|
Post by Dr. Telly-Belly on Dec 11, 2019 9:59:21 GMT -7
We knew hard times would come. It does for largely all teams. The key is for them to bounce back. The problem is that the only ones that can bounce back is McD, LD, Neal. No one else has had any offensive side in the first 1/3 of the season.
Personally, I still trust Holland and Tippett but they have an awful lot of work still to do. Calgaryalfan has a good point. With good work from Holland, the team is still 2 years away from becoming a force defensively. If only the Oilers could get some scoring.
|
|
|
Post by rickster on Dec 11, 2019 10:10:05 GMT -7
We knew hard times would come. It does for largely all teams. The key is for them to bounce back. The problem is that the only ones that can bounce back is McD, LD, Neal. No one else has had any offensive side in the first 1/3 of the season. Personally, I still trust Holland and Tippett but they have an awful lot of work still to do. Calgaryalfan has a good point. With good work from Holland, the team is still 2 years away from becoming a force defensively. If only the Oilers could get some scoring. Coaching changes almost always bring a surge from the players in terms of effort (especially defensively). Usually a very temporary resurgence. We are now seeing our top players lower the bar, cheat for easy offense and not put in the defensive work they were earlier. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Keeping the kids motivated and focused these days is not an easy task........
|
|
|
Post by neufab94 on Dec 11, 2019 11:09:58 GMT -7
On the note of "it was great while it lasted" I will add that the Draisaitl - McDavid - Kassian line was nice while it lasted also. I completely understand the idea of spreading out offence just like TM and Hitch tried to do, however, it simply does nothing more than split up a dynamic pair with consistent chemistry.
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Telly-Belly on Dec 11, 2019 13:02:37 GMT -7
On the note of "it was great while it lasted" I will add that the Draisaitl - McDavid - Kassian line was nice while it lasted also. I completely understand the idea of spreading out offence just like TM and Hitch tried to do, however, it simply does nothing more than split up a dynamic pair with consistent chemistry.
True. I was thinking that the Bruins don't seem to split Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak. I too get the idea of getting more scoring but this doesn't seem to work. We might as well keep scoring in bunches from primarily one line instead fewer goals by more lines.
|
|
|
Post by blackhawk216 on Dec 11, 2019 13:23:14 GMT -7
We knew hard times would come. It does for largely all teams. The key is for them to bounce back. The problem is that the only ones that can bounce back is McD, LD, Neal. No one else has had any offensive side in the first 1/3 of the season. Personally, I still trust Holland and Tippett but they have an awful lot of work still to do. Calgaryalfan has a good point. With good work from Holland, the team is still 2 years away from becoming a force defensively. If only the Oilers could get some scoring. Not just you telly, but almost everyone include the "experts" on TV are consistently going on about the Oilers need more depth scoring...……….I have a different view point. In the Pacific Division the Oilers are second best scorers with 100, only Vancouver has scored more, but the Oilers have conceded more goals than five of the other teams, ie we have the 6th best defence in an 8 team division. My viewpoint is that we need more depth defending, not necessarily more depth scoring. A potential goal against being prevented, has the same value as a goal actually scored, and that can't be debated. To me we are still very loose at the back, I still see way many times 3 opposition players (sometimes 4) heading to our goal with only a couple of Oiler players placed in a position to do anything about it. Don't know what has happened to the five back and five forward strategy, but it takes way too long for the Oilers to get five men back, and we still have way too much puck watching, ie RNH last night stood behind the net, lets his player go and in the back of our net in a couple of seconds (can't recall which goal it was, does it matter?). There has been a lot of talk about going in for scoring forwards, ie Hall & Toffoli, biggish names that probably won't contribute any more to our defence than the top six players we already have. I think if we are looking at free agents, we should re-direct our attention to someone like (not necessarily this guy but someone similar) Pietrangelo of St Louis. To fund such a move I would be shipping out Kris Russell and one of Larsson or Nurse...……...yep, Larsson or Nurse. We have several good young defencemen ready to hopefully emulate Ethan Bear, and to me, Nurse is way over rated, and Larsson certainly not irreplaceable, especially if we can get a top class defender as mentioned in. In the 26 years I have been watching the Oilers, the only really top defender that could do everything required was Chris Pronger, and look at what happened that year. We are spending too much at one end of the ice and we do not have enough quality at the other end...……….fact!
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Telly-Belly on Dec 11, 2019 13:30:40 GMT -7
We knew hard times would come. It does for largely all teams. The key is for them to bounce back. The problem is that the only ones that can bounce back is McD, LD, Neal. No one else has had any offensive side in the first 1/3 of the season. Personally, I still trust Holland and Tippett but they have an awful lot of work still to do. Calgaryalfan has a good point. With good work from Holland, the team is still 2 years away from becoming a force defensively. If only the Oilers could get some scoring. Not just you telly, but almost everyone include the "experts" on TV are consistently going on about the Oilers need more depth scoring...……….I have a different view point. In the Pacific Division the Oilers are second best scorers with 100, only Vancouver has scored more, but the Oilers have conceded more goals than five of the other teams, ie we have the 6th best defence in an 8 team division. My viewpoint is that we need more depth defending, not necessarily more depth scoring. A potential goal against being prevented, has the same value as a goal actually scored, and that can't be debated. To me we are still very loose at the back, I still see way many times 3 opposition players (sometimes 4) heading to our goal with only a couple of Oiler players placed in a position to do anything about it. Don't know what has happened to the five back and five forward strategy, but it takes way too long for the Oilers to get five men back, and we still have way too much puck watching, ie RNH last night stood behind the net, lets his player go and in the back of our net in a couple of seconds (can't recall which goal it was, does it matter?). There has been a lot of talk about going in for scoring forwards, ie Hall & Toffoli, biggish names that probably won't contribute any more to our defence than the top six players we already have. I think if we are looking at free agents, we should re-direct our attention to someone like (not necessarily this guy but someone similar) Pietrangelo of St Louis. To fund such a move I would be shipping out Kris Russell and one of Larsson or Nurse...……...yep, Larsson or Nurse. We have several good young defencemen ready to hopefully emulate Ethan Bear, and to me, Nurse is way over rated, and Larsson certainly not irreplaceable, especially if we can get a top class defender as mentioned in. In the 26 years I have been watching the Oilers, the only really top defender that could do everything required was Chris Pronger, and look at what happened that year. We are spending too much at one end of the ice and we do not have enough quality at the other end...……….fact! You make good points. In fact, they maybe spot on. I slightly disagree with regards to Nurse. My take is Klef is a total liability and Nurse is miles ahead of him. I would move Klef before anyone including Russell. I'm not a fan of Benning but his stats always seem to be light years ahead of Klef. I do agree that looking for improvement on the back end would serve us just as well as a secondary scoring forward. Maybe more.
|
|
|
Post by rickster on Dec 11, 2019 13:38:45 GMT -7
We knew hard times would come. It does for largely all teams. The key is for them to bounce back. The problem is that the only ones that can bounce back is McD, LD, Neal. No one else has had any offensive side in the first 1/3 of the season. Personally, I still trust Holland and Tippett but they have an awful lot of work still to do. Calgaryalfan has a good point. With good work from Holland, the team is still 2 years away from becoming a force defensively. If only the Oilers could get some scoring. Not just you telly, but almost everyone include the "experts" on TV are consistently going on about the Oilers need more depth scoring...……….I have a different view point. In the Pacific Division the Oilers are second best scorers with 100, only Vancouver has scored more, but the Oilers have conceded more goals than five of the other teams, ie we have the 6th best defence in an 8 team division. My viewpoint is that we need more depth defending, not necessarily more depth scoring. A potential goal against being prevented, has the same value as a goal actually scored, and that can't be debated. To me we are still very loose at the back, I still see way many times 3 opposition players (sometimes 4) heading to our goal with only a couple of Oiler players placed in a position to do anything about it. Don't know what has happened to the five back and five forward strategy, but it takes way too long for the Oilers to get five men back, and we still have way too much puck watching, ie RNH last night stood behind the net, lets his player go and in the back of our net in a couple of seconds (can't recall which goal it was, does it matter?). There has been a lot of talk about going in for scoring forwards, ie Hall & Toffoli, biggish names that probably won't contribute any more to our defence than the top six players we already have. I think if we are looking at free agents, we should re-direct our attention to someone like (not necessarily this guy but someone similar) Pietrangelo of St Louis. To fund such a move I would be shipping out Kris Russell and one of Larsson or Nurse...……...yep, Larsson or Nurse. We have several good young defencemen ready to hopefully emulate Ethan Bear, and to me, Nurse is way over rated, and Larsson certainly not irreplaceable, especially if we can get a top class defender as mentioned in. In the 26 years I have been watching the Oilers, the only really top defender that could do everything required was Chris Pronger, and look at what happened that year. We are spending too much at one end of the ice and we do not have enough quality at the other end...……….fact! Definitely agree that it is our defensive game that most needs to improve. The difficulty is that the forwards on the ice for most goals against are our top paid 2 players. They are the guys who often don't bother to back check. A guy like Pietrangelo would be a great addition, but facing 2-1's and 3-2's all night, pucks would still end up in our net. But certainly we can all see the slide in the Oilers' commitment to team defense. Tippett has to very gently suggest that we limit the neutral zone turnovers, the drop passes, the blind passes, the wide skate loops to turn around and the glide on defense. It's a tough gig. If he upsets them, he's the next coach fired. Such is the nature of today's woke-millionaire hockey player. They aren't scared anymore. They know they have the coach by the pucks.
|
|
|
Post by blackhawk216 on Dec 11, 2019 14:13:37 GMT -7
Not just you telly, but almost everyone include the "experts" on TV are consistently going on about the Oilers need more depth scoring...……….I have a different view point. In the Pacific Division the Oilers are second best scorers with 100, only Vancouver has scored more, but the Oilers have conceded more goals than five of the other teams, ie we have the 6th best defence in an 8 team division. My viewpoint is that we need more depth defending, not necessarily more depth scoring. A potential goal against being prevented, has the same value as a goal actually scored, and that can't be debated. To me we are still very loose at the back, I still see way many times 3 opposition players (sometimes 4) heading to our goal with only a couple of Oiler players placed in a position to do anything about it. Don't know what has happened to the five back and five forward strategy, but it takes way too long for the Oilers to get five men back, and we still have way too much puck watching, ie RNH last night stood behind the net, lets his player go and in the back of our net in a couple of seconds (can't recall which goal it was, does it matter?). There has been a lot of talk about going in for scoring forwards, ie Hall & Toffoli, biggish names that probably won't contribute any more to our defence than the top six players we already have. I think if we are looking at free agents, we should re-direct our attention to someone like (not necessarily this guy but someone similar) Pietrangelo of St Louis. To fund such a move I would be shipping out Kris Russell and one of Larsson or Nurse...……...yep, Larsson or Nurse. We have several good young defencemen ready to hopefully emulate Ethan Bear, and to me, Nurse is way over rated, and Larsson certainly not irreplaceable, especially if we can get a top class defender as mentioned in. In the 26 years I have been watching the Oilers, the only really top defender that could do everything required was Chris Pronger, and look at what happened that year. We are spending too much at one end of the ice and we do not have enough quality at the other end...……….fact! You make good points. In fact, they maybe spot on. I slightly disagree with regards to Nurse. My take is Klef is a total liability and Nurse is miles ahead of him. I would move Klef before anyone including Russell. I'm not a fan of Benning but his stats always seem to be light years ahead of Klef. I do agree that looking for improvement on the back end would serve us just as well as a secondary scoring forward. Maybe more.
|
|
|
Post by Bronco73 on Dec 11, 2019 14:25:38 GMT -7
We knew hard times would come. It does for largely all teams. The key is for them to bounce back. The problem is that the only ones that can bounce back is McD, LD, Neal. No one else has had any offensive side in the first 1/3 of the season. Personally, I still trust Holland and Tippett but they have an awful lot of work still to do. Calgaryalfan has a good point. With good work from Holland, the team is still 2 years away from becoming a force defensively. If only the Oilers could get some scoring. Before PC got fired, when he was making all of those boneheaded moves, proving himself to be an absolute moron without a clue how to build a hockey club, I said he put us back so far that it would take 5 years before we could hope to contend again. I stand by that.
|
|
|
Post by blackhawk216 on Dec 11, 2019 14:37:42 GMT -7
Not just you telly, but almost everyone include the "experts" on TV are consistently going on about the Oilers need more depth scoring...……….I have a different view point. In the Pacific Division the Oilers are second best scorers with 100, only Vancouver has scored more, but the Oilers have conceded more goals than five of the other teams, ie we have the 6th best defence in an 8 team division. My viewpoint is that we need more depth defending, not necessarily more depth scoring. A potential goal against being prevented, has the same value as a goal actually scored, and that can't be debated. To me we are still very loose at the back, I still see way many times 3 opposition players (sometimes 4) heading to our goal with only a couple of Oiler players placed in a position to do anything about it. Don't know what has happened to the five back and five forward strategy, but it takes way too long for the Oilers to get five men back, and we still have way too much puck watching, ie RNH last night stood behind the net, lets his player go and in the back of our net in a couple of seconds (can't recall which goal it was, does it matter?). There has been a lot of talk about going in for scoring forwards, ie Hall & Toffoli, biggish names that probably won't contribute any more to our defence than the top six players we already have. I think if we are looking at free agents, we should re-direct our attention to someone like (not necessarily this guy but someone similar) Pietrangelo of St Louis. To fund such a move I would be shipping out Kris Russell and one of Larsson or Nurse...……...yep, Larsson or Nurse. We have several good young defencemen ready to hopefully emulate Ethan Bear, and to me, Nurse is way over rated, and Larsson certainly not irreplaceable, especially if we can get a top class defender as mentioned in. In the 26 years I have been watching the Oilers, the only really top defender that could do everything required was Chris Pronger, and look at what happened that year. We are spending too much at one end of the ice and we do not have enough quality at the other end...……….fact! You make good points. In fact, they maybe spot on. I slightly disagree with regards to Nurse. My take is Klef is a total liability and Nurse is miles ahead of him. I would move Klef before anyone including Russell. I'm not a fan of Benning but his stats always seem to be light years ahead of Klef. I do agree that looking for improvement on the back end would serve us just as well as a secondary scoring forward. Maybe more. You could have a point re Klefbom telly, I know the +/- statistic has flaws in its assessment of players, but Nurse is +2 whilst Klef is a team worst at -20 for what it is worth. Staying on the topic of the +/- statistic, what is very interesting to me and as we are using the same parameter to compare players how about this one: Our "recognised" top line of McD/Drai and Kass are a total of +10 and as Kass is +10 you can do the maths re the other two. For comparison, the top 3 in Boston, Marchand/Pastrnak/Bergeron are all + players with a total of +39. Our opponents last night, Carolina have their top 3 scoring forwards Svechnikov/Aho/Dzingel (again all + players) at a total of +19. Colorado have Mackinnon/Donskoi/Burakovski (again, all + players) at a total of + 17. I find it difficult to get my head around Connor and Leon being a combined +/- zero with all the points they have gathered. I believe this last sentence just about sums up our biggest problem...……...lack of defensive awareness/determination/discipline (insert whatever word you think is relevant). Even RNH supposedly the nearest we have to a 200' player is -6. I think James Neal is also on the minus side...……..if I am right (I need to check) what chance do we have when out of the five most likely (forwards) goal or points getters, four of them are in the minuses. I know someone is going to come back at me and tell me that the +/- stat is misleading, but it is funny how the other teams mentioned (Colorado, Carolina and Boston) have all their three top scoring forwards on the plus side of the equation. Surely there is a message here for Connor and Leon? I am happy to be corrected or educated on this subject (lack of defensive awareness) of which I believe is at the heart of our recent difficulties (and to be honest has been for a long time prior to the current set up). Is it "something in the water"?
|
|
|
Post by blackhawk216 on Dec 11, 2019 14:42:36 GMT -7
You make good points. In fact, they maybe spot on. I slightly disagree with regards to Nurse. My take is Klef is a total liability and Nurse is miles ahead of him. I would move Klef before anyone including Russell. I'm not a fan of Benning but his stats always seem to be light years ahead of Klef. I do agree that looking for improvement on the back end would serve us just as well as a secondary scoring forward. Maybe more. You could have a point re Klefbom telly, I know the +/- statistic has flaws in its assessment of players, but Nurse is +2 whilst Klef is a team worst at -20 for what it is worth. Staying on the topic of the +/- statistic, what is very interesting to me and as we are using the same parameter to compare players how about this one: Our "recognised" top line of McD/Drai and Kass are a total of +10 and as Kass is +10 you can do the maths re the other two. For comparison, the top 3 in Boston, Marchand/Pastrnak/Bergeron are all + players with a total of +39. Our opponents last night, Carolina have their top 3 scoring forwards Svechnikov/Aho/Dzingel (again all + players) at a total of +19. Colorado have Mackinnon/Donskoi/Burakovski (again, all + players) at a total of + 17. I find it difficult to get my head around Connor and Leon being a combined +/- zero with all the points they have gathered. I believe this last sentence just about sums up our biggest problem...……...lack of defensive awareness/determination/discipline (insert whatever word you think is relevant). Even RNH supposedly the nearest we have to a 200' player is -6. I think James Neal is also on the minus side...……..if I am right (I need to check) what chance do we have when out of the five most likely (forwards) goal or points getters, four of them are in the minuses. I know someone is going to come back at me and tell me that the +/- stat is misleading, but it is funny how the other teams mentioned (Colorado, Carolina and Boston) have all their three top scoring forwards on the plus side of the equation. Surely there is a message here for Connor and Leon? I am happy to be corrected or educated on this subject (lack of defensive awareness) of which I believe is at the heart of our recent difficulties (and to be honest has been for a long time prior to the current set up). Is it "something in the water"? Just checked, James Neal at -17! So that makes our "top five" at a total of -13. Imagine where we would be if they were a total of +13? They just need one message sent to them, come on guys, get back to the 5 up and 5 back system. Lets keep the puck out of our net, the scoring will come eventually anyway.
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Telly-Belly on Dec 11, 2019 15:01:30 GMT -7
You could have a point re Klefbom telly, I know the +/- statistic has flaws in its assessment of players, but Nurse is +2 whilst Klef is a team worst at -20 for what it is worth. Staying on the topic of the +/- statistic, what is very interesting to me and as we are using the same parameter to compare players how about this one: Our "recognised" top line of McD/Drai and Kass are a total of +10 and as Kass is +10 you can do the maths re the other two. For comparison, the top 3 in Boston, Marchand/Pastrnak/Bergeron are all + players with a total of +39. Our opponents last night, Carolina have their top 3 scoring forwards Svechnikov/Aho/Dzingel (again all + players) at a total of +19. Colorado have Mackinnon/Donskoi/Burakovski (again, all + players) at a total of + 17. I find it difficult to get my head around Connor and Leon being a combined +/- zero with all the points they have gathered. I believe this last sentence just about sums up our biggest problem...……...lack of defensive awareness/determination/discipline (insert whatever word you think is relevant). Even RNH supposedly the nearest we have to a 200' player is -6. I think James Neal is also on the minus side...……..if I am right (I need to check) what chance do we have when out of the five most likely (forwards) goal or points getters, four of them are in the minuses. I know someone is going to come back at me and tell me that the +/- stat is misleading, but it is funny how the other teams mentioned (Colorado, Carolina and Boston) have all their three top scoring forwards on the plus side of the equation. Surely there is a message here for Connor and Leon? I am happy to be corrected or educated on this subject (lack of defensive awareness) of which I believe is at the heart of our recent difficulties (and to be honest has been for a long time prior to the current set up). Is it "something in the water"? Just checked, James Neal at -17! So that makes our "top five" at a total of -13. Imagine where we would be if they were a total of +13? They just need one message sent to them, come on guys, get back to the 5 up and 5 back system. Lets keep the puck out of our net, the scoring will come eventually anyway. Yup. It's getting pretty old. The same old patterns are creeping back and the results will be the same as last year if they don't make immediate adjustments accordingly.
|
|
|
Post by drtaf on Dec 11, 2019 16:13:18 GMT -7
Yep, reality is 5on5 we are not that great because the truth is Offence and Defence is a 5 man job in hockey and we currently don't get enough offence from our D and certainly don't get enough D from our Forwards. This has to change if we are to truly move the needle
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Telly-Belly on Dec 11, 2019 16:17:52 GMT -7
Yep, reality is 5on5 we are not that great because the truth is Offence and Defence is a 5 man job in hockey and we currently don't get enough offence from our D and certainly don't get enough D from our Forwards. This has to change if we are to truly move the needle Well put
|
|
|
Post by fogolin2 on Dec 11, 2019 22:05:05 GMT -7
We knew hard times would come. It does for largely all teams. The key is for them to bounce back. The problem is that the only ones that can bounce back is McD, LD, Neal. No one else has had any offensive side in the first 1/3 of the season. Personally, I still trust Holland and Tippett but they have an awful lot of work still to do. Calgaryalfan has a good point. With good work from Holland, the team is still 2 years away from becoming a force defensively. If only the Oilers could get some scoring. Before PC got fired, when he was making all of those boneheaded moves, proving himself to be an absolute moron without a clue how to build a hockey club, I said he put us back so far that it would take 5 years before we could hope to contend again. I stand by that. It will be the same problem 5 years from now. Players with any other option (see:good players) aren't coming
|
|
|
Post by Bronco73 on Dec 11, 2019 22:39:20 GMT -7
Before PC got fired, when he was making all of those boneheaded moves, proving himself to be an absolute moron without a clue how to build a hockey club, I said he put us back so far that it would take 5 years before we could hope to contend again. I stand by that. It will be the same problem 5 years from now. Players with any other option (see:good players) aren't coming exactly. I believe there should be some way to provide cap relief to teams that have to overpay to get players to come to undesirable destinations. Yes everybody I know damn well how impossible that would be. I also believe we should have toilets that wipe our asses for us.
|
|
|
Post by Marshall Bruce Mathers III on Dec 11, 2019 22:59:10 GMT -7
It will be the same problem 5 years from now. Players with any other option (see:good players) aren't coming exactly. I believe there should be some way to provide cap relief to teams that have to overpay to get players to come to undesirable destinations. Yes everybody I know damn well how impossible that would be. I also believe we should have toilets that wipe our asses for us. I know exactly what needs to be done. The cap for every team needs to depend on the tax rate. It's not fair to teams like Edmonton that would have to offer more for a player to take home the same amount of cash in the end. For example, after taxes McDavid takes home an average of 6.6M per year. He could sign for around 1.5M less in Florida and take home close to the same amount. Salary caps need to be variable, based on the tax rate. That's the only way it'll be "fair" for all teams.
|
|
|
Post by drtaf on Dec 11, 2019 23:53:30 GMT -7
Agree the "Tax advantage" is unfair but U.S. teams could argue that players in canada get paid in u.S. dollars but their cost of living is in cdn dollars and so going to canada is more attractive? They'd be lying of course but that's what they'd say
|
|
Devilman
Oilers Roster
I am too hot to handle
Posts: 286
|
Post by Devilman on Dec 12, 2019 9:10:04 GMT -7
I think some of of yo guys are going overboard.we will be fine.
|
|
|
Post by neufab94 on Dec 12, 2019 14:29:43 GMT -7
Just checked, James Neal at -17! So that makes our "top five" at a total of -13. Imagine where we would be if they were a total of +13? They just need one message sent to them, come on guys, get back to the 5 up and 5 back system. Lets keep the puck out of our net, the scoring will come eventually anyway. Yup. It's getting pretty old. The same old patterns are creeping back and the results will be the same as last year if they don't make immediate adjustments accordingly. I am curious to see the Oilers December record. I cannot recall a great December from this team for many years and I suspect the historical record isn't great. When this team plays as a 5 man unit they overcome the fact that secondary scoring is weak. I still say that Drai-McD-Kass should be the constant 1st line and to mix things up for extra offense Drai and McD could be alternating a double shift on the bottom six. This team is what it is and the good teams keep their effective lines together like has already been pointed out with Boston. Things that drive me a little crazy recently are the fly-by's, circling the net resulting in a dead play, lack of shots in general, guys looking at the net instead of facing the threat near by while the guy behind him on the other teams puts it in for a goal. I think this team will be fine, and when they are I think we will see shots taken when in the slot and in front of the net instead of passing it into a defenders feet, we will see guys following the shot for a rebound instead of the fly-by, we will see take away's instead of turn-overs, back checking, and defensive support from the forwards.
|
|