Oilers at Avalanche: No Excuses

Fans of the Oilers had visions of a victory dancing in their heads last night, but those dreams were dashed with a disappointing 4-3 loss to the Anaheim Ducks. The Oilers are back at it today, facing the lowly Avalance in Colorado.

Take a look at the Avs’ point total, and maybe you won’t feel so bad about last night’s loss. Perspective, people!

The Avs are dead last in the NHL with 43 points–20 points behind 29th place Arizona! Below is a little sample of this year’s Avs:

The Colorado Avalanche, everybody! pic.twitter.com/bArlqvpDjc

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) March 5, 2017

Worst team of the salary cap era?

Needless to say, the Oilers are expected to win tonight. But, of course, it’s wise not to take any NHL team lightly. Remember the game against the Canucks on Saturday? I had to Google half of the Vancouver lineup, but that sure wasn’t an easy victory.

Year-to-Year Comparison

One thing that Lowetide has been doing on his blog is comparing the this season’s record and goal differential with last season’s, and he has graciously given me permission to use his numbers. You can see the year-to-year comparison below.

The improvement in the goal differential is incredible. Is it mostly due to Connor McDavid and Cam Talbot? I’m sure their the two biggest reasons for the improvement. However I can’t help but think that a healthy Oscar Klefbom and new addition Adam Larsson on the top pairing have also helped. And what about Kris Russell. [Races out of room as arguing ensues and chairs begin to be thrown]

Tweet of the Day

Never one to mince his words, Tyler calls tonight’s game a “zero excuse for losing” game.

Tonight isn't "must win", it's "zero excuse for losing". https://t.co/5lAhDOhVXL

— T-Hup Wants The Cup (@thupka1982) March 23, 2017

Let’s just say that if the Oilers do lose, I won’t be visiting Twitter until the next Oilers’ win.

Lineups

The Oilers’ lineup is expected to look like this:

Patrick Maroon – Connor McDavid – Leon Draisaitl
Milan Lucic – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jordan Eberle
Benoit Pouliot – David Desharnais – Zack Kassian
Matt Hendricks – Mark Letestu – Anton Slepyshev

Oscar Klefbom – Adam Larsson
Andrej Sekera – Kris Russell
Darnell Nurse – Matt Benning

Cam Talbot

Note: I’m not sure about the fourth line.

It will be @ctalbot33 starting tonight for @EdmontonOilers vs. @Avalanche

— Gene Principe (@GenePrincipe) March 23, 2017

Talbot got half the night off last night, so it’s not surprising that he gets the call tonight.

The Avs’ lineup should look something resembling this:

Mikko Rantanen – Nathan MacKinnon – Sven Andrighetto
Gabriel Landeskog – Matt Duchene – Rene Bourque
Mikhail Grigorenko – J.T. Compher – Matthew Nieto
John Mitchell – Carl Soderberg – Blake Comeau

Mark Barberio – Erik Johnson
Fedor Tyutin – Tyson Barrie
Francois Beauchemin – Anton Lindholm

Jeremy Smith

Jeremy Smith: Goalie Start: Smith will start Thursday vs. the Oilers. | https://t.co/LOCdJPjkoG

— Daily Faceoff – Fantasy (@DFOFantasy) March 22, 2017

Who?

Random Hockey Card of the Day

Which native of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia was a first overall pick in the NHL Draft and has won both a Memorial Cup and a Calder Trophy? No, it’s not Sidney Crosby. (Crosby never won a Memorial Cup or a Calder Trophy.) The answer is Nathan MacKinnon.

I don’t think the Avalanche are regretting taking MacKinnon first overall in the 2013 draft (though he hasn’t yet surpassed the point totals of his rookie season). But maybe MacKinnon is now wishing he’d been selected by another team. Poor Nathan. Taylor Hall can sympathize.

Fewer Than 30 Thoughts

1. The Oilers’ 5-on-5 Corsi For Percentage is now at 49.8% for the season. That’s 18th best in the league. But I’d caution anyone not to place too much importance on raw Corsi. Raw Corsi doesn’t tell us the location of the shot attempts, the score of the game when the shots are attempted, etc. Raw Corsi for individual players doesn’t tell us the quality of competition each player is facing. There are much better stats out there than raw CF%.

2. Adam Larsson is second on the Oilers with a plus-minus of +18. (I don’t need to tell you who’s first.) Yeah, yeah, yeah, plus-minus is a flawed stat, but Larsson must be doing something right, right?

3. WheatNOil provides us with a good update on the Oilers’ bonus situation. Check out his timeline for all of his calculations.

So my math matches up with Gregor's
Max overage is $1.1M if Slepy & Drai hit
$0.888K if only Drai hits
$0.737K under cap if neither hit
/fin

— WheatNOil (@WheatNOil) March 23, 2017

And Wheat gets the Cap Friendly seal of approval:

Yes, if he were to finish in the top 10 among forwards in Goals, Assists, Pts or Pts/Gm, he'd receive his $1.625M 'B' bonus.

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) March 23, 2017

4. Did people really think that Taylor Hall would be cheering for the Oilers in the playoffs?

5. The Oilers are currently 4 points behind the Sharks and play back-to-back games against the Avs. They can’t afford to get less than 4 points from these two games.