{"id":203746,"date":"2025-09-22T04:33:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T04:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/203746\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T04:33:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T04:33:17","slug":"2-good-things-2-bad-things-2-numbers-as-oilers-beat-flames-3-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/203746\/","title":{"rendered":"2 good things, 2 bad things, 2 numbers as Oilers beat Flames 3-0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edmonton Oil Country got its first look at Finnish d-man Atro Leppanen and forward Ike Howard against NHL competition and the two impressed, as the Oilers beat the Calgary Flames<\/a> 3-0 in one half of the night\u2019s split quad games, this match in Calgary.<\/p>\n

Kurt Leavins with 2 good things, 2 bad things, 2 numbers in Flames 3, Oilers 2<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are two good things, two bad things and two numbers about the contest:<\/p>\n

Good Thing #1: Leppanen and Howard<\/p>\n

Leppanen, top scorer in the Finnish league last season, led the Oilers in ice-time at 23:42 and I strongly suspect he also led the team in completed passes. He came out strong, coolly passing the puck out of his own zone on repeated plays. He had something of an iffy second period, then came on strong again in the third. His passing success came both forehand and backhand, up the boards, on the move and into the middle of the ice. The young man can make a pass, something the Oilers prioritize in d-men. If you\u2019re looking for a stylistic comp, Leppanen plays a heads up passing game in the style of John Klingberg. Leppanen also played heads up zone defence. He\u2019s no cycle buster, but he\u2019s smart enough to stick with his man in front of the net.<\/p>\n

As for Howard, he made a fantastic pass to send in Kasperi Kapanen on a break-in for Edmonton\u2019s first goal of the game early in the first. Howard showed more hustle on the forecheck this night.\u00a0 Again, he reminds me of former Oiler forward Mike York. This is far from saying Leppanen is the new Klingberg or Howard is the new York, but if you\u2019ve yet to see them play, that\u2019s the style of game each plays.<\/p>\n

Good Thing #2, Samuel Jonsson and Nathaniel Day.<\/p>\n

The big Swedish goalie, the best goalie in the Swedish second division last year, didn\u2019t have a lot of action, just 20 shots, but he made at least three 5-alarm saves and never looked in trouble out there as he earned his shut-out. Between him and Nathanial Day, who came on to play the second half of the game, the Oilers suddenly look like they\u2019ve got some promise in the goalie prospect pipeline.<\/p>\n

Calgary played ten veterans, including Rasmus Andersson, Mikael Backlund, Matt Coronato, Connor Zary, Nazem Kadri and Mackenzie Weegar. The Oilers, with just two players, Brett Kulak and Kasperi Kapanen ,who saw the ice in the Stanley Cup Final, outworked them, outshot them and outscored them. Weak effort from Calgary.<\/p>\n

Bad Thing #2: The Flames announcers rubbing it in<\/p>\n

As the game wound down on Flames TV at the Caglary website, the two Calgary announcers took their time to talk about the big story in Edmonton, Connor McDavid<\/a> not being signed. I wouldn\u2019t say they had a chuckle over it, but they sounded happy as they discussed how painful it would be to have both Wayne Gretzky and Connor McDavid<\/a> in Edmonton and to lose both of them. I guess we best get used to this kind of happy talk from opposing fans and broadcasters for the time being, but it\u2019s not exactly music to the ears.<\/p>\n

Number #1: 09:59<\/p>\n

That\u2019s Connor Clattenburg\u2019s ice time for the game, but the Oilers new tough guy made the most of it, picking a fight and getting in a punch, while also scoring a goal. He picked off a pass in the Calgary end and rifled in a high wrister. Clattenburg had been fairly quiet until those two late third period events, but he didn\u2019t have much ice-time before that either.<\/p>\n

Number #2: 9 out of 15<\/p>\n

In this game alone the Oilers iced nine of their Top 15 prospects, according to the Summer of 2025 Cult of Hockey prospect rankings. Almost all of them played well, notably Roby Jarventie making a few swell passes after playing only two games last year due to a bad knee, Quinn Huston demonstrating his usual smart and effective passing and skating skills on the attack, and big Josh Samanski showing good wheels, hustle and defensive acumen.<\/p>\n

At the Cult of Hockey<\/p>\n

LEAVINS: 9 Things<\/a><\/p>\n

STAPLES: Edmonton Oilers make smart move to solve the mystery of Darnell Nurse<\/a><\/p>\n

STAPLES: \u2018It just becomes a gong show\u2019: How McDavid\u2019s interview with Sportsnet made Oilers fans crazy<\/a><\/p>\n

STAPLES: \u2018That\u2019s going to be your undoing\u2019: Do Oilers possess what Vegas GM calls key ingredient to winning Stanley Cup?<\/a><\/p>\n

LEAVINS:\u00a0What signals we should read into Day One of Edmonton Oilers Training Camp<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edmonton Oil Country got its first look at Finnish d-man Atro Leppanen and forward Ike Howard against NHL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[29347,3592,26,24625,155,5669,198,146,5300,5,31586,691,4812,34341,2339,2340,1740,2054,4,24,3327,21219],"class_list":{"0":"post-203746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-atro-leppanen","9":"tag-brett-kulak","10":"tag-calgary-flames","11":"tag-connor-clattenburg","12":"tag-connor-mcdavid","13":"tag-connor-zary","14":"tag-edmonton","15":"tag-edmonton-oilers","16":"tag-edmontonoilers","17":"tag-hockey","18":"tag-ike-howard","19":"tag-john-klingberg","20":"tag-kasperi-kapanen","21":"tag-leppanen","22":"tag-mackenzie-weegar","23":"tag-matt-coronato","24":"tag-mikael-backlund","25":"tag-nazem-kadri","26":"tag-nhl","27":"tag-oilers","28":"tag-rasmus-andersson","29":"tag-roby-jarventie"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115246085130710301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}