It’s Wednesday, you’re halfway through your work week and you need to kill some time at the office. Now, every Wednesday you can find this new weekly column on the Rig written by yours truly.
So how about those Edmonton Oilers? For those who know, I also do a lot of writing over at OilersNation. Writing there, most of the work that I do is strictly news and non-opinionated and interesting facts surrounding the team, and what happens surrounding the Oilers franchise as a whole.
As I mentioned above, this will be a weekly column where I will provide some thoughts on the Edmonton Oilers. You may disagree, and that is ok, but a lot of this will be conversational and hopefully thought provoking.
3 and 1
Who would’ve thought the Oilers would be three and one four games into the season? Not I, that’s for sure. I wholeheartedly expected the Oilers to come out flat in their two games against Calgary like they usually do. None the less, the Oilers have been able to put themselves in a nice position very early in the season.
Look, I know that the Oilers are only four games into the regular season. There are still 78 games left in the season and there is more than enough time for the Oilers to blow it like they have in years past.
Last night, the team had a really solid win against a Carolina Hurricanes team they should be able to beat. As I will talk a bit about below, the whole practice gate scandal has seemed to pay dividends for the club as they came out jumping against the Hurricanes early in the game getting a 2-0 lead in thanks to Anton Slepyshev’s first NHL goal (!!!) and Tyler Pitlicks second on the short season.
Pitlick has been a pleasant surprise this season. More on him in a bit.
Practice Gate
Honestly, I’m surprised that as many people were upset about a days worth of practice. Even more surprising were the comments made by former NHL’ers Patrick O’Sullivan and Willie Mitchell. As far as I’m concerned, there should be no repercussions for the Oilers. The teams practice was moved by only two days and it’s not like there wasn’t input from the players on the team. Edmonton’s captains all had input on it.
It clearly benefited the team, as they were able to come out and beat the Hurricanes last night. While I don’t think there should be any repercussions, who knows what the NHL and NHLPA has up their sleeves.
Pitlick, Russell and early impressions
What a story he’s been so far. I’ve long been a fan of his game, but the his injury woes over his career have held him back from any chance at the NHL. The now 24-year old has had his fair share of AHL games playing 196 games scoring 85 points in that time frame.
Although he is your prototypical fourth-line players who plays a fast, heavy game, he has a decisive shot that has allowed for him to score a few goals early on. He is a guy that will hopefully stick around in a third or fourth line role for some time with the Oilers. He has certainly made an early impression on the Oilers.
Kris Russell’s PDO so far is a team high 107.5. His corsi is a second last 47.7. Anyone crowing about him after 4 games is in for a surprise
— Kent Wilson (@Kent_Wilson) October 19, 2016
@CodexRex @SuperNovs1 @Kent_Wilson He’s also leading Oilers Dmen in Rel xGA/60, RelxGF% and HDSAC.
— Woodguy (@Woodguy55) October 19, 2016
Like Pitlick, Kris Russell has certainly made an impact early on in Edmonton. As mentioned above my Wilson and Woodguy, there seems to be a bit of a divide in the opinions of Russell as an Oiler. For one, I feel that the impact that Russell has had has been extremely positive. As Rig writer WheatNOil has pointed out on Twitter, Russell has done an excellent job in doing some little things right by having high defensive zone passing percentages, as well as doing a good job in controlling zone entries and exits.
Russell is the ultimate eye-test vs. analytics guy, as his numbers don’t show him as a very good defenceman. Yet, by the eye, Russell appears to do everything right on the ice.
I hope you enjoyed my ramblings, and I hope you come back next week to read again.
Come yell at me on twitter! @zjlaing
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