One step forward, one step back for Oilers defence
On defence, Bouchard made some early gaffs in Nashville (as we’ve seen from him recently), but followed them up with some great plays with traffic in front, that resulted in fortunate bounces:
ZMH tucks it home 🏠 pic.twitter.com/rGtjpnirTK
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) October 18, 2023
Note in the above clip, we see Philip Broberg on his natural side connecting to Bouchard to begin the sequence. That’s a pairing you want to see a lot more of this season. They posted excellent results last season, including a decent 51.4 GF%, a dominant 59.5 xGF%, and a reassuringly low PDO of 0.979:
I saw Broberg make at least one major gaff to fail to hold the offensive blue line. I'd like to see some of the excellent Broberg-Bouchard line that we saw last season in a decent quantity before the arrival of Ekholm: pic.twitter.com/BGnAe3WsVc
— Mark 📸 (@TheLineBlender) October 19, 2023
Their very low PDO suggested their on-ice goal share could very well have been as dominant as their expected goal share. That’s very promising for such an inexperienced second line, and hopefully we see more of it soon.
As the game in Nashville wore on, Bouchard began to excellently drove play, finishing with a team-leading 66 xGF% and 39 xGF% Rel at even strength. He made several passes of high quality, something he does each game regardless of any other errors made.
Bouchard was not so good in Philadelphia, making an awful giveaway when pressured alone in his own zone. On two different plays, Bouchard and Ekholm failed to make the right reads, and neither was prepared to pick up the slack on rush goals against.
Note that other players, such as McDavid on the PP and Foegele from Kulak at 5v5, made uncharacteristically “lazy” giveaways as well. The team can and has to clean these up:
That's ✌️ thus far, Shooter. #EDMvsPHI | @CamAtkinson89 | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/kCGYw3QGZb
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 20, 2023
Still, it must be acknowledged that Bouchard has four assists in four games this season. He is 9-31-40 in 37 games (!) since the arrival of Ekholm, including an outstanding playoffs from them as one of the league’s top pairings to end the season. Give us more, lots more, of Bouchard with the top guns, as his breakout passing – and that of Ekholm – are what is going to help get the Oilers out of this offensive lull.
In fact, I’m going to go ahead and predict Bouchard posts a point-per-game this season and makes a serious case for Norris consideration… unless he and his partner play down from their potential.