Adam wrote on Fri, 06 July 2018 14:32

Kr55 wrote on Fri, 06 July 2018 13:16 Jobs are on the line this year. If Bouchard is able to look competent on the PP during regular season games, I think he sticks, and they just make it work with him sheltered on the 3rd pair. This org has shown they don't think in terms of cheapness long term :) But if he can't catch a break for his 9 games like Yams last year, I think they send him down for sure. Yams wasn't even that bad in the first 9 games last season. He got lots of chances, the ice was tilted in the time he played as far as chances go. Almost 2.5 shots a game himself. He was just one of many guys on the team that couldn't catch a break in the first 1-2 months of the year, while at the same time our goalies were letting in damn near anything, as the season was quickly being flushed. Worked out for the best of course, and the Oilers thankfully didn't hold onto hope like with Pulju and Drai before. I think the same would happen with Bouchard if he is actually struggling or just unlucky, which will probably work out for the best in the end too. Not quite how I saw it with Yamamoto. He was given a pretty heavy push, playing most of his time in that audition with Connor McDavid. He had chances, but I didn't think he looked overly threatening much of the time (although to be fair, that could be the McLellan shoot from everywhere strategy at work). And I worried that if he'd actually got a couple in, the Oilers would have kept him a lot longer...even if that wasn't really indicative of much.

I am giving guys a bit more credit these days when they can get a stat like 35-17 in high danger chances with McDavid, especially in their first NHL games. Mainly because we've now seen how actually poor players like Caggiula can actually drag McDavid down with them :)

The start of last season sucked, period. For sure some of it was McLellan's game plan, but even on good high quality chances, we were running into a string of hot goalies while ours couldn't stop a beachball. Put a stain on everything as frustration build and everything looked like crap. Looking back at the stats though, we actually came out pretty hot, just, no rewards to be had. While teams like the Islanders and Devils were consistently getting out-chanced and getting opposite results, like the universe was just out to get Chia. The Islanders finished their last 2-3 months like our season started though, so at least that was fair :) COulda happened to NJD too but they actually had a backup goalie who turned red hot.


Just to try to add some proof that Yams got good chances, here is his spray chart of shot attempts from his 123 minutes of 5v5 fame last season:



He was pretty unlucky to not get a few, really.

And for sure, if he did pot a few, he would have stuck I bet as well. Which I think most of us agree would be less than ideal. When I say Bouchard is staying if he scores a bit, I don't mean to see that's what I want. Trying to just predict what the Oilers will do :)

[Updated on: Fri, 06 July 2018 15:29]

"We need to get better immediately. That starts today"
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