Connor Ingram, tomorrow night? Uh, whatever you can do that does not affect the life of anything or anyone else. Uh, if you’re going to make a sacrifice, sacrifice an inanimate object. Maybe a hockey card. Maybe create a shrine. If you have a Connor Ingram hockey card laying around, create a little shine shrine for it. give a big prayer. He’s going to need all the help that he can get. Honestly, uh I do I really do hope that Connor Ingram plays well. Uh it’s it’s for what Ingram has gone through and this is not where he should be at this stage of the season. Bowman took a chance on Tristan Jarry, it’s it hasn’t worked out yet. Jarry is technically 3 and 0 for the Oilers, which that means it’s worked out, but the Oilers obviously if you lose Jarry, which they have, we don’t know for how long. still have no idea what that injury, you know, timeline looks like. Now, you have to call up Ingram. They did not make a trade for another goalie before the roster freeze, which was last night at midnight. So, they have to wait until December 28th before they can go and try and make another trade. You got to hope Connor Ingram can just all Connor Ingram has to do tomorrow is make the saves he’s supposed to. Just make the saves you’re supposed to and the team in front of him hopefully they’re all bought in and they give him a chance to win a hockey game. get that confidence up and that might be really good for the group too. A little bit of adversity here when it comes to the goalending situation, but maybe Ingram and the Crease will make sure that everyone is on their agame, that they’re paying attention to the little details and that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do in front of the goalender so that it makes his night a little bit easier. I want to know all of your thoughts though. Please let me know all of your thoughts in the comments section below. I will have a pregame report up in the morning before the Oilers take on the Golden Knights. May even have a live stream tomorrow too, right? It’s either tomorrow I might do live stream or maybe uh Tuesday before the Christmas break for the team against the Calgary Flames. So, we’ll we’ll see which one I decide to do live stream for. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Definitely at least the Calgary game I’d like to do a stream for. So, we’ll we’ll see. We’ll see how it all turns out, folks. I hope you all have a wonderful night, a wonderful day, wonderful weekend. We’ll see you tomorrow. Tell someone you love them. And as always, fight like a kid, fight like Ben. Let’s go Oilers. I’ll see you soon, folks. Take care.

Despite a valiant effort by Calvin Pickard, the Minnesota Wild were too much for him and the rest of the Oilers to handle in today’s matinee. The Oilers head home to face the Golden Knights tomorrow after going 3-2-0 on their 5-game road trip. You know what? I’ll take it. Here’s tonight’s Fan Reaction! #oilers #edmontonoilers #nhl

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