There’s nothing better than a Canada/Russia match-up at any hockey competition and for BLH’s Hockey Game of the Night, we’ve got for you a proper classic. The 2005 World Juniors Gold Medal Final between Sidney Crosby’s Team Canada and Alexander Ovechkin’s Team Russia.
Click the pic and find the NHL94 player from your team!
To set up this game I found this blurb from Sports Illustrated by Ken Campbell,
The night is always darkest just before the dawn, and Canada’s greatest anguish on the World Junior Championship stage came one year before its greatest triumph.
Flash back to Helsinki, Finland, 2004. Canada desperately wanted to be crowned hockey’s best under-20 nation after six long years in the cold. Since a five-year run of golds that ended in 1997, the Canadians had finished eighth, second, third, third, second and second, with each heartbreak worse than the last. They blew a 2-1 lead to Russia on Canadian ice to lose the 2003 final. Then, in Helsinki, the nightmare continued. Canada led upstart U.S. 3-1 entering the third period of the gold medal game. The U.S. stormed back to tie it and, with less than five minutes remaining in a 3-3 contest, Canada goalie Marc-Andre Fleury’s clearing attempt bounced off teammate Braydon Coburn and into his own net. The Americans won their first world juniors ever. Canada’s drought reached seven years.
What I found really interesting is that Sidney Crosby and Corey Perry were lighting up their respective Junior leagues and Patrice Bergeron had already spent a year in the NHL, yet coach Brent Sutter chose to put the trio together and deploy them as Canada’s shutdown line. Very much like Wayne Gretzky back in 1978, Perry only made the club due to the injury of another player. What luck!
As this is mostly an Oilers blog, I feel compelled to mention that this game featured five players who would go on to play for the Edmonton Oilers later in their careers. Those individuals being Shawn Belle (CAN), Colin Fraser (CAN), Cam Barker (CAN), Danny Syvret (CAN), and the great Anton Belov (RUS).
If you’re enjoying the series, check out this week’s previous games below!
That’s right! Who really cares that it’s Connor v. Crosby? The story of the night will be Leon Draisaitl matching up against Evgeni Malkin! And what a matchup it will be! Size, speed, skill, graceful skating, and amazing playmaking! We’re in for a treat!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHe9pBtk1Pw
Those videos are so childish, I know. But I can’t stop busting a gut making them. If I laugh as much making them, someone out there surely has to be laughing half as much watching them and the world is a better place when people are laughing, wouldn’t you agree? Back to the game tonight though.
Let’s not kid ourselves. The entire hockey world will be watching this one and not for Draisaitl/Malkin. This is the future of the NHL lining up against the present, right? I’d like to say past but Crosby isn’t even 30 years old is he? He could very well play another 10 years.
When I was a kid, all I ever wanted to watch was Gretzky’s Oilers/Kings player Mario Lemieux’s Penguins. Well, we may very well get another decade of Crosby’s Penguins versus McDavid’s Oilers. It’s a good time to be a hockey fan.
I’d have to ask some of the more vintage fans out there but could there be parallels drawn to the first time Wayne Gretzky met Brian Trottier tonight? Some have likened the meeting to Gretzky and Lemieux but for whatever reason, I don’t see it that way. How do you see it?
The game tonight could very well be one of the most entertaining games of the year so far. Both teams should be lined up in order to have three scoring lines firing at any one moment. The Penguins’ powerplay (6th OV) is clipping along at a 24% rate (Edmonton has the 9th OV PP in the league) and the Oilers’ PK sits very comfortably in the four spot overall (89.5%). Pittsburgh’s PK is ranked in the middle of the pack at 16th OV.
I believe that the Penguins have too much for Edmonton but if the Oilers defense can continue to play as well as it has and Cam Talbot doesn’t decide that tonight is the game that’ll be off. I think that the Oilers could take it by capitalizing on the powerplay.
I haven’t heard if the Pens are starting MA Fleury or Matt Murray but that will play a factor in it as well. I’d much rather the Oilers be lining up across from Fleury to be honest. I like the fact that he’s completely unpredictable and could come unhinged at any moment. Perfect for a team full of hungry beasts like the Oilers.
Another deciding factor could be the defenses on both teams.
For the Oilers, they are going to be seeing wave after wave of grit and ultimate skill coming at them. The pairing that Andrej Sekera has been on has been struggling lately. Whether he’s been paired with the dinged up, Kris Russell, or the rookie, Matt Benning; things have not played out well for them. That’s a pairing I’d keep a close eye on because we know that Larsson/Klefbom are going to be solid and bodies be hitting the floor when the Gryba/Nurse pairing is on the ice.
As for the Pens, Dumoulin and Letang have been firing on all cylinders. What a pair that is eh? Letang is godly on the back end and he’s got to be due for a Norris soon. Brian Dumoulin (a throw-in in the Jordan Staal trade) had marinated for nearly 200 games in the AHL before finding his spot permanently on the Pens blue line. So if you’re still sore about Griffin Reinhart taking his sweet time getting to the NHL, relax.
Olli Maatta and Trevor Daley are very good at moving the puck but I reckon this pairing, as well as, the Pens’ third pairing of Justin Schultz and Ian Cole, could be ripe for the picking if the Oilers’ forecheck is gold. If it isn’t and the boys appear tired, the Penguins will eat them alive.
What do you think? Edmonton has surprised the Blues and Capitals already this year. Teams that were supposed to handle the Oilers with ease but were thwarted by an Edmonton hockey club that has improved exponentially. Can the Oilers surprise again and swat the Penguins to the side, gaining more ground on the Habs and Rangers?
I’m going to say that it’ll be an entertaining game with all the offense out there but that Pittsburgh takes this one. I hope the Oilers win it but I reckon the gritty Penguins from Pennsylvania will have it.
The other day on Hockey Central Nick Kypreos made it known that he thinks that this will be that last season that Evgeni Malkin spends with the Pittsburgh Penguins. You can view it below. In my humble opinion, I think that Kypreos and MacLean are out to lunch on this one and it’s probably why they’re sitting behind a desk on a TV set rather than a desk at the offices of an NHL team.
Kypreos is pretty sold on this being the best time EVER to move Malkin. An off-season where the salary cap is going to stay around $71M and with an expansion draft looming… Okay then.
This isn’t an official rumour or anything. It’s just me pondering aloud. But as it always does with any fan of hockey, the wheels got turning on what it would take for the Oilers to acquire a player like Malkin IF he were to waive his no-movement clause. I mean just for shits and giggles of course. The Russian IS one of the best players in the world today. Definitely better than everybody on the Edmonton Oilers not named Connor McDavid.
In the last 5 years in a group of all players who have played 4000 minutes or more, he has the 2nd best 5×5 pts/60 in the league with 2.62. He trails only Jamie Benn in that regard as the Dallas Star has 2.63 pts/60. Taylor Hall has 2.27 pts/60 and Eberle has 2.19 pts/60.
If we go to his stats on the powerplay, using 1000 minutes played over the last five years and amongst forwards, Evgeni Malkin is GF/60 is 8.39 putting him 7th in the league. Apparently there have been no Oilers to play 1000 minutes on the PP, so I changed that to 500 minutes and the first name to come up in the GF/60 category was RNH, then Eberle, and finally Hall. Nuge came out with a 7.77 GF/60, Ebs had a 6.99 GF/60, and Hallsy a 6.81 GF/60.
The Oilers need more goals on the powerplay!! It’s almost pitiful that Hall and Eberle can’t outscore players like Mike Fisher, Frans Nielsen, and Brayden Schenn with the man advantage.
*Interesting note. The no.1 player on the PP GF/60 list I was using is upcoming UFA Troy Brouwer with a 10.25 GF/60!!*
**Another interesting note coming from Walter Foddis is that good GF/60 numbers on the PP is more indicative of a good powerplay team-wise as oppose to individual production.**
Malkin’s CF/60 RelTM sits at 8.60 using the same parameters as the pts/60 above. That puts him in 8th place among forwards in the NHL. The highest Oiler is Taylor Hall who sits at 36th place with a 5.47 and Jordan Eberle (47th) has a 4.66 in that stat.
One of the things that Nick Kypreos and Doug MacLean were pontificating upon was whether Malkin is hurt or not. I think he is carrying an injury or two myself. He did have that wrist injury before the playoffs started and he’s been the victim of some chippy plays from the Penguins’ opposition throughout the playoffs. The Sportsnet crew also talked about how he likes to slow the game down and how that could be affecting his performance on a team that looks to be going a million miles an hour effectively vs. the Sharks.
It’s possible, that all of that is true. I’d love to see him in an Oilers uniform centering a Leon Draisaitl and Matthew Tkachuk or a Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall. But the question remains…
Do the Oilers Need Evgeni Malkin?
YES
NO
A veteran of over 644 games.
Has accrued nearly 800 points to date.
Trophies won include the Art Ross (2x), Hart, Conn Smythe, Calder, Stanley Cup.
5-time All-Star.
Has experience playing with generational talents (wink wink) and AHLers alike.
He’d be a solid mentor to Nail Yakupov and Leon Draisaitl.
Can actually complete a one-timer and would QB the powerplay.
He’s under contract for $9.5M per year until 2022.
He’d likely cost you Nuge, Hall, or Draisaitl, and the 4th overall pick in 2016.
He’s not a right-handed top-pairing defenceman.
So those are the pros and cons of Malkin being acquired by the Oilers in my eyes. Surely you could point out more. But the cons as few as they are really outweigh the pros and I’m almost 100% certain that there’s no way that Jim Rutherford would eat the $3M or so per year for it TO work for the Oilers.
Grab a phone case or a t-shirt of 16-bit Malkin right now by clicking on the pic above!
Personally I don’t think it’d be a great idea for Edmonton to trade for him IF he’s even on the market because of that contract and to be honest, why would the Penguins even consider dealing him? They’ve got the unicorns flying in full force right now. If anything, it’s MA Fleury that they deal with the emergence of Matt Murray. The Pens can absorb losing Fleury because they’ve got Zatkoff as the no.3 and Tristan Jarry coming up in the AHL. Kypreos and MacLean think that the expansion draft would take care of Fleury but why would you wait and lose him for nothing?
It’s nearly the same argument that is going on in Edmonton. The forward depth is there but because it’s there somebody has to go, right? Well, no. You don’t have to move a Malkin because Nick Bonino is having a good playoffs and has been clicking with Hagelin and Kessel. And conversely, you don’t move Nugent-Hopkins because there’s Draisaitl and McDavid.
If the machine isn’t broken, you generally don’t go looking for things to fix on it right? Unless you’re Kypreos and MacLean who are sounding almost as coherent as MacLean and Maclean.
But one last hypothetical before I leave you.
What if Malkin “only” cost the Oilers one of Leon Draisaitl, Taylor Hall, or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and say Nail Yakupov or the 4th overall pick, then could/would you flip Malkin to the Canadiens for PK Subban?
You’re probably saying why not just trade the package to the Habs for Subban? I reckon they’d prefer the offense that comes from Malkin than that of Nuge and Yak. I’m sure it’d be different for Hall but is that a way the Oilers could get their hands on the elusive top-pairing right-hander on the blueline?
What do you think? Is there a universe where you’d endorse an Edmonton Oilers trade for Evgeni Malkin?
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San Jose Sharks (Head Coach: Peter DeBoer) at Pittsburgh Penguins (Head Coach: Mike Sullivan)
NHL Playoff Game #411, CONSOL Energy Center, 2016-05-30 06:00:00PM (GMT -0600)
Penguins 3-2
Referees: Wes McCauley, Dan O’Rourke, Dan O’Halloran
Linesmen: Pierre Racicot, Derek Amell, Jonny Murray
Three Stars: Nick Bonino; Conor Sheary; Patrick Marleau
Welcome! This is the “OilersNerdAlert” format statistical breakdown for this game. Beer League Heroes will be publishing these state of the art analyses for each of the Final games.
This was an exciting game. Hope they’re all this intense!
The Sharks are my designated #2 team, since I have family and friends down in Silicon Valley, so … boo. Also the game information below is from the Sharks point of view. If you’re a Penguins fan and want to see the breakdown from a PIT point of view, please comment and we’ll be happy to add a second gamepage.
The score ended up being (and following) the gameflows pretty much exactly – which happens less often than you’d think!
My man BLH is choked that Justin Schultz isn’t wearing #19, so he could make up a half and half jersey shirt. Even as a Penguin, Jultz frustrates Oiler fans!
Grab a 16-bit tee and help keep the BLH ship afloat! We’ve got all the big names playing in the Cup Final! Burns, Malkin, Kessel, Pavelski, etc! Click the pics above or right HERE to go and get yours today!
Forwards are sorted by decreasing CF%. Defensemen and pairs sorted by increasing DFA60. Forward lines by decreasing DFF%. Positions are as listed by the NHL roster page, not necessarily where they played.
I miss the days of seeing NHL Hall-of-Famers Ray Bourque, Mark Messier or Brendan Shanahan rocking the accuracy contest at the NHL All-Star Skills Competition. This year it was John Tavares, Evgeni Malkin, and Joe Pavelski starring but nobody could hit the elusive four-for-four. Check it out below!
