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Edmonton Oilers

There are some bizarre parallels going on that we saw right before McLellan, Tippett and Woodcroft were all fired from their respective positions with the Oilers org. WTF is up with this team?
 
If they fire Knoblauch that would be a massive mistake. He's done nothing wrong, yet, to warrant being fired, IMO.
Well, if he runs the practice lines of this morning in the game, that'll honestly start making me question his judgment. Nurse-Bouchard together in the first pairing is insanity.
 
If they fire Knoblauch that would be a massive mistake. He's done nothing wrong, yet, to warrant being fired, IMO.
I've seen more than a few suggest that Coffey and Gulutzan did a lot of heavy lifting to make Knoblauch look good. We'll see how true that is over the course of the season. Things folks have noticed in terms of systems, though:

1. There is less man to man coverage in the d-zone - leaving it to the center to do
2. Less pressure in the neutral zone / playing more conservative - seems like a big one since we get way fewer turnovers and rush plays up the ice
3. Third forward/weak side D play higher (no pinching)

I get that they are trying to shelter our goalies since they struggle with HD chances (particularly Skinner's poor lateral movement), but it is literally killing our ability to generate offence that this team has relied on. Our goalies still don't look great despite these changes.

If they continue with this system for the rest of the season and achieve the results they are currently getting, I don't think Knoblauch will have a job at the end of the year.
 

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