Tag Archives: Patrick Kane

Edmonton Oilers, Fancy Stats, G Money, NHL

An offhanded look at wingers and hands

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The idea of defense handedness is now well established I think – we recognize that ‘off hand’ defensemen often pay a penalty in terms of effectiveness.

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Since some wingers also play on their off hand (a right shot left wing, or a left shot right wing), a few weeks ago I was mulling the idea of winger handedness.

Conventional wisdom suggests that doing this allows for:

  • Greater effectiveness in the offensive zone (with the shot having a better angle to the net), but
  • Less effectiveness in the defensive zone, where stick-off-boards makes for tougher defending and zone exits.

Dallas Eakins even experimented with putting Nail Yakupov (left shot right wing) on the left wing to try to manage his defensive woes (though this just seemed to confuse the young lad more).

I began to wonder if anyone has looked more broadly to see whether off-hand wingers are demonstrably more or less effective than on-hand wingers.  I put the idea out on Twitter, asking if anyone knew of work that had been done in the area.

It sparked an interesting and widespread debate, but it appears that it’s a relatively understudied issue.  This work by Arik Parnass (just hired by COL) vis a vis the power play was interesting.

@behindthenet’s brief look at overall handedness found some interesting anomalies.

But other than that, I found little or nothing specific to wingers.

So … why not do some initial digging into the idea?  Start by comparing wingers on their on hands vs wingers on their off hands, and see if there is a meaningful result as far as differences in points or shots or offense/defense.

Data

To pull this data, I used as my starting point the NHL ‘statsapi’ JSON live feed data.

This is an unusual source of data in that most fanalysts scrape the NHL roster sheets for player data. However, I have found the NHL roster sheets problematic for identifying positions (for example, Jordan Eberle has been listed as a C since he entered the league), while the JSON data entirely by visual scan appears to be more accurate.  Plus it very conveniently embeds the required data on player handedness.

So I used that.

The rest of the data for the players (boxcars and shot metrics) are scraped from the more conventional NHL game sheet data sources. All data used is for the 2015-2016 season. Any errors therein are my own, unless in the NHL data.

Process

As a starting point, I decided I would look at just a handful of key data points for comparison:

  • points per game at even strength (EVP/Gm)
  • goals per game at even strength (EVG/Gm)
  • even strength shot attempts, percentage (CF%) as well as for and against rates per 60 (CF/60, CA/60) so as to be able to separate defensive and offensive effectiveness
  • My own “Dangerous Fenwick” statistic, a distance and shot type weighted danger metric.  Again, percentage and for and against rates.

I did not filter the wingers for TOI or games played – if a player appeared on any game roster in 2015-2016 listed as right or left wing, that player was included in my data set. Measuring the effectiveness of a group like this suggests that we should include the ones who were ‘cup of coffee’ or bottom of roster types.

The wingers were separated into four groups: Left Wing/Left Shot, Left Wing/Right Shot, Right Wing/Right Shot, and Right Wing/Left Shot.  I then pulled demographic data, specifically country of origin and primary team in 2015, for each group.

Country of origin became of interest when I noted that the two off-hand wingers on the Oilers (Nail Yakupov and Anton Slepyshev*) are both Russian. In the same way that there is a distinct American bias in right handed defensemen, I wondered if there is a geographic bias in the development of off hand wingers.

*”Slappy” is listed as LW by the NHL, but by recollection the Oilers used him as a right winger at times. Not sure which is correct. This is another reminder that no dataset is ever 100% accurate.  We rely on data volume to account for such natural variability.

Raw Counts

Left Wing / Left Shot 155
Right Wing / Right Shot 113
Left Wing / Right Shot 19
Right Wing / Left Shot 46

On hand wingers are clearly the most common situation. Left wingers outnumber right wingers, just as LHD outnumber RHD.

The most common role for off hand wingers is a left shot right wing.

Team by Team

Counts for the categories of wingers by team are as follows (maximums are highlighted):

Team LW/LS LW/RS RW/LS RW/RS On Hand Off Hand
ANA 5 0 0 6 11 0
ARI 7 1 2 3 10 3
BOS 2 0 1 4 6 1
BUF 7 1 0 3 10 1
CAR 8 0 0 1 9 0
CBJ 7 0 1 5 12 1
CGY 7 0 2 2 9 2
CHI 5 1 2 4 9 3
COL 5 1 2 3 8 3
DAL 4 1 1 3 7 2
DET 6 1 4 0 6 5
EDM 7 1 1 5 12 2
FLA 3 2 2 1 4 4
LAK 6 0 1 1 7 1
MIN 5 1 1 4 9 2
MTL 7 1 1 5 12 2
NJD 8 0 1 5 13 1
NSH 3 3 3 1 4 6
NYI 6 1 1 4 10 2
NYR 5 0 2 2 7 2
OTT 7 0 1 6 13 1
PHI 3 0 1 3 6 1
PIT 6 1 2 6 12 3
SJS 3 0 1 3 6 1
STL 3 0 5 3 6 5
TBL 4 0 2 4 8 2
TOR 4 2 3 6 10 5
VAN 6 0 2 7 13 2
WPG 3 0 1 8 11 1
WSH 3 1 0 5 8 1

Though the numbers vary across the league, few teams look overly unusual in usage.  St. Louis (unusually high off hand RW) and Carolina (just one natural RW) both stand out to me.

Country of Origin

The following chart shows country of origin for each of the four categories of wingers:

Any country that did not have at least 10% representation in any one category was lumped together into Team Europe. If it’s good enough for the World Cup, it’s good enough for me!

Canada produces disproportionately fewer left shot right wingers, while Russia and Sweden produce disproportionately more off hand wingers.

There is a clear geographic bias to off handedness in wingers.

Effectiveness

The performance of the different categories of wingers is summarized in the following table.

Category EVP/Gm EVG/Gm CF% CF/60 CA/60 DFF% DFF/60 DFA/60
LW/LS 0.33 0.14 49.1% 53.8 55.9 48.9% 38 39.8
RW/RS 0.32 0.14 49.5% 54.6 55.7 49.5% 38.2 39
LW/RS 0.37 0.18 50.6% 56.5 55.1 51.0% 39.1 37.5
RW/LS 0.38 0.16 50.6% 55.9 54.6 50.3% 39.4 38.9

* Technical note: The shot metrics are grouped i.e. the raw for and against counts are summed for each group, then divided by total (or summed EVTOI) to produce the percentage and the rates.

Notice something interesting: off hand wingers are producing slightly but distinctly better results than their on hand counterparts in every category. The off hand wingers score more points, more goals, and have better Corsi and Danger metrics.

This is the reverse of what is observed with defensemen, where being on the off hand typically carries a penalty.  With wingers, it appears to confer an advantage.

Furthermore, the improvement is not solely because of greater offensive impact (as you’d expect) – rather, both the for and against shot rates are slightly better.

This is not entirely expected.

Statistical Validity

Of course, the differences between each of these two groups, while distinct, may not be statistically valid given the inherent variance within the two groups.

To test this, I used a Welch’s t test (assuming independent samples with different variances) to compare each of the two groups of left and right wingers. I used CF% and points/game as the comparison statistics for test.

Note that the underlying data set for the purposes of this test treats each players seasonal results for CF% and points/game as one data point (different from the summary table above).

The results are somewhat counterintuitive:

Wing Metric tcrit p Note
Right CF% 11.87 2.48E-016 Highly significant difference between on and off hand RW
Left CF% -1.94 0.07 Significant at 10% level, not at 5% level, for off hand LW
Right Pts/60 0.89 0.38 Not significant
Left Pts/60 -1.12 0.28 Not significant

The only statistic that was significant at 95% confidence was CF% for right wingers. Off hand right wingers produce a higher CF%, and the result is statistically highly significant.

The CF% difference for off vs on hand left wingers was significant at the 90% confidence level, but not the 95% level.

That RW is significant and LW is not despite being similar in magnitude is likely entirely due to the sample size, given there are only 19 off hand left wingers.

If I had applied a TOI filter, I suspect this would likely reduce the variance observed in the data and may have effected significance as well.  (Next time)

The difference in points/game between on and off hand for both left and right wingers was not statistically significant.

Conclusion

  • At least one of the statistics show that there is a statistically significant difference between on hand and off hand wingers
  • In general, off hand wingers had overall numbers that showed them to be more effective than on hand wingers, even from a shot suppression point of view. This is surprising.
  • There is a distinct geographic bias in off hand winger country of origin, with Russia and Sweden being unusually common sources, while Canada is distinctly less proportionately likely to produce left shot right wingers.
  • It remains unclear, but it’s possible that a part of the reason for the better off-hand numbers may boil down to a handful of superstar players. Ovechkin is one. And one of the highest scoring lines in the league features two off-handers (Patrick Kane and geriatric Calder winner Panarin), which is itself a point of interest.

This is a 40,000 ft view of the topic, but after this initial look, I would conclude that a deeper study on the topic is definitely warranted.

Particularly in identifying whether the apparent effectiveness of off hand wingers is a broad effect, or a narrow one confined to a handful of top players. Or is it selection bias, where only the best off hand wingers get played on the ‘wrong’ side in the first place?  And if it is a broad effect, why does the difference manifest in both offensive and defensive zone shot metrics, and not just on the offensive side?

And from there, understanding ultimately whether the effect has any tactical or roster implications for NHL teams.

Addendum – List of Off Hand Wingers

Right Wing / Left Shot Left Wing / Right Shot
Kevin Hayes Anton Slepyshev
Nikita Soshnikov Austin Watson
Tom Kuhnhackl Josh Leivo
Tomas Jurco Taylor Beck
Emerson Etem Viktor Arvidsson
Nikolaj Ehlers Thomas Vanek
Mikko Rantanen Joffrey Lupul
Alexandre Burrows Blake Comeau
Sven Andrighetto Artemi Panarin
Dennis Everberg Craig Cunningham
Jaromir Jagr Evan Rodrigues
Loui Eriksson Shawn Thornton
Michael Frolik David Perron
Jiri Hudler Filip Forsberg
Josh Bailey Christian Thomas
Marian Gaborik Alex Ovechkin
Rene Bourque Teemu Pulkkinen
Tobias Lindberg John McFarland
Martin Havlat Patrick Sharp
Miikka Salomaki
Max McCormick
Michael Grabner
Vladimir Tarasenko
Gustav Nyquist
Joel Vermin
Brad Richardson
Barclay Goodrow
Pascal Dupuis
Valeri Nichushkin
Mats Zuccarello
Gabriel Bourque
Dmitrij Jaskin
Marian Hossa
Jordan Caron
Johan Franzen
Reilly Smith
Nail Yakupov
Jakub Voracek
Scottie Upshall
Tobias Rieder
Patrick Kane
Nikita Kucherov
Brian O’Neill
Anthony Mantha
James Neal
Nino Niederreiter
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Working Out Your Core – 7 Easy Steps to a Stanley Cup

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When we talk about the Oilers and what their core should be, there’s plenty of debate between fans who the core pieces are.  There’s discussion of Hall, Eberle, Draisatl, McDavid, Nurse, Klefbom, and the like, but are those truly “core” pieces that can’t be moved, or do we exaggerate how much a team really needs a core like that.  Or do we even have that complete core to work with?

To decide this question, we can look at a team who’s dominated the NHL for the last half a decade, the Chicago Blackhawks.  A core player can be defined as any team member who played reasonable minutes during all of their respective cup wins.

Chicago Blackhawks

Their common players list through all cup wins consists of Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp, Marian Hossa, Brent Seabrook, Corey Crawford and Bryan Bickell.  However, Crawford was not the primary goalie during the first cup run, and in fact, saw virtually no ice time, therefore he can be removed from this list.  As for Bryan Bickell, although a large part of one cup run, would not be defined as a core player, and is more still there out of luck than anything else.

That leaves us with:

Patrick Kane, a RW, who for his career has averaged 1.00ppg on the dot.  This is the “sniper”, the player that they count on to score goals and who can be used on either of the top two lines to boost scoring, as he has proven he can put up points wherever he’s used.

Jonathan Toews, a C, who anchors the top line, plays quality defense, wins face-offs, is able to score points when needed, plays an aggressive game, and is the team captain with strong leadership ability

Patrick Sharp, a LW, who provides veteran scoring savvy wherever he’s used in the Top-9, and can help settle down a rookie teammate or help a new teammate get used to the team fast during the stretch run, and can consistently score points for the club regardless of his linemates.

Marian Hossa, a RW, who provides elite-level defensive ability along with solid scoring totals, and alongside Toews gives Chicago a duo who can go power-for-power against any line and provide quality defensive play along with solid offensive punch, and who acts as a mentor to the entire team.

Duncan Keith, a Left-Shooting D, who acts as the anchor on the back end, able to play absurd minutes when needed, provides solid offense from the back end, and can be put out at any time against any player and is able to get the job done, is a true elite defenseman.

Brent Seabrook, a Right-Shooting D, who provides physical play, high-quality scoring, and anchors a second defensive unit that allows Chicago to mix and match partners there as needed while still providing a quality second unit that can match up with most any other club in the league.

Niklas Hjalmarsson, a Left-Shooting D, but who plays primarily with Keith, and is the shut-down minute-eating compliment to Keith that allows him to push the play down the ice while knowing his partner can cover anyone.  Is a true shut-down defenseman who relies on positioning more than physical play.

So, what we have here for a core is a First-Line pair of C/RW who are able to put up points and play against any line in the league and provide quality shut-down play, leadership and mentorship.  From there, we have a pair of quality snipers and point producers who can be used anywhere in the Top-9 and are able to put up points regardless of their linemates.  On the back end, we have an elite top-pairing who can log heavy minutes and do anything asked of them, along with a 3rd defenseman who would be top-pairing for many other clubs anchoring a solid second pairing.

It should be noted that, in their performance, Chicago hasn’t considered the Center spot all that “core-worthy”, and has rotated a cast of players through the 2-4C spots based on deadline pickups and cheap veterans for the most part.  The same applies to goaltending, as, although Crawford has been the starter for the last two cups, Chicago has been unafraid to replace goalies at will as well.

So, if we look at the Oilers roster in terms of the Chicago model, what do we have:  We can call McDavid our future Toews equvailent, although at this point he can’t be said to have that same leadership level, but this should occur.  As for an elite veteran winger who can play alongside him and help shut down the best teams, well, the Oilers utterly lack veteran wingers in their Top-6 with the exception of Purcell, who will never be confused with Hossa.  For an elite winger who can score, Hall can be considered our Kane equivalent, and he has done that job fairly well in the circumstances.  Lastly, as for our Patrick Sharp, the closest to this we have may be Jordan Eberle, who has similar hands.

On the back end, we can consider Klefbom to be a future Hjalmarsson, and they have similar traits and play styles.  It might be that, if we all cross our fingers, Nurse may be a Duncan Seabrook in the future, however we can all admit that will take some time before it may occur.  As for a Duncan Keith, there is nothing resembling this type of player either in our system or on the roster.

That leaves us at: Requiring a veteran, defensively aware, skilled Top-3 winger who can play alongside McDavid, and a top-pairing minute-eating defenseman with the ability to score from the back end.  Now, when you consider the core to be Hall, McDavid, Eberle, Klefbom and Nurse, that does exclude Draisaitl at this point in time.  But, Chicago this year has actually went and obtained a true 2C in exchange for the second veteran winger in Patrick Sharp, so we’ll exchange the Sharp role for the 2C instead, and swap Eberle and Draisaitl as core players.

Applying the Chicago model to our line-up, we have:

Line 1:  xxx-McDavid-xxx

Line 2:  Hall-Draisaitl-xxx

Pairing 1:  Klefbom-xxx

Pairing 2: Nurse-xxx

So, we need an elite veteran winger that can be either a LW or a RW, and we need that elite top-pairing Defenseman.  From this model, we can afford to consider Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle, Nail Yakupov, Benoit Pouliot, Griffin Reinhart, Andrej Sekera, Brandon Davidson, Teddy Purcell and Justin Schultz as all disposable to obtain those two pieces, since Chicago tradition is to fill the remainder of the roster out with prospects, budget signings and trades with other clubs without too much concern.  As for who those players could be, that’s a very difficult question to answer, and to be blunt, the odds on obtaining exact equivalent players is difficult, but for argument’s sake, we can consider Loui Eriksson (a Right-Wing from Boston and pending UFA) to be a possible Hossa, and Kevin Shattenkirk (a Defenseman rumored to be available from St. Louis) to be a possible Duncan Keith.

If you plug them in to the above model, we have:

Line 1:  xxx-McDavid-Eriksson

Line 2: Hall-Draisaitl-xxx

Pairing 1:  Klefbom-Shattenkirk

Pairing 2: Nurse-xxx

 

That leaves us wanting to keep one LW and one RW for our Top-6, and one defenseman for our second pairing on the right side.  On that first line, Chicago has been known to run a banging forward, so we can plug Pouliot back in to that spot.  On the second line, Chicago will usually run a budget forward, usually someone with a physical side to their game, so we’ll plug Kassian in there for now.

On the back end, there is a concern as to the clear fact Nurse will be unable to drive a pairing by himself at this point, however, Sekera is able to play the right-side as well, and his veteran presence will support Nurse here, so we can plug him back in.

That takes us to:

Line 1:  Pouliot-McDavid-Eriksson

Line 2: Hall-Draisatl-Kassian

Pairing 1: Klefbom-Shattenkirk

Pairing 2:  Nurse-Sekera

That allows the Oilers to use Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Griffin Reinhart, Brandon Davidson, Teddy Purcell and Justin Schultz as pieces to flush out the roster and obtain those missing pieces.  Chicago has traditionally not spent significant cash on their 3rd or 4th lines, preferring to flush those out at the deadline or with cheap UFA signings, and the same applies to their 3rd defensive pairing.  This, then, would be the Oilers based on the Chicago model.  You’ll notice there’s no specific 3rd and 4th lines, or 3rd pairing, and that’s due to the fact Chicago tends to address those needs as they come up, and depending on how their payroll fits.

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BLH Post Gamer G33 Oilers VS Blackhawks: Running on Fumes

What a great effort by Matt Hendricks and his linemates vs. the Hawks! Photo Courtesy of Bill Smith

A 4-0 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks is not generally a bad thing. I mean a loss is a loss but usually there’s some moral ground you can stand upon when it’s a loss to a team like the Hawks. I’m not sure if the Oilers could say that was the case with a straight face.

Sorry for the tardiness on the post. Life… Sometimes it takes precedent.

So I didn’t catch quite all of the game but I re-watched it and by my eye it wasn’t that great of a game. I felt like going back to bed (the games are on in the morning in Taiwan) because it just wasn’t going anywhere for the Oilers.

Darnell Nurse is hitting the glass here but more importantly, he’s hitting a wall with his performances lately. Photo Courtesy of Bill Smith.

But if you look at the numbers, it was a much closer game. I took the chart below from the fine folks at war-on-ice.com and basically it tells us that the Oilers were never that far out of it. That’s a good sign I’d say. If only they could’ve found the net… If only.

What we saw from Chicago was some masterful matching of lines. The Toews line had the Hall line all night long and took advantage of quite possibly the worst defense pairing in the history of the NHL in Justin Schultz and Nikita Nikitin… Woof! I seen that coming as soon as they lines were announced.

I can’t wait until this team is healthy and we’ve got Klefbom back. Some folks who are crying for Fayne or Ference to be re-inserted into the lineup, come on… Really? You can’t fix a flat tire with another flat tire. And possession-wise Nikitin was one of the better players playing that night as much as it pains me to say. He shoots himself in the foot though when he takes two penalties… The only two penalties of the game for either team. HA! That didn’t even occur to me until I read the boxscore. Nikitin… He and Guy Boucher would be the perfect 1-2 villain combo for a 007 movie, right?

It was a tired squad and that was more than apparent. Three games in four nights and the last of the games being versus the reigning Stanley Cup champs. You have to feel sorry for McLellan’s boys but then again these are professional hockey players and they’re paid millions upon million’s of dollars to put up with the rigors of being an everyday NHL hockey player.

I will say though that three things stood out for me:

  1. The play of Mark Letestu, Matt Hendricks, and Lauri Korpikoski. They played a very hard-nosed game and made the Blackhawks work their asses off. Being +8 in the Corsi column is a huge plus as well.
  2. The Patrick Kane line wasn’t as noticeable throughout. So kudos to the Oilers that shut them down. Unfortunately they couldn’t hold them off for the entire 60 minutes but I can applaud the effort.
  3. Cam Talbot had another solid outing. The pendulum is swinging back his way a bit here and I’m completely okay with that and good on him. Too bad his team hung him out to dry… Again.

With Colorado coming up next I reckon it’s a winnable game for Edmonton and a great opportunity to put some pucks in the net. The Avs are 7-3-0 in their last ten so they’re riding… Mile high… If you will. And they lead the league in blocked shots, so it’s going to be of the utmost importance for the Oilers to choose wisely when they’re shooting and take advantage of a Colorado team that is a very poor puck possession team.

Take Care and drive safe during the holidays!

BLH

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BLH Post Gamer G19 Oilers VS. Hawks: Robbed or Jobbed?

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Oilers be Oilering. Photo Courtesy of Andy Devlin

Did you get the distinct feeling that as soon as the Blackhawks took a two goal lead that that was it for the Oilers?

I did but you’d think I’d have learned by now. I mean how many games have they come back from to tie it up only to lose it late in the third? And that’s another thing, how many of you were down to the knuckles

The new McDavid inspired design!

from chewing your nails after Draisaitl scored to tie it up?

I mean I love it. I can finally sit down and watch a game and not be down in the dumps once the opposition

scores a goal or two because I know there’s a push back coming.

I know that when Taylor Hall is on the ice that he’s going to make something happen 75% of the time and when he’s out there with Leon Draisaitl that percentage goes up to 90%. When Anders Nilsson is in the net I’m not paranoid of letting in a bad goal. When Darnell Nurse is on the ice I’m not weary of the Oilers getting pushed around. And when Nail Yakupov is out there I’m not bored.

The point is that the team may still be in the basement but the world isn’t ending because of it. I don’t believe any fans think they’ll end the year in the same spot they are in now. In fact I believe that we’re going to see some moves and then we’re going to see the Oilers start their assault on the standings.

THE GAME

Period one was damn entertaining! Back and forth and no prisoners were taken! The Oilers outshot the Blackhawks like crazy (11-3) and were the aggressors the entire first period. No goals were scored but there was this sweet hit by Griffin Reinhart on Andrew Shaw.

The second period was nothing to fawn over from an Oilers fan’s perspective. Passes were being missed, coverage was being blown, and to be honest you could feel the tide turning a bit. The veteran laden team from Chicago laid into the Oilers and came away with two goals from Duncan Keith and Artemi Panarin.

Like I said earlier, I had a tough time not feeling that the game was in the bag for Chicago at that point. I mean the M.O. was to keep Kane and Panarin off the board right? With 5 minutes to go in the 2nd frame they both were on the scoresheet; the diminutive Russian twice.

BUT as the boys have done time and time again this year, they found a way to make magic happen! Brandon Davidson found Ebs coming off the bench and breaking down the middle uncovered, as he broke in on Corey Crawford unscathed, Eberle froze him with a little shimmy and then ROOF DADDY! Bingo bango the Oilers were back in it with intentions to win it.

The third period was not amazing to start but a shot high and wide by Leon Draisaitl led to a missed chance for the Blackhawks to move it out of the zone, which in turn seen the puck move to Teddy Purcell’s stick and then a quick little dink over to Darnell Nurse who literally went through every Chicago player that was on the ice like hot butter; then as he approached Crawford’s net he sent the biscuit towards the slot and who was awaiting said pass? Benny Pouliot! He tapped it home to tie the game up and Rexall blew up! Check out in the highlight below where Nurse goes through everyone. I’m surprised nobody picked up on this.

But it was for naught. Nearly 8 minutes later Andrew Shaw tucked one home and they were back up… I felt terrible at this point. The Oilers were ‘that’ close again only to find themselves down with only minutes to go in the third period. Hashtag Dispair.

DID YOU HEAR THAT? IT’S LEON DRAISAITL’S MUSIC!

Ze German saved the day for the Oilers and Rexall exploded again! Teddy Purcell (good lord this guy is on fire right now) finds the puck, holds off a Chicago defender with one arm and dishes it to Taylor Hall who with the slightest of touches puts it into the shooting path for Neon Leon Draisaitl and he fires that baby home!

It was at that point I went back to sitting on pins and needles. Could the Oilers hold off the champs and take this game to OT? The answer… Yes.

How many people were scared off of Leon Draisaitl at the draft because they thought his skating was weak? Well it’s been a year and some since he was selected by the Oilers and in that time his feet have grown wings. Wings attached to a an unstoppable locomotive.

Did you see the move he put on Jonathan Toews, one of the greatest two-way players in the league if not all-time, only to blow past him and create the best chance for the Oilers to win the game? If only Corey Crawford’s glove wasn’t so big Hall might’ve scored… I’m just kidding. That was an amazing save and it ultimately led to the goal by Marian Hossa to give Chicago the win… Boo.

All-in-all it was a great hockey game and I feel bad for the Oilers this year because things are seemingly coming together but they aren’t at the same time and they’re not getting any help from the refs. In fact I believe the refs are doing more harm than good at this point and should possibly be getting reviewed with a stronger magnifying glass by the powers that be. What I mean is that this isn’t the same team we watched in years past. There’s pushback, there’s more scoring, and the games are much closer. I read that out of the 19 games played this year 9 of them have been 1 goal games… Thus is progress.

Next up are the New Jersey Devils. I can see the Oilers stepping up and getting a win there but will it be a win with Jordan Eberle in the lineup or Travis Hamonic? I guess we’re going to see real soon here!

I hope you enjoyed the read!

Take Care!

BLH

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BLH Post Gamer G15 Oilers vs. BlackHawks: Panarin’s Good

Photo Courtesy of Bill Smith

Well that’s how she goes! You can’t spot a team like the Chicago Blackhawks 2 goals in the first period and expect them to let you back in. I mean that 2nd period… WHOA! 20 minutes of sustained pressure versus the reigning Stanley Cup Champions? Who does that? The New Era Edmonton Oilers do! Unfortunately for them Corey Crawford saved the BlackHawks’ asses and the Oilers couldn’t carry the momentum into the 3rd period which ultimately lead to Patrick Kane driving the final nail into the coffin for a Chicago win. I don’t count that last second goal by Anisimov… The Oilers were set at 2000% offense there and had zero interest in stopping a goal that late.

As you can see in the chart above, the numbers support the eye test tonight. And even though the Oilers lost I think you can be rest assured it wasn’t a bad lost and that had Crawford not been playing lights out, the Oilers might’ve been able to win this one.

I’d say that the Oilers top line whether it’s Hall/Draisaitl/Eberle or Hall/Nugent-Hopkins/Draisaitl or Hall/Nugent-Hopkins/Eberle were a dominating force in the game as they’ve been in every game since Draisaitl was called up.

Hey, how about that Eberle guy anyhow? Got himself a goal and had a CF% of 70.97 on the night! Photo Courtesy of Bill Smith

As for the defence, it didn’t get exposed too much but all everyone’s CF% was sub 50 apart from Sekera and Fayne. Klefbom being the worst at 39.39. Then those couple of shifts in the 3rd when they were hemmed in their own zone for well over 2 minutes was both disconcerting AND amazing. The Oilers who were on the ice must’ve been past their breaking point but they held on and the Hawks, who had their best players on the ice, could put one past Talbot.

Speaking of Talbot… I’m not goalie nor a goalie coach but could he not have been a bit better positioned on those two goals by Artemi Panarin? Tough couple starts for Cam Talbot and the Oilers fans are already getting on his case, even going so far as to predict Ben Scrivens will make his return at some point… I don’t know about that. But we might see more of Anders Nilsson than we expected.

WALTER FODDIS’ POST GAME SHOOTING METRICS

There’s not much more to say about tonight’s game apart from they lost it in the 1st period. Looking ahead the Oilers have the Ducks and Coyotes on back-to-backs this Thursday and Friday. They’re 4-6-0 in they’re last ten games and they’re 1-2 in November so far.

As for the Ducks, they’re starting to heat up as they’ve won 4 games in a row and have picked up 11 pts out of a possible 20 in their last ten games. I expect this one to be a tight affair but another tough loss for Edmonton.

The Max Domi lead Coyotes are sitting at .500 (6-6-1) but are having a tough time lately coming off of losses from Vancouver, Boston, and the Rangers. They did beat the Avs in the last week though. I think the Oilers can pull it off versus Arizona. I mean they have to right? Another season can’t be lost in November again.

Our Oilers are back in the basement of the Pacific after Calgary and Anaheim picked up wins this weekend…. I for one can’t wait for McDavid’s return but am soooo bloody glad we’ve got Leon Draisaitl. This team would be F’ed without the German.

I read very disturbing story on Twitter this evening about Connor McDavid. The story goes as such, apparently Connor and his family were at a local establishment having dinner and some fans noticed him and requested a photo to which he politely declined. I guess this didn’t sit well with said fans and they were overheard by the teller of the story saying he was an asshole.

Now this kind of attitude grinds me gears a bit. Why do professional athletes have to do everything a fan asks them to? If they don’t they’re assholes. I mean come on, give your head a shake. They play the game for themselves because they love it and if you/we weren’t even there to see them; it wouldn’t matter. When I read or hear of this sort of low class BS it disturbs me greatly. What makes someone so entitled to think just because they ask, they should get?

I mean what’s the motivation for getting a pic anyhow, so you can show your friends or family who you met? Then what? What comes after that? You’ve got a pic you can stare at… Honestly… Or maybe it’s a money thing. Either way it comes down to ego.

You know what you do when you see an athlete or celebrity in public? You greet them with a nod or simple hello and if they greet you back and feel like having a chat you shake their hand, tell them they’re doing a wonderful job and leave it at that. Now if they’re eating, leave them the f*ck alone… They’re eating for Christ’s sake. How’d you like it if you were eating and someone asked you for a pic or autograph each time. If they offer to take a pic with you, then you accept. Don’t be going around expecting they’ll cater to your every desire. Be classy because they’ll remember it, you’ll remember it, and most importantly it’s the right thing to do.

Have a good one folks!

BLH