GDB 6.0: Oilers still searching for a full game (6pm MT, SNW)

It’s way too early to hit the panic button. Edmonton Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft knows his team hasn’t done their best yet, but he’s confident they will.

“I don’t think our overall team play is in full swing yet,” Woodcroft said this morning. “We’re working on finding solutions and when you’ve attracted seven D’s you can move those pieces if someone isn’t playing well,” he continued when asked for his thoughts on his defensive pairings.

The Oilers just put in their best defensive performance of the season despite a 2-0 loss to St. Louis. The Blues pulled off an early power play goal and a late empty Netzer, but Edmonton didn’t give them much at 5×5. The Blues managed just 18 shots on goal in 5×5 and not many dangerous chances. Defensively it was a step in the right direction.

However, the offensive did not bring much. It never scored and didn’t create many quality scoring chances. It was an uneventful game – a very different game from last Thursday’s 6-4 win over Carolina, which was full of goals and scoring chances.

The Oilers want to play as solid defensively as they did against the Blues, but they need to generate more offensively. They have scored only five 5×5 goals in five games: two against Carolina and Calgary and one against Vancouver, and they have not scored a 5×5 goal against the Sabers or Blues.

The Oilers’ overall offense was decent as they rank 14th in the NHL with 3.20 goals/game. Not great, but not terrible. They need to produce more 5×5s, especially tonight against a Penguins team that leads the NHL in goals.

The Penguins are 4-0-1 and have scored 26 goals in five games. The Penguins have defeated teams 19-4 in 5×5 this season. Meanwhile, Edmonton was surpassed 9-5. You can’t win in today’s NHL if you don’t score. Of course you can’t concede four or five goals per game, but some games you have to win 6-4. You can’t expect to win 3-2 every night. Just ask the New York Islanders. It does not work anymore. Thank God.

Edmonton haven’t had much trouble scoring at 5×5s in recent seasons and chances are they’ll start scoring at some point, but predictions aren’t reality. You need to start burying more chances.

“We need to go harder around their net,” Ryan McLeod said. “We get pucks there, but maybe we should have more bodies there to take the extra chance. Get a little greasier and try to put one in and get things rolling. McLeod spoke specifically about his line with Jesse Puljujarvi and Warren Foegele, but his description fits the offense as a whole.

Edmonton has been on the web a lot. They have the third-innermost slot shots in the NHL, but they failed to convert those chances into goals. Zach Hyman, Leon Draisaitl, Kailer Yamamoto, Warren Foegele, Jesse Puljujarvi, Derek Ryan, Devin Shore and Dylan Holloway (when dressed) are still looking to score at 5×5. Only four forwards have scored a 5×5 goal, and none have two.

Meanwhile, the Penguins are getting offensive contributions from all of their forwards. They’ve only used 12 forwards so far, and Ryan Poehling is the only one without a 5×5 goal. The other 11 have one and five Penguins forwards already have two+ goals 5×5.

Maybe the Oilers can slow down the Penguins’ offense tonight, but I doubt they shut them down completely. The Penguins average 5.20 goals/game as the best league. The Oilers need to muster up some offense if they hope to end their six home games with a 3-3 record.

GDB PRESENTED BY BETWAY

oiler

Kane-McDavid-Yamamoto
RNH Draisaitl Hyman
Foegele-McLeod-Puljujarvi
Shore Ryan

Sister Ceci
Kulak Barrie
Murray Bouchard
Niemelainen

Campbell

Edmonton will go on hold with the same lineup for the third year in a row. Dylan Holloway went ice skating with the group this morning but he won’t be playing. He will travel and probably play.

There were many different defensive pairings against the Blues. Darnell Nurse logged 25 minutes at 5×5, playing 13 minutes with Cody Ceci, five with Tyson Barrie and 4:28 with Evan Bouchard. The three RDs – Ceci, Barrie and Bouchard – all played between 4:20 and 5:10. Bouchard played 5:10 with Brett Kulak, 4:28 with Nurse and 4:21 with Ryan Murray.

They used different combinations and all worked as the Oilers didn’t allow a 5×5 goal, but Woodcroft explained that with seven D’s he was able to play with different looks when the players weren’t playing well. We could see similar splits tonight, especially if there aren’t many penalties.

penguins

Heinen-Crosby Rakell
Sugar Malkin Rust
McGinn-Carter Kapanen
Caggiula-Pöhling-Archibald

Dumoulin Letang
Pettersson-Petry
Josef Rutta

jarry

Jake Guentzel will miss his second game in a row. They moved Teddy Blueger to LTIR to free up some space in the cap and they recalled forwards Drake Caggiula and Samuel Poulin. Rickard Rakell gets a chance to play alongside Crosby.

Here’s a great illustration of how dominant the penguins have been at 5×5 this year.

Kris Letang has the lowest GF% (GF-GA) on the team at 71.4%. He has five goals for and two against and that’s the lowest percentage on the team. (Ruhwedel played one game and was not there for or against a goal). Jan Rutta leads the Pens with a GF-GA of 7-0. Every line and D-pair outperforms the competition.

MATCHDAY PREDICTION: Edmonton clinches a 4-3 win to level their home record at 3-3.

OBVIOUS MATCHDAY PREDICTION: McDavid gets two points. He has 18 in nine career head-to-heads against Crosby.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS MATCHDAY PREDICTION: Puljujarvi scores his first goal against the Penguins and first of the season.