Game Day 9, Oilers vs Kraken
This in from Tony Brar of Oilers TV, news of yet one more new line-up shuffle for tonight’s game against the Seattle Kraken:
Howard – McDavid – Mangiapane
Podkolzin – Draisaitl – Savoie
Henrique – RNH – Roslovic
Frederic – Philp – Tomasek
Ekholm – Bouchard
Nurse – Walman
Kulak – Emberson
Skinner Pickard
My take
1. There are some fans who are all about the young and promising players getting ice time on top lines. They will be happy today with rookies Ike Howard on the top line and Matt Savoie on the second line.
I’m also glad to see this, though uncertain it will work out.
The Oilers have failed to put together even on line yet that has scored more than one 5-on-5 goals. That is awful.
Will one of these lnes be the first to do so? Will it happen in just one game, that kind of two-goal outburst?
Dare to dream.
coaches
2. If we’re looking for positives heading into Game Nine, it’s that the Oilers wingers and d-men have played like crap so far this year, on average, but the team is still at real .500 after eight games.
That’s better than the losing we’ve seen to start the year in the past few seasons, even as the Oilers are getting beat at most aspects of the game, most notably Grade A shot differential, where it’s 12.8 for per game, 14.3 against. Last year they were 15.2 for, 12.0 against on average.
3. Other positives? The goaltending, aside from two or three stinker goals against, has been good. Not great, but good.
Skinner and Pickard have generally been the best goalie in each game, though not every game. Dustin Wolf and Thatcher Demko in Vancouver put out incredible games against the Oilers.
But Skinner and Pickard, so far, have been getting it done.
Connor McDavid doesn’t have as many points as in the past, and he’s not creating as many Grade A shots per game, but another positive has been his solid two-way play at even strength. He’s getting it done, as has been Ryan Nugent-Hopkins at centre.
On defence, Mattias Ekholm had a super solid start to the year and Jake Walman has picked up where Ekholm left off.
Grade A shots 8 games
4. The negatives? The wingers and the defencemen are playing poor hockey at even strength, much worse than they were last year or the year before.
At the Cult of Hockey we’ve been doing video review of all Grade A shots for and against the Oilers for 15 years now. We’ve studied hundreds and hundreds of games and thousands and thousands of Grade A shots. The level of two-way performance on the wing and on defence so far is close to what we saw during the Decade of Darkness.
This current team has been awful when it comes to creating and defending Grade A shots. For example, as a group, Edmonton’s wingers were +1.3 Grade A shots per game in 2024-25, +1.61 in 2023-24 and +1.23 in 2022-23.
This year they are down in the dumps with a garbage +0.74 per game, not close enough to satisfactory for wingers who have plenty of offensive opportunity and not so much defensive responsibility.
As for the d-men, they are doing as bad as the wingers compared to previous seasons in terms of creating and defending Grade A shots. In 2022-23 they were -0.56 as a group, not bad for players with not much offensive opportunity and a lot of defensive responsibility.
In 2023-24 they were greatly improved, -0.33, and in 2024-25 they were -0.30.
This year they are as a group at -1.07 Grade A shots per game.
They are leaking Grade A shots against almost to a man, with Walman the only exception.
Part of this is that the Oilers have seven new players at forward, so the lines aren’t humming yet.
Part of it could be that the team misses the coaching Paul Coffey brought on defence. There were some negatives with Coffey’s defensive pairings, but could it be he was able to bring out the best in his d-men? We shall see.
And we’ll see if the forwards pick it up as they become more familiar with one another.
Tonight is the latest test. It’s still early so perhaps the poor play will resolve itself. It has to if the Oil are going to keep on winning.
At the Cult of Hockey
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