It was a truly bizarre lineup decision last night when Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch decided to roll out the pairing of Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers.
This, on the heels of a fantastic series win over the Dallas Stars just a week ago, in which Knoblauch separated the two defenseman en route to three straight victories to clinch the Western Conference.
Not only did this lineup decision fly in the face of historical data, the eye test, the voices of screaming Oilers fans across the globe, and general common sense, it backfired in the worst possible way.
Knoblauch has been praised for his maturity behind the bench despite only being an NHL bench boss for a few months, but he made a catastrophic mistake last night and it cost the Oilers the game, plain and simple.
Nurse-Ceci by the numbers against Florida
It has been well documented that the Oilers played a very strong game last night, and from an analytics perspective were very much ahead in the “deserve-to-win-o-meter”. However, that doesn’t mean that the team with the better night will end up coming away with the win every single time, and this was one of those games for the Oilers. And, it was in large part due to the completely ineffective Nurse-Ceci pairing.
The pairing was on the ice for 13:16 at 5v5. In comparison, the top pairing of Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard played 15:01, and the third pairing of Brett Kulak and Philip Broberg played 13:24. It was a pretty fair split across the board, but red flag number one is that the third pair played more than the second pair.
Of the two goals the Panthers scored at 5v5 last night, they were both scored while the Nurse-Ceci pairing was on the ice.
Goal breakdown
This wasn’t a fluke, either. Here’s the first goal:
It’s a partial three-on-two, yes, but Nurse pressures the puck carrier on the right wing boards, leaving Ceci to cover the middle of the ice. This isn’t a bad decision by Nurse but the puck goes to Aleksandar Barkov on the right side of the ice and a partial two-on-one. However, Barkov is leaning right and on his backhand, not able to shoot from that position. His only move is a pass out front to the third Panthers player, and the smart defensive play at that point would be to cover the cross-ice pass.
Does Ceci do that? Nope.
He chases Barkov who’s already smothered and on his backhand, leaving a wide open Carter Verhaeghe in front who puts the puck past Stuart Skinner.
It was a nice play by the Panthers, no doubt, but there was a way better defensive play that could be made in that scenario that Ceci simply did not.
Here’s the second goal:
This is a hard forechecking play by the Panthers as Sam Bennett chips the puck deep and chases it behind the net. Ceci goes to cover him, which was the correct play as the Oilers had several bodies in front of the net to help out, but Bennett sees an open Evan Rodrigues in front and passes it to him after the puck bounces off the end boards.
Not to be outdone, it’s Nurse’s turn to wipe the egg off his face. He’s caught puck watching, lets the puck go right by him into the slot, where Rodrigues is waiting and makes no mistake.
The Panthers go up 2-0 and that ends up being all the insurance they need to win the game.
Is this a fireable offense?
I like Knoblauch as much as the rest of you do, but his insistence to run back the completely useless Nurse-Ceci pairing was negligent. There is no metric or reason that supports playing these two defenders together.
Saying that individually they are both top-four defensemen so they should both play in the top-four is not a legitimate rationale. Spreading out the “talent” amongst all three pairs is a much better way to run your team. That’s what worked against Dallas, and it makes no sense that Knoblauch went back on that in Game 1.
That first goal was not on Nurse or Ceci. Nurse takes the puck carrier as is his responsibility. Ceci has to prevent the short pass hitting an open Barkov (how is he smothered?). Verhaeghe is Hyman’s responsibillity and Hyaman is not striding hard to close the gap, he is coasting. And you blame Ceci? That is ridiciulous. Also McDavid got caught up with a bad angle in the offensive zone which contributed to the goal as well. Not on Ceci my friend. On the second goal Evsnder Kane falls asleep and leaves Rodrigues wide open. THAT was not Nurse’s fault. Stop blaming the wrong guy to fit your narrative.
Ceci sucks and Nurse is about to break the playoff plus minus record in the wrong way. He makes over $9 million. Skinner sucks too but he’s only a second year goalie so that’s on management. Knobby putting them back together was moronic. They sucked against LA, Vancouver, and Dallas. Florida is better than all those teams so how does it make sense?