Weekend Stuff and Things

Well it was another interesting week in Oil Country. The team’s performance was abysmal yet again, but at least Craig MacTavish was active making a few trades mid week. Today I’ll give you my opinion on the trades, some game notes, I’m probably going to rip on a player or two, and again I’ll address some of the rumors still swirling around the team.

The Oilers went in to Dallas on Tuesday night looking for their second win in 3 games. Dallas was a team that had been struggling and was ripe for the picking. Yet the team was once again bitten by ex-Oilers as Eric Cole and Ray Whitney both had points in the game. But more importantly was the poor play of the Oilers top line. Coach Dallas Eakins, as I mentioned last week, has said he’s going to put the top line head to head against the other teams best players because how else are they going to learn to play against the top talent in the league without actually playing against them.

Now I agree with this philosophy but on Tuesday night in Dallas the Stars first line dominated the Oilers young stars. Taylor Hall had a 38% corsi versus Dallas’ top line and was -1 on the score sheet, Jordan Eberle was 46% in the 1^st line corsi battle and also -1 on the ice. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, ugh, he was -3 on the night and against the Stars top talent he had a 40% corsi. But that’s not even the worst, while Nail Yakupov was on the Oilers second line when he matched up against Dallas’ first he had a corsi of 14%…14%!!!!!!!!

The team lost the game 5-2 and left Dallas with their tails between their legs on the way to Minnesota for the first game of the season against the Wild. Well on the way to Minnesota, Craig MacTavish was busy working the phones trying to make some deals. And deals are what he made. On Wednesday morning the Oilers traded goalie Devan Dubnyk to the Nashville Predators in exchange for pesky veteran forward Matt Hendricks. MacT now being down a goalie then swung a deal with the LA Kings, sending the teams 3^rd round pick in this summer’s draft to the Kings in exchange for goalie Ben Scrivens.

So what do I think about the trades? Nothing major really, Devan Dubnyk was not going to be resigned by the Oilers this offseason so finding a team that was willing to take him on for the remainder of the year (even though the Oilers are paying part of his salary) and landing a player that can play in the NHL and will be part of the Oilers bottom six for the next 3 years, well that’s not a bad deal at all. I really do hope Dubey can revive his career in Nashville and get a contract with another team next year, even though things didn’t start well for him, allowing 5 goals last night against the Colorado Avalanche.

As for MacT bringing in Scrivens, well it can’t hurt right. The Oilers cut some salary, and added a pending UFA that is making a reasonable $625K. Here’s what I see happening, the Oil are going to part ways with Ilya Bryzgalov after the season is done and persue one of the big name free agent tenders. They’ll then sign Scrivens to a 2 or 3 year deal at more money than he’s making now but it will still be a relatively cheap deal due to Scrivens inexperience. I don’t know 1.2mil to 1.5 maybe? Then spend big money on the FA goalie they decide to bring in, all in all spending anywhere from 6 to 8 million on goalies next season. Why not have Scrivens, a player that continues to trend upwards as a solid backup or 1B option in goal.

So after all the excitement on Wednesday the Oilers went in to Minnesota Thursday with their new goalie getting the start between the pipes. I didn’t watch the game but the Oilers defence once again was weak and the forwards weren’t scoring again. Scrivens was left out to dry as the Oilers allowed 33 shots while only managing to fire 21 against Minny’s back up tender.

Then came yesterday’s Hockey Day in Canada matinee. The Oilers faced off against the Winnepeg Jets who, since firing head coach Claude Noel and replacing him with Paul Maurice, had won two straight. The Jets came away with the win in overtime and while the score was close, after the middle of the second period it was obvious that Winnepeg had all the momentum and was poised to come away with the two points.

The Oilers seemed to sit back again, they were unable to handle the pressure the Jets were bringing on the fore check. The Oilers defense was once again exposed, and a lot of that falls on the shoulders of Jeff Petry. Now I don’t like picking on Petry too much, but seriously, he was on the ice for all three goals against and almost every time Petry had a chance to get the puck up and out of the zone he managed to turn the puck over. The problem is well known, Petry is in over his head, he’s playing big minutes (24:49 against Winnipeg) and they are minutes he shouldn’t be playing. He’s exposed and something needs to happen, and happen soon.

This isn’t about getting rid of Jeff Petry, it’s about Craig MacTavish getting the personell so that a player like Petry (3/4 defenseman at best) can have a chance to be successful. 15-18 minutes a night and I don’t think he’ll look out of place. But the plain and simple fact is there just aren’t any other options at the position right now.

Its brass tax time for Craig MacTavish, and I think he’s going to have to start making those bold moves that he’s been talking about since he took the team over after last season. MacT is going to have to make a move that at first glance is going to piss most of us fans off. He’s going to have to trade a guy like Jordan Eberle or Nail Yakupov or David Perron in order to get a top pairing defenseman that will really be able to help this team, hell he may even have to add a guy like Petry to a deal.

I tweeted yesterday after the game that the Oilers are going to need 3 new defensemen when the 2014/2015 season starts. In a perfect world it’s going to have to look something like this;

1^st Pair – New Guy/New Guy

2^nd Pair – New Guy/Justin Schultz

3^rd Pair – Petry/Ference

Extra – Marincin

That’s quite the task for the Oilers general manager, but I do think he’s up to it. Again I’ll say that it will have to come closer to the draft, where there won’t be any concern about cap space and the Oilers lottery pick will hold its most value. Mac T may be able to put something together sometime before the trade deadline maybe to fill that number three D position mentioned above. If I’m throwing names out there I’d look for a guy like Dmitri Kulikov who’s an RFA at the end of the season and on a non-playoff team. There’s deals out there to be had, but much like MacT preaches, I’m prepared to be patient as the options will be much more plentiful when the season is over.

Thanks For Reading