The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 427: It's Been a Journey

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

Ryan Lambert and Jack Fraser join the show to discuss Edmonton's decision coaching change. Topics include: The timing of the move What's been wrong with the Oilers How much Dave Tippett is to blame Ken Holland's roster construction The personnel flaws that still remain What Jay Woodcroft can do to turn things around If you haven't done so yet, please take a minute to leave a rating and review for the show. Smash that 5-star button. Each one counts, and helps us out greatly. If you're feeling extra generous, you can also leave a little note about why you recommend people check the PDOcast out. Thanks for the help! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

On a beautiful run through the park, on a pleasant day, you can easily get lost. No, no, no. She didn't kill him. Huh? In your true crime podcast. It was the pool guy. So obvious. Whatever motivates you works for us. It's all about letting your run be your run. And Brooks is here for every runner.

Doing the research and sweating the details to create gear that works for you. It's your run. Brooks, run happy. Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey Pediocast. Post, Dimitri. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Amitra Filipovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Ryan Lambert. Ryan, what's going on in?

Oh, it's a busy day in the hockey world, huh? Yeah, every day is a busy day in the hockey world, especially lately it feels like. Also joining us is our colleague, Giddy, B-Ring side. Jack Fraser, Jack, what's going on there? Nothing much. I'm excited to talk some Canada, Germany with you guys. That is what we're deep diving and breaking down today for sure. Here's the deal.

So I actually woke up this morning not expecting to do a show today. And then the Oilers went ahead and fired their coach and made changes that seemed inevitable. Although I thought that they maybe staved it off with some of their recent results, but obviously the last two games kind of expedited that process. And we are going to kind of just talk our way through it and do a quick reaction show and try to get this thing up and out tonight while it's still. still topical and still relevant. So let's unpack the full situation.

Ryan, I'll let you go first because you did write about this on our site and it's, I'm sure, still fresh on your mind. Start us off with just kind of your first thoughts on the move. Like, how do we divvy up the blame for this?

Because obviously it's such a convoluted situation where you can't just necessarily be like, all right, well, they got rid of Dave Tippett. You know, it's onwards and upwards from here. Like, there's clearly still other personnel issues. But sort of, what do we, how should we feel about this movement?

in terms of especially trying to salvage the rest of the season. It's interesting because I don't think given the Oilers roster, Dave Tippett was the ideal coach for that group. You know what I mean? Like that you think of Dave Tippett as a defense first kind of a coach. And you look at everybody on that roster and with the exception of maybe like Ryan Nugent-Hopped. and Zach Hyman, you say,

I don't think of really any of their forwards as being like, you know, 200-foot guys. And then obviously the defense, the only guy that you would say, oh, you know, his reputation is, you can trust him in his own zone, is Chris Russell, who's very old now. So, like, they just went out and got a bunch of puck-moving defensemen. They have, you know, obviously one of the most dynamic puck-moving forwards. they have a guy who, you know, and Leon Dreysidal, who is all finish, just puts the puck in the net really effectively. And not really conducive to the Dave Tippett style, I would say.

But, of course, the real reason Dave Tippett got fired is the goaltending stinks. Yep. And, you know, Mike Smith gave up eight goals on 58 shots the last two games out, both of them at home. they're like fifth in the division and points percentage you know two games in which they themselves scored one goal come back correct yeah that's the other that's the other thing to say is they were heavily reliant on the power play what a generous description of the defensemen they brought in they brought in a bunch of puck movers i guess that's what well like by reputation even you know what i mean like you wouldn't say oh duncan keith and tyson barry these are guys you

rely on to lock it down. These are guys you rely on to get the puck up the ice. And every, you know, ninth game when Duncan Keith has a vintage Duncan Keith breakout pass, all the Oilers need. See, look, this is what they got him for. Okay. I think you had an interesting point there. So, Jack, you know, I've been thinking a lot about kind of expectations for this franchise.

And obviously, when you have two players of the caliber of Connor McDavid and Leandro Saddle, they're going to get a lot of coverage. We're going to have expectations for them to. play deep into the playoffs, compete for a Stanley Cup, sort of show on the national stage why they're considered to be the best players in the world and especially prolific offensive players. I wonder how much, you know, Ryan talking about

Dave Tippett's sort of ideal style or what he represents as a coach or what you'd think the personnel for him would entail. Like, you'd think that a run and gun type coach that really just comes in and sort of modernizes this by freeing up the Oilers to just play fast and just try to outskirts. score everyone. If we were in year two or three of this experiment with these players and it was still kind of a fun story and I think people framed it from the perspective of, oh, like the future is so bright. They're just kind of getting started here. I think that would be a really palatable

sort of experiment or a thing to do, right? People could kind of talk themselves into that. Like, yeah, let's play some really fun hockey and see how far it takes us and eventually we'll kind of buckle down and try to win a Stanley Cup. But because we've been going at this for so long, it feels like we've heaped all of these expectations on them of like, oh, well, Carter, David's defensive metrics really suck a couple years ago. So we need to change the way these guys play. And oh, come the postseason, can you play this type of way and outscore your problems? Or, you know, do you have to kind of grind it down and completely change philosophically the way you play?

So I don't know. I just feel like how far into this we are, I feel like really has affected this sort of situation and probably why they felt like Dave Tippett was the answer and why he hung around for as long as he did. Yeah. I think that they've pretty much have tried like every single type of coach that you can get. Like every genre of NHL coach essentially at this point, they have gone through it. Like they've had the hockey men, they've had, you know, they had Hitchcock for a while. They had just, they had Tippett, obviously.

They had like the new age guy in Dallas Eakins who was supposed to be like, you know, the new up and coming coach who was going to figure things out. You know, years and years ago, obviously they had Ralph Kruger who was supposed to be like another kind of new age players coach type of type of thing. It's just it's hard to really get that excited about, oh, they're going to bring in this guy and it's going to transform the team because we've seen this team get transformed back and forth so many times over the past 10 years. And I think like Ryan alluded to, you know, I think there were stylistic issues of how

Dave Tippett likes to coach contrasting with how this roster could be optimally deployed. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think this was an example of maybe bad process in terms of, you know, like Ryan alluded to, he got fired because of a combination of the goal tending and also the shooting percentage is drying up in a crazy way since the beginning of December. But I think it gives you an opportunity, at least to recognize that there were things with how this team was playing, especially when it came to how much offense they were forcing from the blue line, I think, in terms of, I mean, I'm looking at the numbers right in front of me right now.

The Oilers right now rank second in the NHL in terms of the percentage of their 5-1-5 shot attempts that were taken by defensemen at 36.4%. Not something you want from a team that has elite forwards and not the best defensemen in the league. And darnall Nurse right up there in terms of his own personal share. Like he's taking over a quarter of the shots when he's on the ice. And if you're darnal nurse, a lot of that time is spent with Connor McDavid and Leon Drysidal, I don't know how much I want them scrambling for rebounds. So definitely some weird stylistic. But, you know, I mean, Mike Sullivan's not out there.

Daryl Sutter's not out there. You know, the guys who are kind of who you think of is transformative aren't out there. So, well, I guess my quibble with that would be like a good example is I remember when the Bruins got rid of Claude Julian and brought in Bruce Cassidy to take over. I was like, wow, this is what a mistake. Like this guy. This is going to be a disaster. And now I think he's considered to be kind of in that tier with some of those names of convention. Yeah, sure.

But I mean, they've tried it so many times with so many names that were, you know, maybe going to be the next big thing that I don't know how well I trust the O'O's front office to identify the next big thing in NHL coaching. But hey, I mean, maybe the eighth, ninth, tenth time is going to be the charm. Well, here's the thing. I think a conversation about their PDO beyond this being the PDO cast is interesting and kind of that concept of percentage luck because, and there's two diversion kind of thoughts that are both true at the same time. right? Like when you bring this stuff up and say, okay, they made this move obviously because they were done in by horrible percentages and they weren't getting saves and the pucks weren't going in for them and there's only so much of that a coach can control, we're not necessarily saying it absolves Dave Tippett of blame, right? And we can talk more a bit here about those kind of stylistic changes and what Todd Woodcroft can do, uh, or sorry, Jay Woodcroft do coming in. Um, but I think it's pretty clear to anyone paying attention that the Oilers is just such a classic Oilers time. to decide to pull the trigger on something like this. Like something we keep talking about is how this entire league generally struggles with managing emotions when it comes to decision making and not being able to sort of distance

yourself and not allowing unsustainable percentages to seduce you or make you panic into into making some sort of move. But has there been a single franchise that's been more consistently beholden to letting these wild swings dictate their decisions over the past whatever decade plus than the Oilers? Like to me, that's such a hallmark of an organization that's just right. but eras and in disarray where you're just constantly making reactionary moves without really taking a second to reflect on your situation and consider what's causing it and why you're there to begin with. Right. And so for me, yeah, go for it. Well, what I was going to say is like they've,

the, the crazy thing is, apart from signing of Vander Kaine and getting Alex Steylock off waivers with the understanding that he's probably not going to be able to play this year, they haven't made any kind of a move really. You know, like they've just been, you know, early in the season, they win all these games. Oh, this is the best team in the league. Wow, it's unbelievable. Then they lose 50 games in a row or whatever it was. And it's like, oh, this is the worst team in the league.

What are we going to do? Well, we're going to wait. And Ken Holland says, like holds a press conference and says, we think the answer is in this room. And then they keep losing. and he's like, well, Evander Kane's going to fix it. And it's like, well, is Evander Kane, a guy who also isn't known for defense, going to really sort that kind of stuff out for it? Like, I just think it's so funny in the thing you're saying of,

oh, are we making any panic moves? Like, they didn't make any peris and L moves apart from signing a guy for free, you know? I would argue that their entire offseason was one big panic move, right? Oh, absolutely. I'm saying like in season. They thought they were all set. And then, you know, the thing that we kept hearing from, from media types and even within the organization is, you know, we got to figure out if we're closer to being the team that went 16 and 5 or whatever the numbers were or the team that went 3.20 and 1. And it's like, it feels like you should be right about in the middle.

Doesn't that, doesn't that seem just about right given the thing that we, you know, we haven't talked about is the goaltending. Yeah. Well, I guess the reason why I brought it up, and you're right, in season moves, this is kind of the first big thing they've done. Obviously, I looped in what they did in the offseason because it felt like that was such a panic, kind of reactionary move to how their postseason ended against Winnipeg and getting swept and feeling like they needed to bring in guys like Zach Hyman and Duncan Keith and so on and so forth.

But the reason why I bring it up is because when we're trying to kind of figure out takeaways here, or what's going to change or what's going to be different for the oilers, I think it's kind of impossible to just strip away, day, and just all of a sudden expect that something's going to be different when I think that this goes up to Ken Holland and maybe even up beyond Ken Holland in this organization

to kind of try and explain what's rotten with this franchise and why they keep finding themselves in this position as we're talking about all these coaches. They keep cycling in and out. Like I just, that's what I keep coming back to in the sense that we can talk about what they're doing on the ice. talking about what they're doing with their lineup and so on and so forth. But just removing Tippet and bringing anyone else in,

I would still have all of these same questions. And that kind of feels like it's unfair to Woodcroft or anyone that is going to come in because they're not getting a clean slate. Yeah. Well, I mean, at least, you know, at least Woodcroft presumably is going to get some kind of, like he'll get credit for the inevitable regression when they don't have like a 93 PDO or whatever it is that they've had since December 2nd. you know, when Leon Dries Idol isn't playing at a point per game pace and Connor

McDavid doesn't have a 7% on a shooting percentage, you know, he'll get the credit for that. You know, maybe they'll pull a habs and give him like a three-year extension on his interim deal or something like that based on that. But yeah, I think Ryan makes a good point in that they really have not been too reactionary this season. And I mean, I was listening to Elliott Friedman on the Jeff Merrick show today. And he was saying essentially that he figured that Ken Holland probably had a lot of of pressure coming from upstairs to make this move and wouldn't have otherwise. And there's other

tidbits and I mean specifically to the goaltending, which I'm sure we'll touch on where it really seems like, you know, every bone in Holland's body wanted to not react to any of this. Like wanted to basically just do whatever the 200 hockey men version of waiting for the PDO to, to, you know, regress itself is. And this really just seems like the kind of move that you make when it's just not happening enough and everyone is yelling at you and even the Edmonton media is starting to get on the team about making a change, you know, in words that are not just centered around, you know, oh, the players on the guys aren't playing hard enough for, et cetera, et cetera.

So the implication then is that Ken Holland believes that this team that he has constructed is actually good. He said it, he said it whenever he had that press conference. I think the answers are in that room. Is it because he believes that or because he realizes that because of the offseason he had, he's kind of limited their ability to fundamentally improve this team in season right now? Both, I would say. Yeah, it's got to be both, right?

Because you don't make the decision to bring aboard Duncan Keith and spend all this money on Zach Hyman and spend all this money to retain Ryan Nugenthock. This is the thing I wrote about over the summer is the Oilers for the last few years. Not like, think about what their roster looked like in like 2018 or whatever. It's not that different than it is today. And it's like, well, look, if we lose, if we lose Darnell Nurse, we don't pay him $9 million. Where are we going to, how are we going to replace Darnell Nurse? How are we going to replace Ryan Nugent Hawkins?

And it's like, well, if you keep giving all these guys raises and they're never, like, they almost never make the playoffs. Right. how do you know they're they're looking at a fourth straight year of not or not straight but fourth year out of seven

for McDavid not making the playoffs and one of the years they made the playoffs was the bubble that was and they got eliminated in the first rounds of that as well so you know they're just like oh yeah no everybody on this team is really good

I don't know what the problem is well Well, okay, so here's some numbers. So they started the year 15 and 5 in their first 20 games. They were tied with the Panthers for the highest point percentage at that time. They were actually getting outscored at 5-on-5 through those 20 games, but they still had a positive 16 goal differential because their Powerblade scored 23 goals in 87 minutes. Yeah, I was running at like 40% or something like that.

Just insane. Yes. And PK was good too. Yeah. And since then, they've gone 830. 13 and 3, that's 25th and point percentage. They've got a minus 22 goal differential. In that time, the only teams of a lower shooting percentage are the Canadians and Sabres. And the only ones with a lower save percentage are the devils, Canadians and Cracken.

And the reason why I bring that up is, let's save the goaltending conversation for a second, because I think that's ultimately not very interesting. It's like, okay, Mike Smith's a 39-year-old who's not good. Like, it is what it is. And that's obviously a very clear flaw in the way they chose to construct this team. but I think that offensive strategy is interesting. It's actually more bleak, I think, than you had a reference, Jack, because I actually pulled this up because I'm writing about it for our site this coming week. Those have taken 21117 shot attempts at 5-1-5, and 41% of them are by their defensemen.

And to me, that is a staggering amount. I believe the Leafs who I, you know, aren't necessarily a flawless team, but I think of as a really modern and, and strong offensive team in terms of how they're funneling the puck into dangerous areas in the ice and offensive zone and the scoring chances they're creating are at like 27% or something to give people an idea of the contextual difference there. And I think that does help explain a little bit of what plays them at that end of the ice and why the 515 scoring has dried up the way it has. Like even if you look at these past two games against the Blackhawks and the Golden Knights,

the raw quantity looks fine and they're putting up shots. But like how many times are we going to see McDavid just probe around the offensive zone and look like something dangerous is about to happen. And then he sort of dishes it off to one of the blue liners because they're open and it's kind of a pressure release valve. And then they just like fire it aimlessly off like behind the boards or like into a shin pad or something. And it's just out of the zone. And to me that may as well be a turnover, right? Like it's not, that's not going in the net.

That has like a 1% chance of going in. So it's interesting because that's like when everybody was like, oh, look at the Canadian's underlying numbers. under-clothed Julian. Like, they're really, really good. And then you looked and it was like, well, Shea Weber's attempted one out of every three shots that Canadians took all season.

And like, yeah, the guy shoots the puck hard, but also, you know, the chance that a shot from the blue line or even, you know, the high slot or whatever is going to go in is not that high in comparison with, boy, what if we worked at download got it to McDavid or Drysidal? You know, like having everything funneled through the blue line, that's game in Corsi, right? Like that's Dave Tippett coming, well, look, we're aren't shooting all these teams.

But that also is something that leads to what we're talking about, which is a low shooting percentage. So that's the interesting question to me. And obviously I don't expect anybody to have this answer pulled up in front of them. But you're talking about McDavid's on-ice shooting percentage dropping precipitously. What is the percentage of shots taken by defensemen when he's on the ice specific? specifically, you know, from the start of December on versus the first 21 or whatever games of the season. The only counter to that is, Jack, I believe that this isn't a new phenomenon for them, right? Like, they've been doing this for a while.

Yeah, I heard something, and I don't have the quote in front of me. Somebody did send it to me that apparently there was one point that Dave Tippett said that he tells the defenseman to try to get one shot every period. each or like try to get at least one shot every period. You know, I think it is worth saying at least that, you know, I think that there is a good reason to believe that the low shooting percentage or the low raw shooting percentage is, you know, partly a matter of team strategy and that is something that comes down to tip it. It is worth mentioning also, though, that since December 2nd, they are 31st in the

league and goals scored above expected. They've scored, I think, 22 fewer. than expected in that time. So it isn't just a matter of, of, you know, their game in the course and all that. That is a problem. But they are also legitimately just not getting the pucks in that they are accustomed to getting in.

So I think it's a kind of dual thing. And it's the same thing with the goaltending where we say, okay, well, they're having terrible goaltending. Like that's, you know, percentage like blah, blah, blah, blah. Whereas there are, of course, kind of structural reasons for them having bad goaltending, which is that they have bad goaltenders. Right. That's not something that exists completely in like a mathematical vacuum that we can have no explanation for.

So yeah, it's kind of a multifaceted thing. I think it's one of those areas where sometimes the decision that you make for, you know, irrational reasons, i.e. you know, the PDO is low. The bounces aren't happening. You know, they lead you to the right conclusion sometimes. You know, sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes you misread the PDO when you sign the wrong guy to an eight year contract. But, you know, sometimes the bad PDA.

DO does lead you in the right direction, you know, from a rational perspective, just purely by accident. And I think everything that I've heard from people about TIPITT it in terms of, you know, the system that he deploys, how he creates his lineups, who he gives extra ice time to, who he neglects in the lineup, stuff like that does seem to lead in the direction that it is a good thing that he's out the door. But that there are, you know, the structural issues with this team, which I think are more so construction than anything else are not going to disappear with them, no matter whether the percentages regress. Yeah. Well, I think that's a good point in the sense that clearly some of these upgrades we're talking about are probably on the edges. I guess you could argue that considering

how close the team is to being kind of on the playoff. I believe they're like a 40% playoff odds now, but obviously like they had games against the Kings and Ducks coming up and they could very easily inflate that if they bounce back and start winning some of these games. Like those edges do matter, right? So for me, it's with the tip of it, it is a lot. of kind of the typical stuff you'd expect from from an old school coach. It's like being reluctant to to give younger players a fair chance to succeed in the everyday lineup and just consistently showing preference to older players, no matter how many times they show us that they're just watched and ineffective.

Like how long that it can take them to realize that Kyle Terrace just doesn't have it anymore? Like the fact that he played as much as he did this year is just baffling to me. Like how many, not that he's watched because I don't know if he was ever any good, but like Devin Shore, like his numbers are just like stunning and he's out there playing. And I know people are going to cite every time a young player makes a mistake or messes up or doesn't have a good game as proof that they're not ready yet and we need to let them marinate in the minors. But it's weird, the standard, some of these older players get held to in terms of like, oh, well, you know, they're just working through it or, you know, they're getting up to speed here. You know, they've shown us that they're going to be better. And it's not going to happen.

So at least with Woodcroft, I'd say the glass have full view here is that coming from Bakersfield where he did get to. to coach and work with and establish personal connections with some of these younger players, not that this is a system that's rife with, you know, guys who are just going to come in immediately and jump up the lineup and produce. But given the alternatives, I am curious to see what that looks like if some of the young players finally do get a fair shake. Yeah, like, you know,

hopefully that does happen. Like when Mike Sullivan got brought on to the Penguins, mid-season, you know, during kind of a similar early slide with them back in 2015, that was one of the big strengths that he had was not only that he changed the way the team was playing, but that he just simply gave opportunities to guys like Brian Rust and Matt Murray and guys that he had in the AAHL over some of the more washed up veterans that Mike Johnson had been deploying purely just because he was familiar with them and trusted them in the way that the veteran coach didn't.

So yeah, you know, that might be some silver lining and that might lead to some improved underlying results. Yeah, I would agree with that. Well, I'd say considering it, I think it was reported that the other option they were considering was Glenn Gullison, as I'm familiar with his work at this level. Oh, no. Is that true? I think I did see that somewhere, yes. Thanks. At least this is a, at least this is more of an upside angle to it.

Okay, well, let's talk about the goaltending and the defensive work then, right? Because on the one hand, it's very obvious that Ken Holland seemed to be. to just buy into what was an admittedly a pretty strong year for Mike Smith last year. Oh, yeah. He should have been getting Vesnavotes last year. Well, let's not go crazy. But he did have a good year, right? He had a 9-22 say percentage.

He had a plus eight goal saved above expected. Like, he was solid. But the thing is, is when you look at that in comparison to the two years he'd had prior and his age, I don't think we can act surprised that all of a sudden he's regressed back to this level. And so for me, the idea of bringing in the combination of him and Costco, and back again, despite the fact that there were so many goalies available this summer, this past summer and kind of a rotating goalie carousel. Like Carolina just basically completely switched out there to goalies for two new ones.

For Edmonton to just view that situation and come back with this. Like on the one hand, it's a bit lazy to me to be like, all right, well, these goalies suck and if we replace them, it would be a lot better because as we've talked about, there's so many flaws with this roster construction. But getting some saves right now certainly would make the situation look a lot more promising. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, like, going into the season, if you said the oilers are going to have one potentially fatal flaw, what's it going to be? 99, you know what, 100, 99 out of 200 hockeymen would have said, ooh, that goal attendant. You know what I mean?

Like, even if you were pretty high on Mike Smith coming off last season for, you know, for whatever reason you wanted to be high on him, you were like, oh, well, Miko Koskinin is not a reliable. backup. And Ken Holland was like, I have no choice but to not make a change in net. And then he gets his hand forced a little bit with Stuart Skinner. And Stuart Skinner plays well for a little while. And then turns into like a 23-year-old working goaltender, who's never really had any NHL runout. And you'll never believe this, but Dave Tippett moved away from him.

well even the local media was like this kid had an opportunity and he blew it and it's like what what's he supposed you've seen this team play so yeah i mean nobody i feel like nobody's being put in a good position here yeah well i mean i would have said that their achillesilles hill would have been leon dry sidel's attitude but that's true it's a problem yeah but i i mean you're absolutely right like the time to address the goaltending was the off season. It's just not something that you can really do comfortably in the midseason. Like the goalie musical chair has already happened. You decided to just, you know, keep the chair that you had at the end of the last season, which everyone knew was going to

not work out for you. And now they're in a position where suddenly they're in a very, very tight goalie market where the options are pretty universally not appetizing. And based on, you know, again, what Friedman said this morning, he said that the two names that he had heard, surrounding the evident oilers and goaltending. And he had, you know, the returns that had been asked for in return. They asked the Philadelphia Flyers about Martin Jones, and the Flyers would not take a fifth round pick for Martin Jones. So, I mean, I don't know which front office to condemn more for that series of communications.

And the other one was Eunice Corpus Allo. The jackets apparently wanted a second and a third, which, you know, again, I guess if the jackets can get more than that for one of the worst goalies in the NHL, Eunice Corpus Allo, then power to them. But if the Oilers thought that the answer in net was going to be either one of those guys, then that speaks to how much they messed up in the offseason and how dire this one could get in terms of what they end up having to eventually pay to get an actual proper goalie at the deadline. The thing I was going to say about Corpusallo is like, do you guys remember when

they beat the lightning though. Just something to think about. It's just something to think about. Well, no. The year they beat the lightning was, was Bobrovsky still, right? It was the year they beat the last in a bubble where everybody was like. Yeah, right.

The belief. He had like a 970, like a carry price, Stochi's say percentage. And that was literally like, I was looking, because I wrote a piece last night, I think it'll probably get published either today or tomorrow about what the oilers trade options are in net. And I mean, you look at Corpus Sala's numbers.

Like the fact of this guy, kind of two fairly high picks is the price for him. You know, he's been below a 900% percentage in four of the past five seasons. And admittedly, he, you know, the one thing he ever did was the series that everybody watched. But, yeah, you know, the underlying issue here is that there's an alternate universe where the Oilers end up with Alex Nidjolkovich or they end up with Frederick Anderson or, you know, so on and so forth. and instead we're living in the universe where they said,

you know what, this 39-year-old, we're going to give him a two-year deal out of loyalty and because we assume that he can repeat his performance last season. And, you know, if we need to make any adjustments in season, either we'll rely on the 23-year-old in the HL or surely the goaltending market will be affordable and we won't have any issues. And that has not turned out to be the case.

Yeah, the other thing about that is like if Ken Hall and Colin is you going, damn, I really need a goalie. Why wouldn't you be like, and all it's going to cost you is a first round pick for this guy who's an AHL backup? Like, why wouldn't you really twist the knife on that? I don't, you know. No one is a better. That's just like how it works.

No one has a better PR team than Eunicegripisalo. This has been going on for years where people are trying to make Unisorposala happen. And I get the idea of the Blue Jackets pipeline and he's got physical tools and all that, but it just has not translated to NHL results. So at the same time, he might win the Vesna in three years because it's goaltending. Let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor. Then we're going to wrap up this carnival at the other end. Champions aren't born.

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acknowledging that their 25th and team say percentage and the combination of the three goalies have cost them roughly like 14 goals against or something more than expected. The shape of this defense right now is a problem and adds to that obviously. And it was interesting in prepping for this. I actually went back and listened to the conversation the three of us had the first night of free agency after the Oilers had made all of their moves. And we were talking about the offensive upside of this team. And obviously, you know, we've addressed that already and kind of how they haven't lived

up to that for various reasons. But defensively, the one real sticking point for me here was just a concern about the overall foot speed that they had sort of saddled themselves with here where it was like, man, they're going to really struggle against the rush. everyone they have here is pretty much going to really have a difficult time trying to stop anyone. And just watching that game last night against Chicago where they made them look like one of the fastest teams I've ever seen, where they were just like flying through the neutral zone and getting rush opportunities and all these guys that typically don't look like that at all against normal NHL teams. We're just having like the time of their life.

Like they're basically playing a beer league game. And for me, like it's just it's something that's unavoidable here where. like, yeah, you could bring in a better goalie. And especially over a short sample, anyone could have an awesome performance and make the defense look better. There's no doubt about that. But even heading into next year and beyond, they've kind of attached themselves to a lot of these guys, most inexplicably, I think for me, retaining Barry at the price they did, considering they basically had a tailor-made replacement in Evan Bouchard already in house at a fraction of the cost. but they used 13.3 million in cap commitments for this season and the next at least in Duncan Keith, Cody, C, C, and Tyson Barry. And so it's just, you know, we're talking about the reactionary

moves and kind of what they did and didn't do. Like if they literally just kept the blue line they had last last year, I would like it so much significantly more than this. And they worked so hard to achieve this result. And that's something that I can't reconcile and kind of get past. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, go. Sorry. I think it's pretty fair to look at last season as a real kind of fork in the road for the Oilers.

The amount of cap flexibility they had, you know, the number of quality players who were moving because of the flat cap, you know, the clear kind of set of objectives that I think they had entry in the off season. You know, they had a real chance to do something really transformative and actually turn this team into a contender. And I think, you know, we set it at the time. I don't think that we've been especially proven wrong that every issue that they had before they spent 20 million bucks or whatever they did last summer, they pretty much have now. And, you know, the underlying numbers tell a pretty obvious story, which is that this team is still pretty good offensively, although not so much when McDavid and Drysidler are off the ice. Not good defensively.

You know, good at special teams. Obviously, there's something right now. And crummy in net. And I think we could have told you that. back last May, last April. And the fact that they didn't address any of these issues, and not only did they not address them, but they locked in some of their solutions for at least the next two years

in a way that is not easy to get out of, you know, they can't really reverse the decisions that they made last summer to a great extent. And I can't imagine that Ken Holland has much appetite to. You know, that's what is really going to stick this team in place, you know, unless they're planning on getting Vesina level goaltending from either whoever they acquire or, you know, Miko Koskin and realizing it's a contract year and, you know, that maybe Peter Treli will be around to give him a contract in Chicago.

I mean, you know, the ceiling on this team is still just about what it was last year. So I just am not really seeing the quick answer for Ken Holland here in terms of turning this thing around. I think to a certain extent, you know, that ship kind of sailed, you know, less than a year ago when we were talking about this back in July. Yeah, I just looked. it up and, you know, once again, what does this team's problem really boil down to even if we're ignoring the goaltending thing or saying they should be like all things being equal, this is what the problem is. Oilers plus seven at five on five with either or both of McDavid and Drysidal on the ice and

minus 19 when both of them are off. That's it. There's your issue. They have made no effort for years to fix this problem. and now, you know, here we are. I think even more alarmingly, they have made an effort to fix that problem. They haven't, they haven't done it, but they've tried, I think, right? Like, they've spent a bunch of money.

Right. So I guess the, I guess the thing is, like, for example, when they brought Hyman aboard, everybody was like, well, you put Hyman on the third line. And then that's one extra line that doesn't get outscored when McDavid and Drysidal are off the ice. And they haven't really played Hyman away from those guys too much, I don't think. Well, yeah, and that was the issue with the Hyman signing at the time, or at least what I said about it, was that I didn't think that Hyman was the kind of player that they actually needed.

You know, there was all the talk about this new forechecking element that he was going to bring and all this defense. And I said at the time, you know, they needed to get a player who could carry the puck and create offense when McDavid and Drysiddle aren't playing with them. that was the team's issue. And there were guys, I mean, you know, can you imagine if instead of doing the Zach Hyman deal, they had just traded the second round pick and a prospect for Pavel Bouchnavich instead and had him on the team, you know, making $5.8 million for the next four years.

Like there were options for them to actually address the real issues they had. And I feel like instead of doing that, instead of getting guys who could defend the rush, instead of getting a better and more consistent goalie, instead of getting creative offensive players, they kind of just doubled down on the stuff they already had, exposing the weaknesses they already had, and they did it for a lot of money, and they did it in a way that isn't easy to reverse.

Yeah, they're scoring less than two goals per 60 minutes without Trace Adela and McDavid on the ICE at 515 this year, and they have a goal share, as Ryan mentioned, of 37%. Yeah, it's just, it's unexcusable to me. it's an issue how with this much runway, they still haven't to devise the thoughtful way to survive those minutes. Like, we're not talking that they need to dominate here or even outscore the other team,

but just- You need to just not get destroyed. It has to be over 40%. Full share. That's right. And that seems like a pretty low bar to clear. It's an incredible, I mean, Jesus. What's the Canadians are maybe right around 40% on the year, right?

Like, it's almost impossible to be this inept if you try to replicate this, like these results. like year over year over year while spending money you would think that you'd be able to clear that low of a bar. How about this? I just looked it up.

The Canadians, 38.2% goals for at five on five. So, the Oilers, when McDavid and Dreisidler off the ice, are worse than the Montreal Canadians this year. And look, the thing is that, you know,

some of the moves they made at forward at least, you know, to try to shore up the team defense. they've worked insofar as, you know, if you look at the guys who are, have decent defensive numbers for them this year, it is, you know, Derek Ryan who they looked at, Colton Steve here, who they picked up. You know, like those moves in isolation were fine for the bottom six. But the problem is that when your goaltending is terrible,

then, you know, you can have all these great defensive players you want. You're still going to get outscored. And especially if they're one dimensional defensive players. Like, it's fine to have, you know, one way defensive players. you know, one-way defensive players on your fourth line. But if your goaltending is going to sell them down the river and, you know, have a, you know, 900 save percentage or whatever it is when they're on the ice, then you're not getting any offense and you're not going to be properly getting any defense either.

So, yeah, it really is just a fundamental kind of disconnect in how this roster is built towards what they theoretically should be doing. So I think we mentioned this earlier, but McDavid has a, on ice shooting percentage of 515 of 7.3 right now. What do you guys think the lowest previous mark was for him for a single season as an NHLer? 10, 10 and a half? Yeah, 10 and a half sounds about right.

He did 9.9 once in his third season. Otherwise, it's been 10.2, 10.6, 10.6, 11.2, 11.2. The reason why I bring that up is because I'm sure there's going to be, if there aren't already, and I assume there probably are hot takes out there about McDavid in the year he's having and whatnot. Just a reminder that, you know, we talked a bit, a bit how they've been unlucky or whatever. I think for me, like, he's, you can't compare him to league average or what you'd expect for a regular NHL. Like, he's clearly proving that he is on the very short list of legitimate drivers of that stat and of conversion rate and of creating stuff for his teammates,

especially off of the rush. And so it's almost crazy that he's been as productive as he has been when you consider that. Obviously, a lot of that has been on the power play. But I just wanted to bring that up in this conversation about the Oilers because I feel like, man, he deserves so much better. I just, I can't really with these conversations about McDavid anymore because there's like still a little nuance involved, I feel like. But I really wonder, man, that that's 7.3 on ice shooting percentage right now is pretty crazy. Yeah, well, and I mean, this is, you know, part of the issue is that, like, you look at the guys that he's been playing with or even just the kind of guys who they've been cycling around the lineup. You know, Yossi Poli Arvi has, you know, 10 goals on 15 expected goals.

Ryan and John Hopkins has six goals so far in 37 games, again, on 9.1 expected goals. And with McDavid, the expectation is that because he's such a good playmaker, that these guys actually should probably be outscoring their scoring chances. It's just because those passes are, you know, coming to more dangerous areas or getting the goalie moving and stuff like that. And I don't think it really is fair to hold him accountable for the fact that the players that he's been playing with this year just can't put a frigging puck in the net. But, of course, you know, as I think is pretty obvious to anybody who's been paying attention, there will definitely be talk about how, you know, McDavid is fumbling under the pressure or, you know, isn't showing enough leadership. or what have you when, you know, again, as so often with this team in the McDavid era, McDavid and Drysidal are doing their jobs. I mean, they're not even, you know, they're not even having as bad defensive numbers

as they did a couple seasons ago. I mean, they're not good. That's right. They're fine. They've been better. Even Drysidal, who wasn't even good last year, has been a little bit better defensively. You know, it really is, I mean, it's tiring, like you said, just to constantly see these superstar players

not only held down by a team that is letting them down, but also have the blame pinned on them for it. Yeah, well, they're just the way they've been built. They're not equipped to survive percentages like that. And that's, I think, the takeaway here. Is there any other stuff about the Oilers while we're here that you guys wanted to get to?

I feel like we kind of did our due diligence in terms of writing context and all that. But was there anything missed? I think the only thing I do want to, like, I guess just blindly speculate on is like what happens if they don't make the playoffs? Like I don't know what the latest numbers are from like Dom or whatever. I think they're around 40% according to money.

Oh my God. That stinks, man. But like what happens? I mean, you know, there's got to be a point at which somebody does something differently. But what is what even to Jack's point earlier like, it's a situation where they can't really just decide to fix things. And so then what? Well, I guess the bigger issue is there's no reason to believe that they are capable of doing so as currently constituted with the ownership and leadership and management group that they do have.

It's like, what are they going to do? Are they going to fire Ken Holland? And then some other Hockey Canada guy comes in and does the exact same thing that Ken Holland did. or otherwise somebody does something more thorough, and it just takes a couple of years for that plan to be put into place, because, you know, we keep alluding to it. Like, the flexibility on this roster is not what it was last summer. Like, last summer was the time that you had all the flexibility.

Even if the team misses the playoffs and they fire Ken Holland and they bring in somebody new, like, there really isn't that much that's going to be able to happen here. So, I mean, that's why, you know, one of the reasons why you had to fire the coach, I think is because there really is, a lot of flexibility with what you can do in terms of construction at this point. Like the damage is done. So the question is just, is somebody going to be able to turn this wreckage into a functional team that can maybe

get lucky enough to make a playoff run off the strength of McDavid and Drysidal? And the only option at this point, you know, the options were basically get a goalie who can carry them there, which the options, as I wrote about, are incredibly slim or just hope that maybe some new coach magic can get everybody, you know, happy and enjoying playing hockey again.

And the, you know, the percentages will all bounce back. And then everybody will have a good time because the options really just aren't there. Well, the most likely outcome here is them winning five of their next six games as they score a bunch of goals. And the classic candidates in Edmonton media just doing the wildly premature victory lab, right? Like, that seems like this most realistic outcome for the next couple weeks here for the Oilers. Yeah, I think the headline was around December 1st and it says the sample size is big enough. The oilers are for real. Yeah.

So there you go. 21 games, we nailed it. I still think they're going to make the playoffs. I think they probably will too. The most like, you know, I'm looking at Dom's numbers. He has them around 60%. Oh, really? That sounds about right for me in terms of, you know, the division isn't that strong.

I mean, the Kings could make this real interesting in the next couple of. weeks. But yeah, yeah, you know, it's just, I would expect they might make the playoffs. And, and hey, maybe they'll, maybe they'll win around. Maybe McDavid will carry them. Maybe Eunice Corpusallo, who they traded a first round pick and Kyler Yamamoto for will, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll steal a couple rounds there. But, uh, yeah, I mean, the underlying problems with this roster are kind of, they're kind of set. And so it's a really a matter of, you know, what can the players and the coaches do with the pieces they've been given. Now, it should be the title for this episode.

Should it be the damage has been done, which I believe is a sentence that you said recently there, Jack. Welcome to Take Town. Here come the Oilers or Oil Change. Those are my leading candidates for episode title. You're not allowed to say Oil Change because that's the TV show. That's real depressing. That is one of the funniest things ever was that they made a show called Oil Change literally 11 years ago. As Nothing has changed.

team was going to change in the uh i mean i was talking about it with um a senator i was on a senator's show the other day and they were talking about how you know like the the rebuilds like guaranteed to work and everything and it's like you know i remember the hope era oilers of hall o mark pay r v spenson and everly that was going to turn the team around and that was what 12 years ago at this point it's been it's been a journey boy it really has um all right there's the title it's been a journey It's an attorney. There we go. All right, let's plug some stuff.

Ryan, you can go first. What have you been cranking out recently? What are you working on? Where can people check out your work? Well, as I mentioned, I wrote briefly about this coaching change earlier today. And other than that, I wrote Take Town earlier this week and talked about like Tukarask. And, you know, I've seen a couple of things. articles that have been like, now look, all the numbers say this team has a 9% chance to make

the playoffs. But what do they need to do to make that 9% 100 for it? It's like, oh, boy, you don't want to be in that business. And then, yeah, I don't remember what I wrote about on Sunday. So you'll just have to look. It's all on E.P. Ringside. And then, of course, you're going to want to listen to Puck Soup. What a great podcast that is.

What a great site that is that you just shot it out there, E. P. Ringsside. I've seen a lot of cool content up there. Jack, what are your plans? Well, if you want to read me, go goalie by goalie through this treacherous and... I mean, you teed it up so well. It's so encouraging. I went through the pros and cons of, I think, five different goalie candidates at the trade deadline for Edmonton specifically, but they could also apply to everybody else. So that's going to be dropping on APRank side, either today or tomorrow.

And I will also be writing in a little bit a deep dive on Jacob Chikering, the kind of. kind of left-handed defenseman that, you know, if the oilers had cap space and assets, it might be interesting for them to have gone after. But oh, well, Duncan Keith, two years, five and a half. Why not? Yeah, and then they can follow me on Twitter at J-Freshockey. Follow my substack, sign up for the Patreon, all that good stuff. Sweet.

Well, thanks for taking the time to do this really short-notice emergency oilers podcast. This was a blast. I'm glad we got to do this. And we'll have you both back on the show sometime here. soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the season, fellas. Sounds good. Have a good one, pal. You too, Tim. All right. That is going to be it for today's episode of the Hockey Ptodcast. As always, thank you to everyone for listening to today's show. If you enjoyed this latest episode of the Hockey Piedo cast, you can show us some love by leaving a quick little rating and review

review for the show. Just smash that five-star button. And then if you're feeling extra generous and you've got some free time, you can write up a quick little review that either, you know, lets people know why they should check it out if they haven't done so already or, you know, what you enjoy about the show. I found that that helps a lot in terms of attracting you listeners when they're scrolling through the categories of hockey podcasts or sports shows or whatever and they come across us and they haven't checked it out yet. If they see some encouraging reviews, I imagine, it will increase the likelihood that they actually give us a shot. So please consider doing so. I know a lot of you have done so already and each one is greatly appreciated. It helps us a lot moving forward.

that is going to be it for today's show. We've got some fun stuff planned here and hopefully we're going to be able to to put out more shows moving forward on this feed and you're going to have some more fun stuff to listen to. So thanks for listening and we'll be back soon. And so until then, here is the outro music. Beocast with Dim Philipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey PDOCAST.