Three games into the NHL season, the Edmonton Oilers inhabit a familiar place: 30 th in the league. With a single point through three games, the Oilers are tied with the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes for the honour, but thanks to a minus-nine goal differential win the tie-breaker.
This is worth noting not because it's terribly meaningful (a win over the Arizona Coyotes tonight and the Oilers would be in the middle of the NHL standings) but simply because it's a good reminder of the stakes here. Edmonton's been a bad team for a long time, and thus they aren't starting from a blank slate; this group needs to prove that it has changed. A slow start shouldn't be tolerable, and the coach and many players should be at risk of losing their jobs if the team finds itself unimproved through 10 or 20 games.
One wouldn't know that looking at the roster, though. Based on the decisions he's made, head coach Dallas Eakins doesn't appear to be icing the best possible lineup at his disposal, and that's just baffling. The forward corps is to-be-determined (the Oilers' official Twitter feed notes that Jordan Eberle is a game-time decision) but the defensive group is known and we can take a stab at what the forwards might look like if Eberle isn't good-to-go:
Let's focus on that defence. The top pairing of Darnell Nurse and Justin Schultz is in fact likely to be the top even-strength pairing; Schultz is averaging a team-high 18:50 per game at evens and Nurse's 17:39 last night is higher than anyone else on the club. Nurse is a 19-year-old rookie; Schultz was d emonstrably an inferior player to Jeff Petry last year and hasn't been better early in 2014-15, either.
There's also a curious lack of Martin Marincin, who was inexplicably demoted to the minors out of training camp. The Oilers' left side defence currently consists of a Russian veteran who battled injury in training camp and looks like he's still fighting something, a team captain who proved conclusively last year that he shouldn't be playing above the third pairing, the aforementioned 19-year-old rookie and a power play specialist. I'd have thought that a guy who did an ice job in tough minutes for half of last season (alongside a partner who the Oilers regard lightly enough to healthy scratch) would deserve an everyday job given the context of the group, but bafflingly the coaching staff doesn't see it that way.
The responsibility for other decisions falls higher up the food chain. That the Oilers' centre depth chart was weak entering the year was no mystery; it was practically the only topic of offseason conversation for Edmonton fans. With Ryan Nugent-Hopkins hurt, the group is beyond weak; it has one player who was a full-time NHL'er a year ago on it. Any team looks bad down its No. 1 centre; few teams look as bad as Edmonton. There are NHL'ers who would help ease the pain a little rumoured to be available; general manager Craig MacTavish's willingness to pull the trigger on a deal early could prove pivotal to the team's fortunes.
Regardless, this is the group that the team's management and coaches have opted to deploy. Arizona isn't a great team, but they've been consistently competitive over the years, they're well-coached and the Oilers played last night, so this contest is going to be a challenge. It's too early to call this a must-win game, but a win here would go a long way toward buying the Oilers a little bit of breathing space. Recently at the Cult of Hockey Staples: Oilers' best players all in trouble one way or other early McCurdy: Gordon and Hendricks grade out highest as Oil get obliterated by Kings Staples: Nail Yakupov producing with his current linemates Willis: Oilers recall Bogdan Yakimov, demote Oscar Klefbom as star forwards miss practice McCurdy: 35 years ago today, Mark Messier scored in the Oilers' first ever NHL game Willis: Vladimir Tkachev is destroying the QMJHL Follow Jonathan Willis on Twitter
Post By http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2014/10/15/why-arent-the-edmonton-oilers-icing-their-best-possible-lineup-against-arizona/
0 comments Blogger 0 Facebook
Post a Comment