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Edmonton Oilers

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So, the Oilers have beaten the Canucks, and move on to face the Dallas Stars in their 2nd Conference Finals appearance in 3 seasons. With hopes of not getting swept like last time.

Here are my thoughts following the Vancouver series:

The Offense:
I was concerned early in this series that the depth scoring would become a serious problem. I believe they hadn't gotten a goal from the 3rd or 4th line for the entire first 3 games. When Knoblauch made the move to move Draisaitl to McDavid's wing (likely as a result of Draisaitl battling an injury), the Oilers briefly became a one line team for a couple games. Luckily, when Drai moved back to his own line and the lines returned to normal, the depth started playing much better again. Dylan Holloway looks absolutely amazing, he's got 3 goals so far in the playoffs and could have more, he's playing with a ton of confidence right now and fitting in perfectly on Draisaitl's wing. You'd be hard pressed to find any excuse to take him out of the top 6. I always knew he was a speedy, skilled player but watching him now, he has some of that Zach Hyman dog in him, and is a very strong forechecker. Ryan McLeod on the other hand, needs to figure it out, he's taking bad penalties, avoiding contact and turning it over at crucial times in his own zone. I would not play him in game 1 against Dallas, he's been invisible for the entire playoffs and was very visible in a bad way in game 7. He also has zero points and show no sign of intensity in his game at all.

The Defense:
Overall, the Defense was strong in this series, they had a few mishaps as is typical in a high speed, high intensity environment like the Stanley Cup playoffs. Bouchard is now the only defenseman ever with 20+ points through the first two rounds of the playoffs. Apart from a nasty turnover in game 5, he was extremely good in his own end as well. Ekholm was playing unbelievable in the beginning of this series, however he began to tail off towards the end, leaving me to suspect he's battling an injury. Honestly, every defenseman played very well and did their job. Except for Nurse, who just doesn't have it right now, the play is dying on his stick and while he's decent enough in his own end, he isn't even really bringing the physicality you expect from him, he needs to step it up.

The Goaltending:
As is always the case with the Oilers, the goaltending was a mixed bag. Skinner was showing signs of struggle in his first couple games, and then after a terrible game 3, Pickard came in and stabilized things for 2 games, playing solid in both games. Skinner then came in in games 6 and 7 and played good, though he didn't face very many shots in either game. It's basically a coin flip on which Stuart Skinner we'll get, my concern about this is lessened by the fact that we can see that Pickard can be trusted to slot in an put up a quality performance if need be, but it's always better if you can count on your starter to consistently play good. I think the NHL philosophy that you need to ride your starter the entire playoffs needs to change, at least for the Oilers. You start your backup for a varying number of games in the regualr season, even if you have an amazing starter like a Hellebuyck or Shesterkin, to avoid fatigue, injury, etc. Why does this not carry over into the playoffs? I get that every game is that much more critical, but you'd think spreading out the starts a bit more might help keep your starter fresh and ready.

Overall: The Oilers deserved to win that series, probably in 5 or 6 games. Silovs and lucky goalscoring was what kept the Canucks alive. There were only 3 periods the Canucks truly outplayed the Oilers to any significant margin, those being period 3 in game 1 and the final 40 minutes of game 5. Every other period was either even, or with the Oilers in control. The Canucks had maybe 4 goals the entire series that weren't off a weird bounce or other lucky break, that's not a sustainable way to play. They were extremely lucky to push the series to 7.

The Stars:

Dallas, in my opinion is the best team in the league on paper. In terms of a blend of offense, defense and goaltending they are an incredible team. For the Oilers to succeed in this series they need to exploit Dallas's one true soft point: A lack of defensive depth. Adding Chris Tanev at the deadline helped this for them, but this is still their biggest weakness. They're running a pairing of Ryan Suter and Alex Petrovic as their third pairing, which is not very strong. Forecheck hard against Dallas's bottom 2 pairings. Jake Oettinger can be an amazing goaltender, but has also been pretty inconsistent over the years, I wouldn't expect anything less than an amazing goaltending performance from him.

Dallas's biggest strength is their forward depth, their 3rd line (Marchment - Seguin - Dadanov), would be a solid 2nd line on most teams, while their 4th (Faksa - Steel - Smith) is like a good 3rd line. Their first and second lines are great as well. This will be a high event, high scoring series I believe.

It will be a true challenge and one of the toughest teams the Oilers have played in the playoffs in a while
 
Deepest team in the league and a beast at that. A true test for our D core, back checking and goaltending.

There were moments and signs of incredible support from our guys last night that I simply do not see very often; here's hoping that continues.
 
erudyk_29 said:
So, the Oilers have beaten the Canucks, and move on to face the Dallas Stars in their 2nd Conference Finals appearance in 3 seasons. With hopes of not getting swept like last time.

Here are my thoughts following the Vancouver series:

The Offense:
I was concerned early in this series that the depth scoring would become a serious problem. I believe they hadn't gotten a goal from the 3rd or 4th line for the entire first 3 games. When Knoblauch made the move to move Draisaitl to McDavid's wing (likely as a result of Draisaitl battling an injury), the Oilers briefly became a one line team for a couple games. Luckily, when Drai moved back to his own line and the lines returned to normal, the depth started playing much better again. Dylan Holloway looks absolutely amazing, he's got 3 goals so far in the playoffs and could have more, he's playing with a ton of confidence right now and fitting in perfectly on Draisaitl's wing. You'd be hard pressed to find any excuse to take him out of the top 6. I always knew he was a speedy, skilled player but watching him now, he has some of that Zach Hyman dog in him, and is a very strong forechecker. Ryan McLeod on the other hand, needs to figure it out, he's taking bad penalties, avoiding contact and turning it over at crucial times in his own zone. I would not play him in game 1 against Dallas, he's been invisible for the entire playoffs and was very visible in a bad way in game 7. He also has zero points and show no sign of intensity in his game at all.

The Defense:
Overall, the Defense was strong in this series, they had a few mishaps as is typical in a high speed, high intensity environment like the Stanley Cup playoffs. Bouchard is now the only defenseman ever with 20+ points through the first two rounds of the playoffs. Apart from a nasty turnover in game 5, he was extremely good in his own end as well. Ekholm was playing unbelievable in the beginning of this series, however he began to tail off towards the end, leaving me to suspect he's battling an injury. Honestly, every defenseman played very well and did their job. Except for Nurse, who just doesn't have it right now, the play is dying on his stick and while he's decent enough in his own end, he isn't even really bringing the physicality you expect from him, he needs to step it up.

The Goaltending:
As is always the case with the Oilers, the goaltending was a mixed bag. Skinner was showing signs of struggle in his first couple games, and then after a terrible game 3, Pickard came in and stabilized things for 2 games, playing solid in both games. Skinner then came in in games 6 and 7 and played good, though he didn't face very many shots in either game. It's basically a coin flip on which Stuart Skinner we'll get, my concern about this is lessened by the fact that we can see that Pickard can be trusted to slot in an put up a quality performance if need be, but it's always better if you can count on your starter to consistently play good. I think the NHL philosophy that you need to ride your starter the entire playoffs needs to change, at least for the Oilers. You start your backup for a varying number of games in the regualr season, even if you have an amazing starter like a Hellebuyck or Shesterkin, to avoid fatigue, injury, etc. Why does this not carry over into the playoffs? I get that every game is that much more critical, but you'd think spreading out the starts a bit more might help keep your starter fresh and ready.

Overall: The Oilers deserved to win that series, probably in 5 or 6 games. Silovs and lucky goalscoring was what kept the Canucks alive. There were only 3 periods the Canucks truly outplayed the Oilers to any significant margin, those being period 3 in game 1 and the final 40 minutes of game 5. Every other period was either even, or with the Oilers in control. The Canucks had maybe 4 goals the entire series that weren't off a weird bounce or other lucky break, that's not a sustainable way to play. They were extremely lucky to push the series to 7.

The Stars:

Dallas, in my opinion is the best team in the league on paper. In terms of a blend of offense, defense and goaltending they are an incredible team. For the Oilers to succeed in this series they need to exploit Dallas's one true soft point: A lack of defensive depth. Adding Chris Tanev at the deadline helped this for them, but this is still their biggest weakness. They're running a pairing of Ryan Suter and Alex Petrovic as their third pairing, which is not very strong. Forecheck hard against Dallas's bottom 2 pairings. Jake Oettinger can be an amazing goaltender, but has also been pretty inconsistent over the years, I wouldn't expect anything less than an amazing goaltending performance from him.

Dallas's biggest strength is their forward depth, their 3rd line (Marchment - Seguin - Dadanov), would be a solid 2nd line on most teams, while their 4th (Faksa - Steel - Smith) is like a good 3rd line. Their first and second lines are great as well. This will be a high event, high scoring series I believe.

It will be a true challenge and one of the toughest teams the Oilers have played in the playoffs in a while
Click to expand...

So far, Dallas' weakpoint in the playoffs has been their penalty kill - only at 69%.
 
You think Bouchard should be higher???

Take a look when the article was written too. BEFORE the playoffs.

Bouchard is a good offensive dman... but his defense is lacking still. I would have put him where he is or out of top 50 before the playoffs started to be honest.
 
bodsbods9090 said:
You think Bouchard should be higher???

Take a look when the article was written too. BEFORE the playoffs.

Bouchard is a good offensive dman... but his defense is lacking still. I would have put him where he is or out of top 50 before the playoffs started to be honest.
Click to expand...
True enough but .......in some circles they have Bouch in the Top 5 of Conn Smythe candidates.
 
ESPN does not care about hockey and it shows with this list...

Any list that doesn't put McDavid at number 1 is immediately invalid, if you have him at 4th, you're totally out to lunch.

bodsbods9090 said:
You think Bouchard should be higher???

Take a look when the article was written too. BEFORE the playoffs.

Bouchard is a good offensive dman... but his defense is lacking still. I would have put him where he is or out of top 50 before the playoffs started to be honest.
Click to expand...

Bouchard is at the very least a top 10 defenseman in the league I would put him in the top 5, he's in the elite of the elite in terms of offensive production, and is solid in his own end. The narrative that Bouchard is "bad" in his own end needs to stop. He makes mistakes as every player does, and maybe every now and then he makes 1 or 2 more defensive mistakes than a designated shutdown guy would, usually because he's trying to make a play offensively (which is what you have him for). He more than makes up for whatever goals against he causes (which is a lot less than people like to give him credit for) with his elite offensive numbers. The truth is that Bouchard is your elite offensive defenseman, which are a lot harder to find than defensive, shutdown guys, and thus more important, more valuable and are better players overall.

If you would say that Cale Makar is the best defenseman in the world (which I think 99% of people would), then Bouchard also has to be at least in your top 10 because they are very similar in terms of their defensive play. Most of the players people consider to be the best defensemen in the world: Roman Josi, Quinn Hughes, Adam Fox, etc, are varying degrees of "solid" in their own end, with some, notably Hughes dipping into the "just okay" category in terms of defensive play. None of these guys are elite shutdown D on top of being around a point per game or higher.

This is why I think they should have the Norris Trophy for the best defenseman, which would be given as it usually is to one of the top scoring defensemen by vote, and another trophy for the best 2 way defensemen. Guys who are never going to win the Norris because they simply don't score enough but show great poise in their own end on top of being good offensive players, Jaccob Slavin is the poster child of this type of defenseman but I could see a guy like Ekholm or maybe even Charlie McAvoy at some point.

Best Defenseman and Best 2-Way Defenseman rarely if ever coincide with one another. The only examples I can think of are maybe Nick Lidstrom and prime Victor Hedman, before injury and aging got to him.

Edit: Bouchard also belongs in the top 50 prior to playoffs. Probably belongs in the top 20 too.
 
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