Round One fun facts and more

Round one has been over for a few days now for the Edmonton Oilers and the rest of the league. Here are a few fun facts about the last couple of days.

• The Oilers showed how much depth they have in this series as only a single player finished without a point in it – Philip Broberg. The Kings, by comparison, had seven players who finished without a point. Clearly, they have some work to do on personnel if they hope to advance as a franchise.
• Speaking of depth scoring, how about that Klim Kostin guy? 3-1-4 in six games is phenomenal playoff production for a depth guy, especially one playing in his first season as an NHL regular and first playoff series makes it even more impressive – not to mention he finished with a sparkling +4 and is also sandwiched in between Evander Kane (same boxcars) and Zach Hyman (2-2-4) in points. That’s impressive company. Keep it up, Klim Shady, we’ll need that guy even more in round two.
• It sucked that Mattias Janmark could only play one game in round one, but it’s expected he’ll be back for round two.
• A big part of why the depth was able to do so well was Jay Woodcroft’s brilliant tactic of choosing to do 11-7 with the roster (11 forwards, seven defencemen) as opposed to the traditional 12-6. So many of the goals that were scored by the bottom six guys were awesome passes from Mcdavid, Draisaitl, or Nuge. The whole reason this works is that it leaves one spot open on the third or fourth line for someone to pull double duty on, thus freeing up Mcdavid, Draisaitl, or Nuge from their normal defensive pests they encounter higher up in the lineup from LA.
• I think we could clearly see why Todd Mclellan was fired by the Oilers before becoming the Kings head coach now. His teams have a habit of being great regular season teams but they typically don’t go too far in the playoffs as Mclellan is kind of legendary for not adapting his tactics in the playoffs. To be fair, he has had some success in the playoffs, though, as he took the Sharks to the Conference finals twice and also took the Sharks and Oilers to the second round as a head coach. Don’t be surprised if LA believes he’s reached his expiry date with them and fires him. At the time the Oilers fired him I didn’t understand why, but now I do.
• It was revealed after the series wrapped up that rather than flying back to Edmonton after eliminating the Kings in game six, the Oilers stayed in California for a while, even asking the Kings to loan them the use of their practice facility. Makes sense – not only is it geographically closer, but California is a great place to catch some R&R before prepping for the second round.
• How about that Evan Bouchard? Boy has he ever stepped up since Tyson Barrie was traded for Mattias Ekholm, cashing in on two Bouch bombs and finishing 2-8-10 in six games. A lot of that is no doubt due to Ekholm, but Bouch has been in this position before and as a cheaper option still on his ELC until the end of this season, Holland needed him to step up so he could trade for the aforementioned Ekholm, and he has answered the bell big time since the trade deadline.
• The Oilers are the only playoff team to have three players in the top 10 in league playoff scoring. Dr. Drai is third (7-4-11), Mcdavid is ninth (3-7-10), and Evan Bouchard is 10th. Boston and Toronto each have two players but that’s as close as it gets now from the rest of the league.
• I don’t know about you, but I find it hilarious that LA keyed in on Mcdavid and he still finished with 10 points in six games. Not only that, but they obviously neglected to cover the Deutschland Dangler and he absolutely annihilated them. This is exactly why you need depth in the playoffs.
• The Oilers playoff PP has carried over its momentum from the regular season, finishing first in the league again but this time at a whopping 56.3%. No surprise then that the LA Kings finished the first round with the worst PK % of all the playoff teams at 43.8%. Whether this is due to how lethal the Oilers are on the PP or their own ineptitude it’s hard to say – probably a bit of both.
• Oddly enough the Oilers playoff PK finished 12th in the league from the first round at 66.7%. It would behoove the Oilers to improve upon that in the second round or there might not be a third round.
• I was absolutely loving the way that game six ended. Kailer Yamamoto has been absolutely snakebitten going back to the last 16 games of the regular season and hadn’t had a sniff in the first five games against the Kings. The game and series-winning goal couldn’t have happened to a more deserving player.
• Three surprising Oilers never did have a goal in the first round – Nuge, Darnell Nurse, and Ryan Mcleod. Fortunately, all three are still contributing, as Nuge had four assists and Nurse and Mcleod both had three assists in that first round.
• The Oilers currently sit eighth in the league in hits out of all the playoff teams with 247. They’re ninth in blocked shots with 113.
• In terms of individual players for those numbers? There are some surprises in the leaders. Kane leads in hits with 30 but Zach Hyman is next with 23. Klim Kostin and Mattias Ekholm are tied for third with 20 apiece. Blocked shots are Nurse (21), Ceci (18), and Kulak (12) – Vincent Desharnais is the only other guy in double digits with 10.

• The pictured man, Jack Eichel, appears to be learning how to play in the playoffs very quickly, as he had 3-2-5 in their round one series against the Jets, although the -2 is a slight blemish on his record. The Oilers will have to play him very smartly in order to neutralize him in round two, just as the GKs are no doubt doing with Mcdavid and Draisaitl. Only time will tell whether the Knights will learn from LA’s mistake and key in on both Mcdavid and Draisaitl instead of just one of them.
• The media is making a big deal of Mcdavid vs. Eichel, although the individual players are likely downplaying that. But hey, if that’s a storyline that gets the NHL ratings during the playoffs that’s only good for the league, so why not?
• Vegas will be a very different challenge from LA. Vegas plays a very similar style to the Oilers – they’re aggressive and capitalize on mistakes, as opposed to the Kings whose bread and butter is defensive play and physicality.
• Vegas doesn’t have game-breaking forwards on their roster – arguably outside of Jack Eichel – but their depth is what might fool you. They’ve had to deal a lot of it away over the years but there are still some quality guys around, even if they’re not name players. While the Oilers have three players in the top 10 in playoff scoring, the Knights don’t have anyone of note until you get to the 18th spot in the league – where Mark Stone and Chandler Stephenson are tied with 8 points apiece. On the Oilers that would land you in fourth spot.
• It’s also interesting to note that in round one, the Golden Knights have eight players who didn’t register a point.
• The Oilers may be able to take advantage of some of the Knights injuries in this series. Mark Stone was seen gingerly coming off the ice in the last Knights mandatory practice, believed to have back problems, but head coach Bruce Cassidy confirmed Stone will be in the lineup for Vegas tonight. Of course that doesn’t mean he’s at 100% – lots of players play at less than optimal conditions during the playoffs. Even if Stone is playing, he may not be at 100% which is only good for the Oilers as it takes away even more of Vegas’s attack.
• The Knights have a fairly comparable top-six forward group and defence corps to the Oilers, but between the pipes is where the Oilers might actually have a clear advantage. Skinner got chased from the nets after a three-goal outburst once but otherwise has been mostly solid. Even when he got chased from the nets, Campbell came in and played fantastically. Laurent Brossoit is starting in goal for the Knights these days, and while he is a hot goaltender if he goes down or struggles the Knights have a huge problem as their alternatives are a struggling and sulking Jonathan Quick – who has been a healthy scratch for the team for weeks now – or Adin Hill who has not a single playoff game on his resume. That’s a pretty big dropoff from Brossoit, whereas if Skinner goes down the Oilers won’t miss a beat if Campbell has to come in.
• The GKs and the Oilers have never played each other in the playoffs so there won’t be a book to draw from for the Oilers this time around. Hopefully, the video guy Jeremy Coupal is up to the task.
• Vegas’s playoff PP is very middle of the road at 18.8%, good enough for 10th in the league amongst all the playoff teams. What’s actually a bit surprising, though, is that Vegas’s PK is actually even worse than the Oilers in round one – only 58.3%, just over 8% worse than Edmonton’s. That’s good enough for 15th out of 16 playoff teams. This means one of the Oilers strategies is clear – goad the GKs into as many penalties as you can, which is a harder task than you might think because Vegas is a team that is actually pretty good at staying out of the penalty box which will no doubt neutralize the Oiler’s lethal PP to an extent. It will be essential for the Oilers to cash in when they are on the man advantage.
• Just as the Eastern Conference third round ultimately determined who won the Stanley Cup in 1994, I believe this round could easily determine who wins the Stanley Cup this season as Vegas and the Oilers were the two best teams in the Western Conference this season. Both teams will play up to the opposition and your blood pressure might go up quite a few notches as a fan all through the series. It certainly helps that Seattle upset one of the Oilers biggest threats in the first round in Colorado and Toronto eliminated the other big one in Tampa Bay.
• That being said, don’t put too much stock in the regular season as ultimately it doesn’t matter. The Oilers were undefeated against Vegas in the regular season but I don’t care. This is a new season and the past determines nothing.
• The Oilers committed some big defensive lapses against LA. They’ll need to clean that up against Vegas.
• Don’t be surprised if this series goes to seven games – I certainly won’t. Vegas matches up against the Oilers better than LA does at this point in time. I’m still picking the Oilers to win, but Vegas certainly won’t go down without a fight.

Oilers-Leafs Cup final?  

I have a feeling that it will be an Oilers-Leafs Cup final. I’m not basing that on anything more than intuition, I don’t have data to back that up and I can’t read the future. It would certainly create another great storyline for the NHL as they’d have Mcdavid vs. Matthews in the Cup final. Lots of hockey left to play of course in the meantime, so we’ll go one game at a time and then be happy if this happens.

I’m not the only one predicting this, either.  I love the Beaverton’s tweet too, a man that’s hilarious:

Boston Bruins Leaf harder than Leafs have ever Leafed

LOL!!!  I agree.

If an Oilers-Leafs final does happen, it will be the first time an all-Canadian Cup final has happened since 1989 when the Flames got revenge on the Montreal Canadiens for 1986 and beat them for the franchise’s one and only Cup win.

This reminds me of a classic Flames joke:

What’s the difference between the Calgary Flames and a bra? 

A bra has two Cups.   

*comedic drumroll* You’re welcome.  🙂

Condors sign a pair to AHL-only contracts

Left d-man Alex Peters was signed to a one-way, AHL-only contract for one year. So far the player has only played in the AHL and ECHL, but you just never know with some of these guys, sometimes they turn out to be a diamond in the rough. Vincent Desharnais at one point was on an AHL-only contract and he is now a regular bottom-pairing blueliner. James Hamblin was also on an AHL-only contract once but that’s since been upgraded to a two-way NHL-AHL contract, and Hamblin earned himself a call-up early on in the season and could be a future fourth-liner or extra forward, so you just never know.

RWer Ethan De Jong was the other guy who was signed, and in his case, he is an undrafted college free agent turning pro next season. De Jong is an intriguing prospect as his point totals have increased in his last three seasons of NCAA hockey, culminating in last season when he set new careers highs in goals with 19, in points with 40 (in 41 games, I might add), and in +/- with a crazy good +25.

AHL-only contracts don’t count towards the 50-man roster NHL teams are required to abide by, so this is often a way for NHL teams to circumvent that limit and increase organizational depth. With this move, the Oilers – who at this point are at 45 of 50 players on the roster – now have room to sign their own draft picks to two-way ELCs. De Jong’s contract is AHL only for two years starting next season. Only time will tell whether this gets upgraded to a two-way AHL-NHL contract, but this appears to be a good find by Holland and the scouting staff.

Oilers call up three more for the playoff taxi squad

With the Bakersfield Condors eliminated in the first round of the AHL playoffs by the Abbotsford Canucks, their season is effectively over and as such the Oilers have called up the aforementioned Hamblin, C/RW Raphael Lavoie, and RD Phil Kemp for the taxi squad.

Prior to the first round, the Oilers had called up C/LWs Brad Malone and Dylan Holloway, two LDs in Markus Niemelainen and Cam Dineen, as well as the third and fourth-string goalies Calvin Pickard and Olivier Rodrigue.

None of these players are likely to see NHL action in the playoffs but never say never.