Edmonton Oilers Potential Playoff Opponents: Calgary Flames
This blog is second of a mini-series I’m writing(here is the first) – there’s only a few games left in the Edmonton Oilers season so let’s take a look at some of the opponents we might face in both the division and the conference.
I see this as more of a second round series than a first rounder, as the way the NHL playoffs work nowadays if the Flames as expected finish first in the division, they will play the wild card team with the better record in the first round (Colorado, who may win the President’s Trophy and still has the superior record, would draw the wild card team with the worse record). At this point in time that looks like Nashville.
Despite the team’s success this year, I see Calgary as more pretenders than contenders. History is not on their side, either, as the C truly stands for choke. For most of their existence the Flames have been a middling team, rarely making the playoffs in consecutive years and when they do never making progress past the first or second round – and that’s when they DO make the playoffs. They can never seem to get any sustained success going for years on end. They’ve only made the Cup finals twice in their existence – 1989 and 2004, winning in ’89 and losing to Tampa Bay in ’04.
Want your voice heard? Join the Oil On Whyte team!
This year’s edition of the Flames exhibits mainly magic weaved by Darryl Sutter. Some people might see a team led by two guys who are still top 10 in scoring in the NHL – Johnny Gaudreau just cracked the 100 point mark for the first time in his career for fourth in the league at the time of this writing while Mr. Turtle himself, Matthew Tkachuk, sixth in the league with 92 points.
However, if you look closer at their stats, you’ll see their top four scorers are all eclipsing their career shooting percentages in the same year, some by as much as 5%. Does that seem sustainable to you? It sure doesn’t to me. Seriously, look it up if you don’t believe me.
A bad omen for the future is the contracts of both Gaudreau and Tkachuk are up after this season and neither guy has signed an extension. To me that says they don’t believe in the future of this franchise and would rather go somewhere else than spin their wheels in Calgary.
Personally my money would be on Tkachuk lobbying to go to Ottawa so he can play with his brother Brady on a team that’s on the upswing. But that’s a topic for a Flames blogger. 🙂
Another thing to keep in mind about the over-hyped Flames is Jacob Markstrom is playing out of his mind this season, but at the age of 32 and having only his second season of elite numbers in 13 seasons, how sustainable do you think that is? Not very.
For now we’re going to focus on the playoffs for this season. If you look at PDO stats, Calgary may be starting to cool off already in terms of puck luck. Early on in the season, they were the third luckiest team in the league, and although they’ve slipped to 10th, puck luck is still on their side. The Oilers, meanwhile, have been on the par side to below par in puck luck for most of the season.
So that begs the question – which team will have more sustained success? Calgary or Edmonton? It’s the Oilers, no question. They’re the team that’s much more for real than Calgary is because they’re in a playoff spot more thanks to sound tactical play rather than puck luck and relying on career years from their key players. Also let’s not forget their two best players have already been locked up to long term extensions, something the Flames cannot say…..
Assuming Calgary doesn’t get upset by Nashville – and it could happen but Nashville is a beatable team – they’ll probably draw the Oilers in the second round.
How do the Oilers stack up? Pretty well, actually.
Forwards
I’ve already largely dissected the names for the Oilers here, so I don’t need to go too in depth on that. We all know who Mcdavid, Draisaitl, Kane, Hyman, Puljujarvi, and Yamamoto are.
The Flames counter in their top six with the aforementioned Tkachuk and Gaudreau. Gaudreau right now is LW on the first line, centered by Elias Lindholm with Andrew Mangiapane on the starboard side. These are also three of the four aforementioned guys whose shooting % is all above their career average – and they’ve all been around long enough for us to know what kind of players they are.
If their puck luck runs out by the second round (we can only hope) then that’s certainly a good thing for the Oilers. Silence the big guns and the Flames turn into a much less lethal team.
Tkachuk is playing second line RW right now, with Mikael Backlund at center and Dillon Dube, who was a solid bottom six player for years, moved up to the top six. Dube’s been unimpressive for a top six forward, only putting up 10 goals and 24 points. Backlund’s been….OK this season, but nothing to write home about. He’s been shooting below his career shooting % for two seasons now. 12-23-35 in 73 games is unimpressive for a top six forward, IMO. Dube has put up a new career high in points with 24, but that means the barometer wasn’t set that high to begin with. Unlike the washed up 33 year old Backlund, though, Dube has only played 191 NHL games and is only 23, so he’s still got room to improve. How that stacks up for the playoffs remains to be seen.
The Flames better hope that first line keeps going at the torrid pace it is, otherwise they’re going to have problems scoring come playoff time. The strategy for the Oilers will be thusly – stop the first line and Tkachuk, and you’ll stop the Flames attack.
The Oilers have better depth – probably the best wing corps on both sides of the McDrai duo since, well, ever.
Right now the Flames are playing Tyler Toffoli on the third line, which just seems backwards to me seeing as how he has 11 goals and 20 points in 28 games since being rescued from Montreal. Why are they playing Dillon Dube in the top six and not Toffoli? Something seems fishy about that, but as a fan of a rival I’m delighted to see this.
Calle Jarnkrok, since coming over to Calgary from Seattle at the trade deadline, is centering the Flames third line, and he’s got two assists in eight games since coming over. Not a great start, but not all that unusual. What’s concerning about him, though, is between his time in Seattle and Calgary he’s -16 on the season, a career low for him.
I’m thinking if the Oilers can get one of Mcdavid or Draisaitl matched up with him….they’ll feast on his bad defensive play.
Then there’s Blake Coleman, poached as a free agent from Tampa Bay last offseason. He’s picked up almost right where he left off in Tampa last season, 14-16-30 and a +14, although to be fair that’s one less point from last year and last year he played 17 fewer games to get to that mark than he’s played this season.
Coleman’s a bit snake-bit right now, having not produced much of anything since the beginning of March. Still, I wouldn’t take him for granted as he produced at 0.5 PPG in both of Tampa’s cup wins. He’ll dial it up come playoff time.
The fourth line for the Flames at the right side starts with 35 year old Trevor Lewis, a key bottom six forward for the Kings when they won their Cups in 2012 and 2014. He’s been a good soldier for the Flames, putting up 15 points in 73 games, slightly above the minimum you’d want for a fourth liner. Nonetheless, it’s worth asking how much gas he has left in the tank at 35.
At center is Ryan Carpenter, also a trade deadline acquisition from Chicago. Between Chicago and Calgary, he’s put up three goals and 12 points in 65 games this season. Meh….the Oilers can counter that with Ryan Mcleod who is 30% better this season. Rounding out the fourth line is ex-Oiler Milan Lucic.
Lucic has found his role on the Flames, and has put up the same ~ 20 points he put up in his last season here every season since he was traded. Solid totals for a fourth liner but I’m willing to bet they’re not keen on paying him $5.25 million a year to do it. Look for him to be physical in this series, it’s what he’s known for especially come playoff time.
It’s also worth noting that Sean Monahan is injured at this time, which further takes scoring zip out of the Flames lineup (more or less….)
The Flames calling card is physical play, but the Oilers are a deeper, more skilled team at forward and I believe their talent, depth, and the pestilence of Evander Kane and Zack Kassian (should he choose to actually show up on the ice in this series) will overcome the physicality of the Flames.
Even in the bottom six the Oilers can still outscore the Flames.
Defence
The Oilers’ D corps are actually built perfectly for the playoffs – it’s a very balanced corps. They have one puck mover on every pairing, and solid stay at home guys who are also capable of producing secondary offence. It’s a thing of beauty, as far as I’m concerned.
Darnell Nurse is the guy on the first pairing, while on the second pairing you have the Bouch bombs of Evan Bouchard and on the third pairing you have Tyson Barrie. Barrie and Bouchard may switch pairings for the playoffs, we’ll see if Woodcroft trusts Bouch enough to elevate his game in the playoffs even more or would rather play him against easier competition in the third pairing. All three of Bouchard, Nurse, and Barrie have put up 30+ points this season. Those are great numbers for your D corps.
Meanwhile, the stay at home guys are impressive as well. Cody Ceci partners with Nurse on the top pairing, and he’s got 25 points on the season all on his own. Duncan Keith is that guy on the second pairing, he’s only a single point away from 20 points and I guarantee you he’ll get it. On the third pairing we have trade deadline acquisition Brett Kulak, who’s put up one goal and four points in 10 games already (fun fact – he was drafted by Calgary and spent the first four seasons of his career with the Flames).
The Flames, meanwhile, have the higher producing guy on the top pairing, Noah Hanifin, who has produced 41 points on the season to Nurse’s 33. But after that it drops off significantly. Oliver Kylington is next on the list, but he might be injured at least for one game as he’s a game time decision for the Flames’ next game. He’s got 27 points, not impressive when you consider the Oilers stay at home guy on the first pairing has 25. His partner is Chris Tanev, who’s put up 24 points this season. OK, but not standout numbers. I’d bet on Duncan Keith if the two are matched up against each other in the playoffs.
The bottom pairing is Nikita Zadorov and Erik Gudbranson, who have put up 16 and 17 points respectively this season. Kulak and Barrie still outscore them by seven points.
Goaltending
At first glance you’d think “the Flames have a starter-calibre goaltender in Markstrom, so they take this one.” But there’s more to it than that.
First of all, there’s the valid concern that Markstrom’s play will drop off just like the rest of the team by the second round. The guy’s having a career season on a team that’s rife with puck luck, that could easily drop off.
The Flames better hope that said puck luck – as well as Markstrom’s health – holds up for the playoffs, because otherwise they’ve got raw rookie Dan Vladar to go to – who has a whopping 23 career NHL games to his credit and one playoff game with Boston two seasons ago that was an absolute dumpster fire.
The Oilers counter with ex-Flame Mike Smith, who has a bone to pick with the Flames and not only that but has better numbers in the playoffs than Markstrom. Even with one horrible game two seasons ago against Chicago, Smith still maintains a .931 career playoff sv% and 2.34 GAA vs. Markstrom’s .919 and 2.85.
It’s also important to note that Smith has been on a hot streak going into these playoffs, while the Flames don’t have the same urgency in their game because they’ve been comfortably in first place for awhile.
Even if Smith gets injured, the Oilers can go to Mikko Koskinen, who is also on a hot streak going into the playoffs.
If necessary, the Oilers can also go to Stuart Skinner, who showed some chops as an injury fill-in and has been a part of AHL championship teams that he can draw on should he get the call to play for the Oilers in the playoffs.
The fact the Oilers once again have more depth at this position, combined with the fact that both the 1 and 1A are hot going into the playoffs means I’m giving the Oilers the edge here too, despite Smith’s advanced age.
If the Flames win the series – it’ll be because their puck luck has held out and Darryl Sutter has been able to weave some magic to neutralize the Oilers attack from both the forward and D corps.
If the Oilers win the series – it’ll be because the regular season standings mean nothing (which they don’t) and they’ll use their depth up and down the lineup to overcome the Flames’ physical play and whatever voodoo Darryl Sutter dreams up.
My pick for who would win the series – It could go either way, but I’m picking the Oilers in 7 games. Depth wins in the playoffs, and the Oilers have more of it at all positions. The Flames won’t make it easy to win, nor will the Oilers make it easy for the Flames to win. Expect an intense series much like the 80s when these teams used to meet each other in the playoffs all the time. These two teams haven’t met in the playoffs since 1991, a shame for the modern NHL.
Next. Is Tyson Barrie expendable after this season?. dark