Congratulations, Edmonton Oilers fans! You have reached the Olympic break point of the season, as has the team. And the Oilers players seemingly need this break after being goalied in consecutive games, and not getting good enough backstopping at their end.
The radio voice of the Detroit Tigers, Dan Dickerson, expressed dismay at having to do a postgame after the Tigers were walked off in the ALDS by the Seattle Mariners. There’s almost a similar sentiment from this observer, as the Oilers essentially copied and pasted the Toronto game. Penalties, and lack of a good kill, did them in. Timely saves did not exist, and scorers (outside of Leon Draisaitl) made the opposing goalie look elite.
The worst part is that this result was predicted. A pessimistic guess, in conversation with our friends at The Win Column, was that Devin Cooley would make 40 saves. 36 isn’t 40, but it’s 90 percent of the way there. You could anticipate the Oilers losing this game to another hot goalie, and by golly they did.
Oilers lose 4–3.
They won three in a row, but at the cost of losing three in a row. This is why you avoid the proverbial monkey’s paw, folks. Here’s the game story.
Stop making opposing goalies look like prime Martin Brodeur
For the second straight game, the Oilers were facing a goalie not particularly known as a regular starter. And also for the second straight game, scoring on said goalie turned into an epic challenge. This has become far too much of a recurring theme with this team, and the reasons remain the same.
Two of the goals were power play tallies that we’ll get into later. Kasperi Kapanen notched the other one, his second straight game scoring. Note, however, that the goal was as much a powerful Kapanen shot as it was Cooley wanting that one back.
Apart from this one gaffe, Cooley let the Oilers have nothing at 5v5. There wasn’t an ample amount of traffic in front of Cooley, there wasn’t enough greasiness to the goals (though Kapanen did have the right mindset). The team needs to be much, much better in those areas. Not every goal is going to be a fancy dinner at Chianti.
The defensive game isn’t great right now either. But it can’t kill the offence to try and be more burdensome on other teams at the net-front. Practice that at the end of the break, please.
What changes are going to be made to the penalty kill?
Oh, boy, the penalty kill that kills nothing but momentum. They gave up goals on the first two Calgary Flames power play opportunities of the night. Draisaitl summarized it, in his postgame, as “not good enough right now,” and he’s not at all wrong.
What do you do, coming out of the break? Do you trade for better penalty kill talent? Implement a new scheme altogether? Some social media pagans are suggesting to fire Assistant Coach Mark Stuart, who runs the penalty kill. Is that the ultimate answer?
Regardless, status quo is not a good enough answer in this scenario; far from it. Something has to change about that corps, and fast. Otherwise, it itself could lead to the Oilers’ downfall this season.
There’s still not enough saves being made for the Oilers
Tristan Jarry got the nod in this game, hoping to bounce back after getting pulled against Minnesota. There was an opportunity for him to prove that he deserved more starts coming out of the Olympic break. Connor Ingram was solid the night before, but ultimately still posted a sub-.900 save percentage.
Jarry ended up posting nearly identical stats to Ingram, who stopped 22 of 26 shots in his game. Jarry only made 21 saves on 25 shots, for an .840 save percentage. He also got way too scrambly on the winning 4–3 goal, where the Oilers needed a steady presence in goal.
Both goalies need a serious reset, and this break will offer them that. Jarry needs it the most, given he is being paid to be the starting goalie. He acknowledged in the postgame, that he has to step up his game. Either way, the Oilers need more timely saves the rest of the way; no excuses.
At least the top talents bounced back after a scoreless evening
All the Oilers’ star players were held off the scoresheet against Toronto the other night. It was not a fun night to be an elite talent of the Oilers against the Leafs. The hope was that they would get right back on the board against Calgary.
They did do that, at least. Here are two Draisaitl power play goals to bless your timeline, with Evan Bouchard getting assists on both. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Connor McDavid each had one assist in this game.
Bouchard also notched an assist on the Kapanen goal, so he especially bounced back. Unlike the night before, this loss was not on the top offensive threats for the Oilers. Alas, it wasn’t enough in the end.
Go Canada Go (and Germany) at the Milan Olympics
The Oilers do have three players heading to Milan for the Olympics. Connor McDavid will represent Team Canada, while Leon Draisaitl and Josh Samanski will represent their home nation of Germany. There’s an argument to be made that more Oilers should be going to the Olympics. But three still ain’t all that bad.
Here’s hoping both hockey teams do really well. Of course, on the basis of national pride, here’s rooting for all Canadian athletes. But Draisaitl and Samanski getting some hardware would also be really cool. Let’s hope that also happens.
Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire
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