Category Archives: Kris Hansen

Kris Hansen

BLH Edmonton Oilers Weekly Recap March 6th-12th

OESTERLE

This week we saw the Oilers go 2-2-0 with good games against the Jets and Wild on Sunday and Thursday respectively and two stinkers on Tuesday against the Sharks and one last night against the Coyotes (those damn Yotes have our number).

Hey, one bright side: They have won five of their last eight games. There have been improvement, but these injuries are too tough to overcome.

The Edmonton Oilers Three Stars.

Not going to lie, when you get shutout twice, you’re going to be reaching for some stars here. There’s no McDavid. No Hall. No Eberle. None of those guys make an appearance.

Buckle up, it’s not a great list this week:

3. Lauri Korpikoski: Urg. See?!? It’s been so mediocre that Lauri Korpikoski opens up the three stars. He had two goals in both wins. Korpi had some power play time against Arizona and was partly responsible for the Power Play being a failure. He was lousy possession wise when playing with McDavid, but somehow he had two goals so he gets a star.

I know guys. I know.

2. Cam Talbot: Talbot was the First Star of the week last week by the NHL (boy I looked great not listing him there didn’t I!) and this week he had an up down week. Good news: In the two wins, he had a combined 0.971 save percentage. The bad news: in the two losses he had a combined 0.863 save percentage. The total was a 0.917 Save percentage which isn’t bad. He’s been great this season. He’s the real MVP of the team.

2. Jordan Oesterle: He only played against Minnesota and Arizona and had no points but man, does he look good out there. There’s a little bit of hype with some people comparing to Brandon Davidson (oh, he got injured on Sunday and is done for the year most likely). Against Arizona he played a game high 25:27….and was not a minus on the night. He doesn’t look out of place, but it’s a shame how log jammed the Oilers are on the Left Side. I think he could be trade bait and I hope not.

Edmonton Oilers News and Injuries

Hey, remember how people said injuries were a lame excuse? Well the Oilers lost more players to injury including Brandon Davidson on Sunday against Winnipeg and Adam Pardy on….I honestly don’t know. Pardy is out week to week while Davidson’s injury looks horrible.  So let’s list the Oilers who have been hurt at one point this year:

Jordan Eberle, Connor McDavid, Nail Yakupov, Oscar Klefbom, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Benoit Pouliot, Matt Hendricks, Eric Gryba, Andrew Ference, Brandon Davidson and Adam Pardy.

 

The Oilers lost their entire second line at one point. Yes, I would have loved to see this team with a somewhat healthy line up all at once.

For a longer read, Woodguy55 over at BecauseOilers.blogspot.com has a post about the search of the vaunted Oilers Right handed defenseman.  If you enjoy fancy stats, Woodguy55 is absolutely beautiful at this.

Lowetide had his Sail on list, and I agree with it: there’s going to be some painful names that will be leaving us soon.

I recently completed my Edmonton Oilers All Time Roster wrapping up with Centres. 

The Oilers signed Jere Sallinen. 

Around the NHL

The Oilers are third in man games lost, but first in quality of players lost. 

Sportsnet is saying it’s a two horse race between Connor McDavid and Chicago’s Artemi Panarin 

Auston Matthews played his last game in Zurich as his team was eliminated in four and Marc Crawford is hoping to get an NHL job soon. 

An always must read: Elliote Friedman’s 30 thoughts. 

Yahoo! is now streaming 4 NHL games a week for free. 

Highlights

Top Moments of March 11th

 

PK Subban suffered a scary neck injury where he left the game on a stretcher. Thankfully he is out of the hospital.

 

McDavid scored the game winner against Minnesota

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC1vcoFlIiE

 

The Week Ahead

Three Home games this week, with the Oilers playing every second game for the remainder of the month.

Monday is against Nashville, Wednesday against St Louis and Friday against a mediocre Canucks team.

That’s the week that was, follow me on Twitter and have a great week!

Kris Hansen

BLH Weekly Recap Feb 29-March 6th

 

Another Week in the books saw the Edmonton Oilers go 3-1-0, where the Oilers had a nice three game winning streak, but had a very Oiler loss on Friday against the Columbus Blue Jackets.  Tonight they face the Winnipeg Jets, another struggling Canadian team.

It wasn’t a bad week for the Oilers and their wins against Buffalo and Philadelphia were one sided wins.

Edmonton Oilers Three Stars of the Week

3. Patrick Maroon. Acquired on Monday for a 4th round draft pick and prospect Martin Gernat, Maroon has made quite the impression right off the get go, having a goal and two assists in the two games that he has played with the Edmonton Oilers. Maroon is a 6’3 230 mammoth of a man and it was on display against Philadelphia in his debut where he would be constantly be facing two players at once. He also scored against the team who drafted him, which was also his Oilers debut. Maroon adds an element that is lacking from the Oilers ala Zack Kassian: Grit, Size and Nastiness.

2. Taylor Hall. Hall had two goals and an assist in the four games played this week and he was looking like his usual self. His goal against the Flyers was a great play and while he went hard into the boards, it was a great, impressive effort from number four. He scored against Columbus and played some minutes with Connor McDavid, where he did not look out of place. Hall is a natural talent and while his production has stalled, he is one of the best point producers in the game. For a team that struggles at times to score goals, suggesting trading one of the guys who produces at the rate he does, is foolish.

1. Connor McDavid. McDavid returns to the number one spot after a very impressive week. McDavid had six points in four games and I’ll be damned if it’s too soon to say this, but he’s one of the best players in the NHL at age 19. Sure, sample size blah blah, but number 97 is the most exciting player in the game. He’s the reason why people will tune into Oilers games, and there’s no shame in saying that. In the first McEichel bowl, he came away victorious with two goals, the first 22 seconds into the game and the second being the overtime winner (which was gracefully fed off a miss shot by Jack Eichel). He’s something else and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see him throughout the full year.

Edmonton Oilers News 

The Oilers were busy on a dull Trade Deadline day by opening up with claiming Adam Pardy and Adam Cracknell off waivers. 

The Oilers finished the day with acquiring the already mentioned, Patrick Maroon. 

I did a nifty little grade for all of the Trade Deadline moves made by the Oilers (including the ones leading up to the Deadline)

Connor McDavid should win the Calder. Seriously he should. 

The Edmonton Oilers are about to play the Jets in a Heritage Classic this upcoming fall.  It should be officially announced today.

Around the League

William Nylander scored his first Career NHL Goal against the Ottawa Senators, in Dion Phaneuf’s return to Toronto since being traded to Ottawa

Zac Rinaldo is an idiot and was suspended yet again.  

Max Domi had his first career suspension after instigating a fight with less than five minutes left against Anaheim. 

Jaromir Jagr tied Gordie Howe for career points. 

In that same link above, Nikolai Ehelers suffered a scary eye injury.

The NHL is talking about moving the draft age to 19. 

Highlights

Oilers vs Flyers

https://www.youtube.com/user/NHLVideo/videos

Oilers vs Sabres

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4BdZG21mrc

Here are some top moments from NHL.com

And Finally, it’s that time of the year: The All Hockey Hair Team 2016.

 

The Week Ahead

Tonight. Jets. Oilers. 5 PM Mountain time.

Hosting San Jose on Tuesday.

Visiting Minnesota on Thursday

Finally hosting the Coyotes on Saturday.

That’s the week that was! Hopefully the Oilers continue their better play as of late. Follow me on Twitter and have yourselves a great week.

Kris Hansen

BLH Edmonton Oilers Weekly Recap Feb 21st-Feb 28th

Alright, lets just get this out of the way first: the Oilers continued to stink as they went 0-3-0. They had good efforts against the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings but were absolutely putrid in the game against Ottawa.

It’s tough to give stars of the week when the entire team sucked, but there are some glimmers of hope.

Edmonton Oilers Three Stars:

3. Jordan Eberle. Eberle had two goals in three games this week, considering how the Oilers are once again, finding it hard to score goals, it’s a nice change to see Eberle stepping up. Sure, he looked lazy on some defensive plays, but Eberle is the best pure goal scorer on the team. He looks good with Connor McDavid. While I think that he’s the most likely to be dealt, I’m see why people are so leery of trading away number 14.

2. Cam Talbot. After posting, and while concerning, sub .900 save percentages in three games straight, Talbot was strong in games against Anaheim and Los Angeles, giving the Oilers a chance to win in those games. Sometimes you need the goalie to stand on his head and Talbot was doing that despite the losses. In the last three games, he averaged .920 save percentage.

1.Brandon Davidson. Hey, Upper Deck. Why does Brandon Davidson not have a Young Gun Rookie Card? Besides Connor McDavid, Davidson has been the best Oiler rookie. He’s so damn calm in his own zone and had an impressive hit against Jake Muzzin of the Los Angeles Kings. He’s a shining example of a rightfully questionable development system: a 6th round pick in 2010 who’s fought cancer, you can’t help but cheer for the young man. There are rumblings that people want him to get a contract extension, but who knows about the price this point.

Edmonton Oilers Trade Rumors and News.

It’s that time of the season, one of my favorites: TRADE DEADLINE SEASON!

First we had Anders Nilsson go to St Louis for a 2016 5th round pick and goaltending prospect Niklas Lundstrom 

Then we had Teddy Purcell go to Florida for a 2016 3rd round draft pick. 

Finally, yesterday we had the end of the Justin Schultz era as he was dealt to Pittsburgh for a 3rd round draft pick (Oilers retained 50% of the contract cost)

Also, yesterday Peter Chiarelli had a Press Conference yesterday regarding the trades. I did a post at our friendly neighbors, theoilersrig, recaping the conference. 

Rumor wise: The Oilers are interested in Florida Panthers Left Winger, Brandon Pirri.

Also, there was a great article about Wayne Gretzky commenting on Connor McDavid being ready to be the next Edmonton Oilers Captain.

Around the NHL:

Hold on to your butts, because there were plenty of trades these last couple days. 

One of the biggest trade chips, Andrew Ladd was moved to Chicago for Marko Dano, a 2016 first rounder and a conditional 3rd rounder. Also included to Chicago was Matt Fraser and Jay Harrison. 

Chicago wasn’t finished. They flipped Rob Scuderi to Los Angeles for Christian Ehrhoff. and then traded Phillip Danault and a 2018 2nd round pick to Montreal for Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann.

San Jose made a spalsh by acquiring James Reimer and Jeremy Morin from the Toronto Maple Leafs for Alex Stalock, Ben Smith and a conditional 4th round pick in 2018. This was the second trade in the week between the two teams as Toronto moved Roman Polak and Nick Spalling to San Jose for two second round picks (in 2017 and 2018) and Raffi Torres.  

The Panthers made three moves as well: First they acquired Jiri Hudler for a 2016 2nd round pick and a 2018 4th round pick, picked up Teddy Purcell for a 2016 third round pick and Jakub Kindl for a 6th round pick in 2017.

The Penguins as mentioned above, acquired Justin Schultz from the Edmonton Oilers for a third round pick in 2016.

The Sabres and Senators had a blockbuster minor league deal as Ottawa acquired Jason akeson, Phil Varone and Jerome Leduc for Alex Guptill, Eric O’Dell, Cole Schneider and Michael Sdao.

Highlights

Blake Wheeler was interviewed about the trade of their captain, Andrew Ladd

 

Here were the top NHL moments from last night

Rakell scored a beauty against the Oilers on Friday night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrCHGjeDdto

 

The Week Ahead:

The Oilers have three games, including one tonight at 7:30 against the New York Islanders.

Next they have a three game road trip including the first McDavid vs Eichel showdown in Buffalo on Tuesday, A visit to Philadelphia on Thursday and finally facing the Blue Jackets on Friday.

And of course, tomorrow is the NHL tradedeadline. I know I’ll be glued for updates.

That’s the week that was, follow me on Twitter for some really stunning insight (okay, maybe some insight, not truly stunning). Have a great week guys!

 

Kris Hansen

Beer League Heroes Edmonton Oilers Weekly Recap Feb 7th-13th

Well, The Edmonton Oilers have not had a good week. Sunday they were utterly obliterated 8-1 in a lazy showing against the New York Islanders, lost a snoozer 2-1 against the Devils, won 5-2 against the Toronto Maple Leafs (the true high of the week) and losing 2-1 in a shootout against the Winnipeg Jets last night.

The biggest problem looking at those scores, is that besides the Maple Leafs game, the Oilers are not scoring goals. They are a one line team, yet again, and for me it’s frustrating. It doesn’t make much sense: when one line is awake and on, the other lines completely disappear. Nail Yakupov is the invisible man. Leon Draisaitl looks like he’s either running out of gas or is hiding an injury and Taylor Hall is trying to do too much at once.

Edmonton Oilers Three Stars

3. Laurent Broissoit. Brossoit played in his second career NHL game last night in the shootout loss to Winnipeg and by all accounts was rock solid. Sure, the shootout he let in two goals that sealed it for Winnipeg but I was really rooting for Brossoit to get his first NHL victory. He was a late addition to the starting line up as usual starting goaltender, Cam Talbot, was out due to illness. In two games, Brossoit’s lowest save percentage is .961 This season in Bakersfield, Brossoit has played 26 games, some missed due to injury and sports a decent .921 save percentage. I like LB a lot; I watched him in Juniors with the Oil Kings and I’ll be definitely rooting for the Oil King alumni.

2. Jordan Eberle Eberle posted five points this week, including four goals and an assist. He scored, amazingly, his first career hat trick against the Toronto Maple Leafs. His chemistry with McDavid is looking very good and he’s been on fire as of late. Some want Nail Yakupov to be playing with McDavid but right now Eberle is the better player to be playing shotgun to 97. Last night he scored the lone Oiler shootout goal, a nice snipe top corner. As someone who wanted Eberle moved for someone attractive, I’m starting to change my stance.

1. Connor McDavid. Expect McDavid to be number one every week for the rest of the season. He’s that good of a player and he showed it against Toronto where he scored a whopping five points (two goals and three assists). On the empty net goal against the Leafs, he unselfishly gave the puck to Eberle for his first career hat trick. From all accounts he looked a bit sluggish against the Jets but was often the most dangerous player when on the ice. While he was held pointless against the Jets last night, McDavid had a staggering seven points in four games played.

Edmonton Oilers News and Rumors

To the shock of no one, the Edmonton Oilers are expected to be sellers for the trade deadline. Elliote Friedman also saying that Jordan Eberle will not be traded before the Trade Deadline, which again, is not exactly a huge shocker. 

Potential movers? I think Teddy Purcell is a goner. Justin Schutlz will also be on his way out too. Other names not as likely but could, include Mark Fayne and Eric Gryba, although I think the Oilers like Gryba enough.

Also one news item I wrote at theoilersrig.com was from John Shannon of Sportsnet concerning the Oilers being the next team to play in the outdoor game, hosted by Winnipeg. Interesting to note is that the game would be slated to be played in October. I love it!

Around the League

The Minnesota Wild, losers of eight straight, have fired Head Coach, Mike Yeo. 

A huge trade happened this week: Dion Phaneuf in a nine player deal from Toronto to Ottawa. As a Sens fan , I like the trade. Shed some salary they didn’t want, and they finally get a bonafide top four defenceman.

TSN released a list of the top fifty NHL affiliated prospects. 

Carrie Underwood aka Mrs. Mike Fisher, had some fun at Ryan Johansen’s expense. 

The Chicago Blackhawks, not the Toronto Maple Leafs, are set to host the 2017 NHL draft. 

Highlights

Dion Phaneuf got his first point as a Senator, the crowd loved it

 

Maple Leafs and Oilers Highlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFGlJHsv_io

 

Martin Brodeur had his number retired.

 

The Week Ahead

The Oilers have three home games this upcoming week.

Tuesday against the Ducks.

Thursday against the struggling Wild.

And Saturday against the Avalanche.

That’s the week that was! Follow me on Twitter (almost at 1000!) and have a wonderful week.

Kris Hansen

BLH Heroes Weekly Recap Feb 2nd-6th

 

EDMONTON, AB – SEPTEMBER 21: Connor McDavid #97 of the Edmonton Oilers makes his way to the ice prior to a preseason game against the Calgary Flames on September 21, 2015 at Rexall Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)

 

The Edmonton Oilers returned after an extended all star game break, having three games in the span of the week. It started off with a bang, with a 5-1 win over Columbus on Tuesday night and a 7-2 thrashing to the seemingly hapless Ottawa Senators, but reality came crashing back to earth with a stinker loss against Montreal yesterday, dropping the game against former Oilers goaltender Ben Scrivens, 5-1.

Playoffs aren’t a realistic expectation right now. Injuries have been an arguable factor and the defence has been a let down once again this year. For me, the last 29 games this season is the Connor McDavid show: the 19 year old returned Tuesday Night after a three month layoff due to his clavicle break.

Edmonton Oilers Three Stars:

3. Benoit Pouliot: Pouliot returns on the three stars after an impressive effort. In his last three games, Pouliot had five points, including the lone goal against Montreal yesterday. I like Pouliot’s game and with the new economics in the league, his cap hit for his production is good. Jonathan Willis of Oilersnation had a good post explaining why Pouliot is a good second line option.

2. Jordan Eberle: Despite being chewed out by Connor McDavid on the bench yesterday for not being in the right spot, Eberle has looked good with 97. Eberle posted three goals and two assists in his last 3 games. His chemistry with McDavid was very apparent during the Columbus and Ottawa games and is simply the better option over Nail Yakupov at this point.

1. Connor McDavid: This is not a surprising pick here. McDavid posted a goal and four assists in the past three games, keeping up with the point total with his other linemates, but he’s clearly the best player on his line. Every time Connor McDavid touches the puck, it’s magic. You’re on the edge of your seat anticipating his next move. While he was held pointless yesterday against Montreal, he was the best forward and nearly had another goal of the year attempt, where he just barely missed the net.

 

However, Tuesday Connor McDavid had the goal of the year: he goes through three defenders and just dekes the poor goalie to oblivion. I don’t think words does the goal much justice: just watch.

 

Edmonton Oilers News and Rumors:

It’s the calm before the Trade Deadline Storm. It’s quiet right now, but people are rightfully speculating which Oilers will go.

My two cents: I think Justin Schultz is the most obvious to go, despite his shoddy play. He’s entering Tom Poti levels of venom when it comes to the fanbase. His effort against Montreal was absolutely putrid and Clendening has looked better (albeit in a VERY limited sample size). I would rather keep Teddy Purcell, although I might be in a minority.

I feel that Feburary 29th might be a quiet day for the Oilers, but I imagine a move is made. I think the bigger moves will be for the off season where teams have more flexibility.

Around the League

Erik Karlsson is second in league scoring. SECOND. 

NHL All Star MVP John Scott welcomed the birth of his twin girls 

Braden Holtby is eyeing Brodeur’s win record in a single season

The NHL released an updated website and a new streaming app. It’s been a bit of a disaster. 

The Toronto Maple Leafs released a new logo that they will be wearing starting next season. I like it!

Highlights

The Blackhawks drilled the Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqOCCKwMV1c

 

Marchand scored an Overtime Penalty shot game winner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW0VR0Y1vF0

The Oilers vs Senators Highlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBnjO_yxF6Y

 

The Week Ahead

The Oilers have four games this week including a game at 12:30 MT against the New York Islanders, A tilt in New Jersey Tuesday. They host the Maple Leafs on the 11th and then the Jets on the 13th.

That’s the week that was, feel free to give me a follow on Twitter! Have a wonderful week.