When the goaltending comes back to Earth, so do the Oilers
Ben Scrivens was good tonight. He wasn’t spectacular. As a result, the Oilers came back to Earth, hard. When Justin Schultz and Brad Hunt end up being your players with the most TOI, you’re going to have a bad time. This team is better than last year, they just are not playing better than last year, not for the last 5 games and not against the kings.
Tonight Scrivens stopped 31 of 35 shots. I didn’t see him as having a chance on any of them. 3 goals were the result of shaky coverage in front of the net and lack of rebound clearance, one was a breakaway and the other a bomb from the point by Shea Weber. This team keeps trying to play run and gun against every team. We know now they reign supreme in track meets when the goaltending is outstanding as we saw on the 4 game winning streak against eastern teams. But put just a bit of pressure on the the Oilers at neutral ice and they will cough up the puck at least half the time. The team was actually playing solid hockey in their first 5 games (minus the L.A. total capitulation) but have actually regressed since. At least Andrew Ference wasn’t one of the top 2 d men in ice time.
Elliote Friedman from sportsnet talked pre game about the Oilers PDO (shooting percentage plus save percentage, usually a yearly stat, but this is sportsnet, so let’s roll with it) and how it was below 100 during the losing streak and over 100 during the winning streak, basically saying “who knows what’s going to happen tonight”. Well we got the answer, their luck evened out and the Oilers faceplanted, hard. I guess when goaltending stabilizes after going from Dubnyk bad to Roloson good, this is what we’re left with: a capable goalie who can give his team a chance to win every night, but just not a miracle maker who can hide the brutality of the Oilers slot coverage. I remember watching the basketball games for the girl’s teams when I was grade school and the funniest thing was how everyone from both teams would run after the ball, like a swarm (pun totally intended) of bees all gathering around their hive, without any zone coverage or even a player on player defense. The Oilers getting sucked by the puck in their own zone reminds me of those girls.
As one fellow writer posted on the Oil on Whyte, the oilers have yet to play 60 minutes of full effort. Eakins and crew either don’t understand or stubbornly refuse to play the 200 feet game. They run and gun, north to south, so they either enter the zone with speed or give up the puck in neutral ice. There is not much in between with these guys. Their cycle game is close to non existent and on most instances their idea of fore checking and back checking includes stretching out the arm and throw a weak stick at the opponents legs or feet. Even on the previous game against Montreal where they had their best lapse of team defence, the Oilers were lucky the circus of giveaways in the first five minutes didn’t cost them dearly (needless to say they paid back that luck in full tonight).
Another fellow writer said the Oilers had yet to beat a Western team. Well it didn’t happen tonight, and it won’t happen until this team gives up trying to play like the old glory days and starts playing the way they need to play to win, not the way they want to play to win. It seems like coaching and management want both teams on the ice to play typical Oilers hockey. Now, how arrogant is that?.
As a parting thought, here’s this: post game, sportsnet showed a shot of Messier sitting next to a busy looking Kevin Lowe, who had a pen in one hand, a bunch of papers on his lap and reading glasses. Quite busy for being in the middle of a hockey game. Now I want to have fun with this so here it goes: another fellow writer posted about an article mentioning how Eakins was in hot waters and the Oilers were ready to show him the door should the losing continue. The article then vaguely and without citing any sources mentions the team was thinking about throwing The Moose to the wolves as Eakins replacement. I’m a man of numbers (not that I’m great at it but that’s what I decided to do with my life, so, there) so if I put 2 plus 2 together, I wouldn’t be surprised if Eakins is gone before the Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution on November 20, perhaps even sooner with the Oilers in Nashville on remembrance day. They are up next against the Canucks and then go on their Rodeo Finals road trip. Had the team played a solid outing tonight I would not be making this outrageous prediction, but given how it really wasn’t close, at all, at any point during the game, well, it’s time to re-start the Doomsday Eakins clock.