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GM28: Wild @ Oilers
Who’s Hot for Minny
- #97 Kirill Kaprizov – Five goals and four assists in his last five. I don’t know how long this streak is, but he’s on one helluva tear right now. I think it’s over ten games now. He’s so damned talented. Imagine how Puljujarvi had turned out if Edmonton would’ve left him in Finland until he was into his 20s.
- #14 Joel Eriksson Ek – Five goals and seven assists in his last ten. This is from the third line no less alongside Jordan Greenway and Marcus Foligno. Impressive.
- #36 Mats Zuccarello – In his previous five, he’s producing at a point per game pace. Zuccarello is a bloody ninja. He might not be all that noticeable in some games but somehow ends up with three points at the end of the night… Incredible.
Who’s Hot for Edmonton
- #97 Connor McDavid – The Machine keeps on rolling… McDavid’s gonna score 60 goals this year, isn’t he? And to top that off he’s going to get 90 assists and the media in Edmonton will still be wondering why the bottom six doesn’t score more…
- #29 Leon Draisaitl – Nine goals and seven assists in the Dangler’s last ten games and normally that would be f*cking awesome but I can’t bring myself to ignore that amount of times he coughs up the puck button-hooking at the other team’s blue line every game. It drives me absolutely insane and NOBODY SAYS A GOD DAMNED THING!!!
- #93 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Seven points (4g 3a) in his last half dozen minus one. The 5v5 points are starting to come along as well which pleases me.
BLH’s Thoughts: Edmonton should be able to run the table on Minnesota if you’re looking at these two clubs’ rosters but for whatever reason the Wild’s assertive style stuns the Oilers almost every time.
I think right now Bill Guerin’s team is a one line team with a lot of functional beed supporting it. They’ve got one top pairing dman in Jared Spurgeon and then Matt Dumba is a tweener. Fleury played in the loss to Calgary the other night, so I’m guessing Dean Evason will have his backup going tonight and that could go either way for Edmonton.
It’ll be up to the Oilers’ surging bottom six to really dig in and help out tonight. Klim Kostin has the old dogs in the media as hard as they’ve been in decades because he’s scored in back-to-back games, played heavy hockey, and dropped the gloves.
Tyler Benson was sent back to Bakersfield for more seasoning. I guess in the 12 minutes of hockey he played last week, that wasn’t enough for Coach Woodcroft… So I guess McLovin’ and his two goals will be ready very soon and we can look forward to him returning I suppose.
What’s up with Brett Kulak, that guy’s scoring well recently (2g 2a in his last five). Maybe his game is finally rounding into form?
Oilersnation
Gregor on Kailer Yamamoto
- “Kailer Yamamoto had a strong game v. Arizona, but he is still looking for his first goal of the season. There are 315 forwards who have played over 200 minutes at 5×5 this year. Yamamoto is one of 15 who have yet to score a goal along with Teuvo Taravainen, Paul Stastny, Cole Smith, Milan Lucic, Casey Cizikas, Sammy Blais, Pat Maroon, Jake Evans, Eric Staal, Colin Blackwell, Barrett Hayton, David Gustafsson, Joel Armia and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare.”
- “Of those 15 skaters only Yamamoto (17) and Bellemare (10) have fewer than 21 shots. Yamamoto has battled injuries this year, but he needs to shoot more. He’s never been a high-volume shooter, but his 5×5 shot totals are way down.”
- “He’s at 3.6 shots/60 at 5×5, after being 4.65, 5.14, and 5.6 the previous three seasons.”
- “His odds of scoring will increase when he starts shooting more.”
BLH’s Thoughts: That last line is fookin’ gold… Candidate for the “No Shit Sherlock” Award of the year.
So Yamo’s never been a shooter for whatever reason. Maybe one being that he’s always played a complimentary role alongside Leon or Connor? Possibly another reason being that he’s not strong enough to get inside of the bigger dmen on the other team and into high-danger shooting areas. I don’t know that for sure, but he’s getting knocked off of pucks so easily, at what point does it become fair game to start questioning his role on this team and what if the Oilers trade Jesse whilst Killer and Foegele’s droughts continue? I guess it’ll be alright because they’re good in the room and friendly to the journos in town…
Trade Rumors
Friedman on 32TP says Edmonton has tried to move Jesse Puljujärvi but teams have not made offers that the Oilers felt were fair due to his lack of production, but after his recent comments they may have no choice but to trade him for the best possible deal they can get right now.
— NHL Watcher (@NHL_Watcher) December 9, 2022
BLH’s Thoughts: I don’t think Holland will give him away. He’d rather keep him until the trade deadline and then move him in a bigger deal and if he can’t, the Oilers’ RW depth isn’t great right now, so they could keep him through the season knowing what they have or could have if he catches fire. Then walk away this summer and justify it by saying the cap savings is more important.
I’ve heard that Brad and Ken Holland like Jesse because of his combination of his size and speed and it makes sense that they won’t let him go for nothing. On top of that, maybe 97 and 29 aren’t enamored with playing on the same line as him and the plan was always to find RWers to play in Edmonton’s top six so that they could stick JP on the 3rd line but nothing ever game to fruition. Then there was a built-in excuse to keep Pulju around if a trade never materialized.
My personal feeling is that Jay Woodcroft talks an impressive game but the proof is in the pudding. He might say he’s doing all he can to get Jesse going but what’s he actually doing and why aren’t the media asking that very question? “Jay, specifically, what sort of things are you doing to improve Puljujarvi’s game? It appears that your requested change of tactics and hardware alterations have had an adverse impact on his game. He hits a lot but that doesn’t seem to be translating into production. At what point do you abandon this current style change and go back to what was working previously?”
I’ve got a conspiracy theory that the coach asked JP to be more physical knowing very well that it would crater his value and destroy his natural game. They wouldn’t have to play him as much or as high in the lineup and then that would increase the event that he’d be playing somewhere else sooner or later in 2023. Jesse’s not getting traded because of his untapped talent anymore, he’s a financial consideration in any trade proposal now…
I hope he’s traded sooner. I’m tired of this drama now. Help the kid out FFS so the local media can move on to somebody new.
