This is your TL/DR (too long, didn’t read) summary post where excerpts are taken from the best of the best when it comes to Edmonton Oilers blogs. BLH gives you his two cents on the latest posts being published in the Oilogosphere! Including those from Lowetide.ca, The Athletic, Oilersnation, The Cult of Hockey, Copper N Blue, Oil on Whyte, and more!
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Lowetide
GAME 14 2022-23: OILERS AT LIGHTNING
- “Lightning are 6-3-1 in their last 10 and has one home loss this year, Edmonton has made things tough on themselves and it could get worse. Does three losses in a row grow to four? Five? The team needs a goalie to steal a game, a depth forward to score twice, and for God sakes could the PK kill a penalty for once? It’s a long list.”
BLH’s Thoughts: Ugh…
Did anybody else catch David Staples suggesting the team call up Kris Russell and see if he’d come back just to help Edmonton’s PK? My lord… That is some kind of suggestion. What about putting Niemelainen back in? He’ll block a shot or two and he’s owns the highest hits/game for a dman in the league.
Staples also suggested that Ryan Murray get sent down to Bakersfield and I can definitely get on board with that if it means an upgrade on the back end. MTL’s Joel Edmundson is the kind of blueliner this team needs. He blocks shots, he hits, and he’s the kind of blue collar defender the Oilers are missing on the 2nd pair PLUS he only makes $3.5M/yr if I recall correctly.
See, what the difference was between the Capitals and the Edmonton last night was Washington’s structure. They stuck to the plan and the Oilers did not. Their defense had a game plan and didn’t deviate. They got in the lanes, boxed guys out, and simply made life very easy for career back up Charlie Lindgren and really difficult for anybody trying to score on him.
How ’bout it? Do you think Edmundson would move the needle for the Oilers or should they give Broberg a try? Or is there better option out there in your opinion? Any thoughts on Mike Reilly over in Boston? Sounds like he might be on the move once Charlie McAvoy returns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItTzcddbMwc
GM14: Oilers @ Lightning
Who to Keep an Eye on For Tampa Bay
- #91 Steven Stamkos – The last week or so has been unkind to this future hall-of-famer as he’s been absolutely snakebit. He’s been unable to twinkle the twine in his previous half dozen minus one and as we know, if a sniper needs to snap out of a drought, there’s no better team to play than the Oilers. 16pts in 15 career games against Edmonton…
- #86 Nikita Kucherov – 18 points in his last ten games. 10 points in his last five. Kucherov is on fire right now and with the way Edmonton’s defense is playing at the moment, he might get 10 more tonight. Add to that the fact that he has 21pts in 12 games versus the Oilers… Yikes…
- #98 Mikhail Sergachev – 5pts in his last five from Tampa’s backend and he’s averaging over 25 minutes a night according to Daily Faceoff dot com.
Who to Keep an Eye on for Edmonton
- #97 Connor McDavid – He’s put up 8 goals in 8 games during his career versus Tampa and he’s still lighting up the league right now. I think it’s a fair bet to say he’ll take it up a notch against Victor Hedman.
- #36 Jack Campbell – Soupy’s played pretty well against the Lightning in the past. He’s got a record of 2-1-1 with a .916 sv% and 2.45 GAA and if we’re being honest here, he needs a bounce back game in the worst way. I feel like if he can have a good performance against this high-scoring Tampa Bay team, he’s going to gain a shit ton of confidence.
- #18 Zach Hyman – I love the way Hyman is playing right now. He’s been the most consistent player on the team this year and if there’s anything Edmonton’s young struggling players can learn from him it’s that hard work pays off. Zach isn’t the most skilled player on the team but he’s the hardest working even when things aren’t going well for his club.
BLH’s Thoughts: This game should be a war of attrition between two of the league’s highest scoring top-six forward groups. It’s funny, Tampa’s bottom six isn’t getting their names on the scoresheet much either this year. So this should be an interesting matchup.
Connor, Leon, and Nuge have all scored very well against Jon Cooper’s club over the course of their careers and I expect that to continue tonight. Now, will they outscore Tampa’s legends? I’m not confident of that, especially if they fall into penalty trouble again.
I don’t really get it. Everybody and their dog knows the Oilers can score but nobody knows if they can defend? I mean, they all know they can’t defend, but the real question is, when will the men who run this organization finally decide to build a team that can play a high brand of defense that can be capitalized on by it’s high octane offense?
It’s going to be high highs and low lows until then I fear.
Now, as for the $3M men (Puljujarvi, Yamamoto, Foegele), Ken Holland is a patient guy and he rarely makes a move before February. However, if these three players can’t get their production lines going, I think maybe 10 games down the line we’re going to see some changes. Maybe they’ll try to do something internally first (Benson, Lavoie, Bourgault for a cup of coffee), but if that fails to flip the script, I could see roster moves made.
The season is way too important and with American Thanksgiving coming up, the Oilers need to be in a good position standings-wise or their season might be at risk which sounds really f*cking odd to say considering the amount of talent on this team.
The worst part of trading any of those players is that they need Puljujarvi and they won’t get very much for Yamo and will have to pay to get rid of Foegele. Ask yourself this, would Warren Foegele get claimed if he were put on waivers.
Trade Rumors
Spector’s Hockey
- DAILY FACEOFF: Frank Seravalli examine five potential trade targets for the Toronto Maple Leafs if they decide to bolster their goaltending depth.
- The Columbus Blue Jackets’ Joonas Korpisalo and the San Jose Sharks’ James Reimer topped Seravalli’s list. Jonathan Quick of the Los Angeles Kings, Dan Vladar of the Calgary Flames and Anton Khudobin of the Dallas Stars rounded out his list. He also had the Detroit Red Wings’ Alex Nedeljkovic as an honorable mention
- THE PROVINCE: Patrick Johnston cited Jim Rutherford’s appearance Monday on Sportsnet 650 in which he expressed his ongoing unhappiness with the Vancouver Canucks’ performance.
- Rutherford indicated management attempted to make some trades during the offseason. However, they were hampered by cap space or high prices paid by other clubs.
- Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reported Rutherford’s goal for next summer is moving big contracts to clear salary cap space. “VAN is open for business,” tweeted Seravalli.
BLH’s Thoughts:
