Has Woodcroft found chemistry in Oilers lines this week? A deep dive

What next for the Oilers, as Jay Woodcroft went back to the line blender against the Predators to provide a spark, but then came up short in Philadelphia.

Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft blended the lines on Tuesday night, and Leon Draisaitl was spot-on in his thoughts of the Oilers’ newest second line, centered by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Speaking after the Oilers’ 6-1 win over the Predators, Draisaitl said:

There were many unknowns with the new lines heading into Tuesday’s game against Nashville. However, things worked out as the Oilers finally capitalized on their chances.

On Thursday night in Philadelphia, things went the other way completely, as Woodcroft went even further with his line blender. Read on for an in-depth analysis of the new lines I saw in these games – and what might be best moving forward for Game 5.

TL;DR available at the end of this article.

All stats are courtesy of NaturalStatTrick.com unless otherwise specified. The below contains explanations of stats you’ll see in this article:

Success at last with Nugent-Hopkins at centre

I’ll touch on most of the positives before many of the negatives. The best part about the forward lines was that they combined the known chemistry of Zach Hyman and Nugent-Hopkins, with the analytically strong winger duo of Hyman with Warren Foegele.

This created a viable option to keep Nugent-Hopkins afloat as the second line centre. Here are the analytics of these combinations from the 2022-23 regular season:

Not only did all these combinations of the three players control shot attempts while on the ice in Game 3, they were also able to dominate high danger shot attempts and expected goals across both games, with the exception of garbage time in Nashville. That’s impressive.

Note that the outlying PDO values were largely due to the quality of their own goaltending in relatively small samples. All arrows up on this speculative line combination, Woodcroft smartly put it to the test this week.

Important even strength game results from Game 3 in Nashville are tabulated by line combination below. Note, the very small sample size of TOI limits the conclusiveness of the results:

The score was good in Nashville, but the underlying numbers were generally poor due to a few factors. Most importantly, as Draisaitl noted, the Nugent-Hopkins line was the Oilers’ best at 5v5 in Nashville, delivering two goals and a majority of the shot attempts on-ice.

Note that their lack of HDCF resulted from them scoring from difficult areas with great puck movement and great shots. This masked the team’s unspectacular 5v5 play, as did Connor McDavid’s spectacular recovery and shot, delivering the stacked McDrai line’s only goal at 5v5:

The Predators were also pushing for chances for a majority of 5v5 play, as they found their deficit increase to four in the first period. The Oilers capitalized on their chances, and Jack Campbell was excellent on the night.

Some more context is needed – the Nugent-Hopkins line dominated the game against rhe Predators before garbage time. Through two periods, they were 100 GF%, 59 xGF%, scoring all the goals while on the ice and dominating play.

What’s more was their +13 xGF% Rel, placing them as the best Oilers line at 5v5 to that point in time. These stats are a nice continuation of last season’s sample.

The chemistry of Foegele-Hyman is beneficial in two ways. First, it provides the centreman Nugent-Hopkins with a winger pair that more consistently retrieves and cycles the puck in the offensive zone, which makes up for his unspectacular transition abilities.

Second, it allows Woodcroft to reunite McDrai, while keeping the struggling Evander Kane off the Nugent-Hopkins line and stapled to two dominant play-drivers (which doesn’t always work out in practice – more on this later). Note that the third line was also quietly good, well outplaying the competition with 57.6 xGF% and outshooting them with 67 SF%.

It’s going to be critical to the Oilers’ success that Nugent-Hopkins and Hyman continue to provide high expected goal shares as they did last year, along with good execution. The duo’s brilliant play 5v5 was reflected in their 64.5 and 63.2 xGF%.

Case in point on the chemistry of the Nugent-Hopkins line: Hyman’s retrieval ability, followed by the tenacious forecheck of Hyman-Foegele that pulled in the defenders, before they connected beautifully to Nugent-Hopkins for the finish:

They took it even further, with a second beautiful cycle to draw in the defenders, opening up the opportunity for a cross-slot pass that Foegele made no mistake burying from distance:

In Game 2 versus Vancouver, Nugent-Hopkins previously did the same thing, when he lured the goalie into thinking he would defer to McDrai on the flanks of the power play before sniping the puck far side. The finishing ability he’s developed is huge for the top 6. It makes it much harder for the goalie to simply cheat to Draisaitl’s circle, or for the opposition to swarm McDavid to prevent a dangerous scoring chance.

In Nashville, Draisaitl also made a creative play, when he quietly drifted from his usual office on the low circle into the slot to ensure Juuse Saros couldn’t just cheat over to stop him:

There was no such luck or creativity in Philadelphia on Thursday night. Although Mattias Ekholm made some good plays despite the loss, including this one where he quickly reversed and made a breakout pass instead of deferring to Evan Bouchard or waiting for both teams to set up off the line change:

These types of plays and goals put on display the creativity and positional timing that will be critical to keeping the Oilers at number one in goals scored in the NHL for the second season in a row, as teams work their hardest to stop their set plays, and those setups that they rely on most.