Has Woodcroft found chemistry in Oilers lines this week? A deep dive
Riding the roller coaster with Nurse-Ceci
The unfortunate results from Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci versus Nashville were contrasted by them being the only bright spots on defence against Philadelphia. In Nashville, they were badly outshot, outchanced, and outplayed at 5v5 in over 18 minutes TOI.
In Philadelphia, they split the shot count on net at 50.0 SF%. However, they posted the lion’s share of shot attempts and high danger attempts, with 55.6 CF% and 60.0 HDCF% respectively. They posted the best showing of any D-pair at 5v5:
The #Oilers did mostly the opposite against the Flyers as they did versus the Preds. They actually controlled high danger chances at 5v5 and traded with flow of play, but the storyline continues:
— Mark 📸 (@TheLineBlender) October 20, 2023
They once again lost the tally of goals off the rush. 0-3 at all strengths. pic.twitter.com/Ttdz43Kv2L
Nurse-Ceci gave the team pretty much exactly what was needed out of them in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, history suggests that this was more of an anomaly for them, as their 2022-23 regular season track record contained relatively poor results in a large sample of over 1,000 minutes TOI:
Nurse-Ceci struggled after a good game #2 versus Vancouver. This line has an extensive track record of being outscored and sawing-off the expected goals at 5v5 and the success of the D-corps in this configuration depends on great success from Ekholm-Bouchard: pic.twitter.com/rusGmzoJGb
— Mark 📸 (@TheLineBlender) October 19, 2023
Nurse-Ceci last season only scored 48.9% of the goals while on ice, and sawed-off the expected goals at exactly 50.0%. They did not manage to outplay their competition, and their PDO suggests these results were very sustainable.
The Oilers’ top 4 defence has been a story of two very different lines in the last year, with no end in sight. Let’s hope the Ekholm-Bouchard line returns to form and provides plenty of big numbers, because it’s not very likely the Nurse-Ceci pair can maintain their great play from Thursday night.