{"id":470844,"date":"2026-02-25T07:20:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T07:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470844\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T07:20:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T07:20:31","slug":"return-of-veteran-oilers-centre-should-provide-secret-sauce-to-fix-ugly-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470844\/","title":{"rendered":"Return of veteran Oilers centre should provide secret sauce to fix ugly issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

No Edmonton forward got more ice time on the penalty kill than Adam Henrique when the Oilers PK was solid, not great, but solid.<\/p>\n

But since Henrique played his last full game due to injury on January 3, the Oil\u2019s PK has gone down the toilet.<\/p>\n

Will his return to action provide the secret sauce to help remedy that PK\u2019s woes?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s evident that Henrique has lost a step and that this has limited his effectiveness as an even strength player. He\u2019s still a smart, skilled and aggressive player, but he\u2019s a half-step behind in 5-on-5 play. Rookie Samanski providing far more effective two-way play as Edmonton\u2019s third line centre in his five-game audition than Henrique ever provided this year.<\/p>\n

But on the PK, it\u2019s as much about reading the play, having the right position and covering off the right passing and shooting lanes as it is about speed and agility, and Henrique still thrives in the d-zone PK.<\/p>\n

In the first 42 games of the year, when he led the forwards in ice time at 1:42 per game (with Matt Savoie at 1:40, Mattias Janmark, 1:31, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 1:26, and Vasily Podkolzin 1:00), Edmonton had the 19th best PK in the league, with a clearance rate of 79.3 percent, which is close to the highest clearance rate as we\u2019ve seen since the Oil\u2019s ninth-ranked PK of the 2020-21 season.<\/p>\n

\"PK<\/a><\/p>\n

PK team 58 g<\/p>\n

In the 16 games since that time, Edmonton\u2019s PK has ranked 29th in the NHL with a terrible 69.2\u00a0 percent clearance rate. That rancid run of penalty killing is a major part of the reason Edmonton failed to string together a long run of wins on its January home stand. In that period, Connor McDavid<\/a> led Oilers forwards in PK time-on-ice per game, 1:36, then Janmark, 1:34, RNH, 1:29 and Savoie, 1:16.<\/p>\n

When it comes to making mistakes on Grade A shots against on the PK, Savoie has made the lowest rate of mistakes of any Oilers forward, just 0.27 per 2 minutes of PK time, with RNH, 0.37, Henrique, 0.39, McDavid, 0.41, Podkolzin, 0.47, and Janmark, 0.78.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One of those things is not like the other. Janmark has struggled immensely to get the job done on the PK, so much so that I can\u2019t see any argument for playing him there, or playing him at all, given he struggles to create anything on the attack at even strength. I\u2019ve admired this player for some time, but his days as an effective NHLer appear to be over. His days as a PK specialist started to unravel last year in the playoffs when he was a fraction slow making stops. Now he seems to be making misreads as well and getting caught out on seam passes and cross-ice passes.<\/p>\n

Henrique, Savoie, RNH, Podkolzin and McDavid (if it\u2019s not too much to ask of him) should form the Oil\u2019s PK units, with Samanski getting a shot when he\u2019s inevitably recalled (and the sooner the better on that count).<\/p>\n

By way of comparison here are last season\u2019s numbers for the PK, with Janmark doing much better both limiting mistakes on PK Grade A shots against and creating PK shots shorthanded.<\/p>\n

\"2024-25<\/a><\/p>\n

2024-25 PK<\/p>\n

At the Cult of HockeyMcDavid likely back in Oilers line-up soon, Wednesday\u2019s game not ruled out<\/a><\/p>\n

Ouch! Western conference rival trade for ex-Edmonton Oilers playoff ace<\/a><\/p>\n

Why did Team Canada lose gold medal game? \u2018Big mistake\u2019: hockey commentators say<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally! Struggling Edmonton Oilers forward likely to be traded this week, NHL insider says<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No Edmonton forward got more ice time on the penalty kill than Adam Henrique when the Oilers PK…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[1586,155,198,146,5300,5,10563,3533,35,4,24,32917,15,8686,1588],"class_list":["post-470844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton-oilers","tag-adam-henrique","tag-connor-mcdavid","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmontonoilers","tag-hockey","tag-matt-savoie","tag-mattias-janmark","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-oilers","tag-pk","tag-ryan-nugent-hopkins","tag-shaughn-butts","tag-vasily-podkolzin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116130063576826905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470844","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=470844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}