RDOilerfan wrote on Mon, 07 January 2019 08:00

Big win for the Oilers and a must have. They need another one. For the game, I really don't put a lot of stock into shots, I think the amount of good scoring chances are more important. The Oilers scored 4 goals, without Gibson being good, they easily have way more. I thought Talbot played really well but I felt the Oilers have more good scoring chances than the Ducks. When a team brings the puck into your zone and fires a long range shot at your goal that has little chance of going in. Yes that counts as a shot on goal and yes that is going to hurt your overall corsi because it is a shot attempt but does it mean much if it has next to no chance of going in? Not really in my opinion. One question I have is who to start next game. Usually you automatically start the goalie who got a shutout BUT in the case of the Oilers lately, it sure seems like every time a goalie has a good game and they get the next start, they crap the bed. I would lean to Talbot strictly because he got the shutout but they NEED these 2 guys to get on a roll.

For what it's worth, naturalstattrick had scoring chances at 5x5 at 34/23 in favour of the Ducks. I think it's also noteworthy that the Ducks are dead last in the league in shots/game. I don't want to dump on a win, but I don't think this is a case of one team just firing shots from the blue line all night, and the other team getting all the good chances.

Here's the heat map from naturalstattrick:



Yes, Ducks also had some shots from farther out, but there's also a lot from between the faceoff dots and in.

Overall, I think this game was a lot more even than the score showed, and that Talbot was the difference.

http://naturalstattrick.com/game.php?season=20182019&gam e=20651

Oilers Goal Differential
17/18: 234 GF / 263 GA (-29)
18/19: 232 GF / 274 GA (-42)
19/20 (82 game pace): 257 GF / 254 GA (+3) in 64 games
2021 (82 game pace):269 GF / 235 GA (+34) after 38 games