Welcome back. I wrote an article at American Thanksgiving pointing out that we are in a LOT of trouble to make the playoffs. A historical “Binnington” level comeback was required! Well, guess what? We went on one heck of an eight-game run! Stuart Skinner was stopping everything, the forwards were scoring and the defence was flawless. Our underlying metrics on that eight-game winning streak were unbelievable. In fact, I’d say it was one of my favorite winning streaks in the last decade.
Where did it go wrong?
Then we played teams from the State of Florida. We looked every bit the same awful team that wasn’t in the playoffs on American Thanksgiving. The Tampa Bay Lightning put seven goals on the board against us. The Florida Panthers put up another five. Both goalies looked AHL calibre, our D was leaking High Danger Chances and our forwards could not finish.
We did have the flow of the play and got many shots, but ultimately, we needed to score eight goals and six goals to win our games. Basically, it was identical to the start of the season where we also outplayed our opponents but everything ended up in the back or our net and not enough in the back of our opponents nets. We have had TEN games with five or more goals scored against us (including the last two). That is more than 35% of our games.
The ebb and flow of the Oilers
So who are we? Are we the October Oilers: good flow of play, major D collapses, and too many goals against; or the eight-game streak Oilers: good flow of play, lots of goals, not many D collapses, and not many goals against at all?
Before the season began I pointed out that we do not have a strong enough D or G core to be a serious Stanley Cup threat. During the losing streak and at Thanksgiving I doubled down and said we still need another D to push Cody Ceci down the right side and Vinny Desharnais to the pressbox. We also need a platoon goalie for Skinner to split the duties.
The goaltending issue as pressing as ever
Calvin Pickard has done his best but he has started less than 10 NHL games in the last three seasons. Jack Campbell may be a great guy but he has bad stats in the NHL and AHL. There are options but we don’t seem interested in any of them.
There is also a big goalie trend of declining save percentage. It used to be that .915 was average. It’s now .902. We currently only have Pickard above .900. Pickard and Skinner are not the answer. Nor are Skinner and Campbell.
What needs to be done for the Oilers
Doing absolutely nothing. Waiting for Philip Broberg to figure it out in the AHL. Waiting for Dylan Holloway to come back. Not making one trade is criminal at this point. If the plan is to run Skinner into the ground, make him play 70 games, and then watch him struggle in playoffs, then the plan is no good.
If the backup plan is to bring back Campbell then the plan is no good. Campbell also played last night. He was pulled after 30 minutes. He allowed four goals in that period and a half. His AHL statline is:
To put it bluntly. He’s not even close to Pickard and Olivier Rodrigue in the AHL. Rodrigue not getting starts for Campbell is another issue. He is very promising in the future and him and Skinner could be a great platoon tandem in two seasons.
I will disagree with “wait till Feb.” It should’ve happened in the offseason. It should’ve happened in the last month. Here is that February run that Gregor is referring to.
12 games in the shortest month of the year. Technically it is 12 games in 22 nights. This is going to be a very tough stretch and we need to shore up well before that.
How about our D? Turns out we had a magic solution. Do nothing and have Paul Coffey explain it to them.
So my question? When and where are we getting “somebody else who can’? Our defence has never been good enough and will not be without at least one bigger trade. On Thursday we were extremely close to getting into the final playoffs spot by points and points percentage. We would’ve had games in hand. I was looking forward to writing an article talking about how we are back in the playoff race!
However, when you give up as many points as we did at the start of the season, you are always in peril and chasing your own tail. Two losses and we are sub .500 with .533 currently being the last playoff spot. The good news? No one in that wild card race is a juggernaut. It’s a weaker group of hockey teams. The bad news? The top of the division are all about .650 and killing it! One of them is the defending cup champs who dismantled our current goalie and d core a few months ago. I’d be surprised if we could get into the top three before the season ends.
For success. The Oiler’s need another eight wins out of a 10-game streak—that should put them in the final wild card spot. However, they really don’t have that much room for error and February is going to be brutally hard. Ken Holland doing nothing (or Jeff Jackson if you believe he is now running the show) is absolutely sinking the season. I’m not sure what is more likely? Holland/Jackson making a good trade or Connor Brown scoring a goal (one assist in 22 games played this season)?
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
