PlusOne wrote on Wed, 13 October 2021 17:19

Kr55 wrote on Wed, 13 October 2021 15:42 Goose wrote on Wed, 13 October 2021 15:32 Adam wrote on Wed, 13 October 2021 14:21 I think one thing to remember is that Tippett views the top line as a five-man unit. Barrie and Nurse will be stapled to them, so that second line has to make due with a lot of time with Keith/Ceci and if the couple pre-season looks or the mountain of stats from prior seasons are any indication, that's going to be an adventure. I don't think the second line is well set-up for success, and I don't think it makes much sense because 97 and 29 will still put up points if they're separated. It's a weak opponent, and it should be a win tonight no matter what goofy decisions Tippett makes, but I do find this disheartening. Ya, this is the issue for me. It's not just separating McDavid/Drai, it's giving that second pair as much of a chance to be successful as possible, and that is just not helped by Drai being on the 1st line. As well, we know that McDavid is going to outscore the opposition whether it's Hyman or Drai on his wing. But as Mike mentioned, I don't think that the boost McDavid gets having Drai over Hyman makes up for the drop from Drai to RNH as the 2nd line centre. And then there's the opposition. As Mike said (he made a lot of good points ), this makes things way easier for opposing coaches to gameplan against, as you can focus all of your attention to that top line. While you might not be able to totally stop them, you're probably going to be more successful if you can throw your top shutdown D pair and whatever forward group you want to match against them every single time, rather than having to worry about what would be one of the top (if not the best), 2nd line in hockey. ETA: before anyone freaks out, I'm not saying I think that this will be a disaster. The Oilers will undoubtedly have the top line in hockey and the 2nd line might be fine. But if we get 10 or 20 games in and the 2nd line is being outscored, or even just treading water, Tippet had better be pretty quick to switch things up regardless of how well the top line is playing. Because there's no way the Oilers can play the bulk of the season as a one line team and hope to have success in the playoffs. I think this discussion dates back to after the 2017 playoffs when we knew the path to the team being good for certain was McDavid and Drai on their own lines. Then McLellan bails on that in pre-season and we're back to McDrai on a line. Can't believe this is still happening. I am testing out avoiding advanced stats to start this season. I have unfollowed all of the stats accounts on twitter and not reading the Athletic articles focused on them. Mostly because to start the year they are full of if's, and's, maybe and buts. They also seem to be full of confirmation bias. People going in to prove a point as apposed to presenting info. I am not sure what the numbers said about the 2nd line last year when 97 and 29 were together but I do know their P/60 double when together. That is a pretty substantial increase and if the addition of Hyman to the 2nd line can make them better then it may be a better overall result. If the 2nd line cannot produce and splitting up the top 2 gives a net gain for the top 6 then it has to be done. I don't have a hardcore line in the sand type preference for stacking the top 3, I just see it as a more viable strategy now with a deeper list of top 6 capable guys. One thing I hadn't considered is the "5 man unit" strategy mentioned by Adam. That is a concern if line 2 is getting destroyed being stapled to Ceci/Keith but that also assumes that pairing will be awful. Much like I am avoiding old stat biases I am keeping an open mind on that pairing as well. I still think Keith can make a heck of an outlet pass and that will go a long way to the 2nd pair being better than last year. I like Larsson and all but passing was not his stregth. The rotation of guys he played with last year also were not good at it. Getting the puck out of their own end will be the key to 2nd line success, regardless of who is on it.

The individual success for McDrai was spectacular last year for sure. No doubt at some point last year the mindset shifted to trying to get McDavid to blow the doors off any recent single season performance for the last 30 years and Tippett just stuck with McDrai. We paid for that in the playoffs of course, Tippett had zero clue how to do anything with his lineup except play 1 line as much as he could.

For the balance of the team though, just a rough breakdown of how last year went 5v5:

McDavid + Drai = 343 minutes - 33 GF, 17GA (+16 or +1 per 21.4 minutes) - xGF 57.3%
McDavid w/o Drai = 594 minutes - 31 GF, 31 GA (+0) - xGF 56%
Drai w/o McDavid = 567 minutes - 22 GF, 16 GA (+6 or +1 per 94.5 minutes) - xGF 46%
w/o Mcdavid or Drai = 1234 minutes - 29 GF, 52 GA (-23 or -1 per 53.7 minutes) - xGF 42.3%

Guess you can argue that even though with McDrai together, you're doubling your without McDrai time which has been awful time for this team, but the awfulness of that time doesn't cancel out the boost you get from McDrai together. Last season was weird though, because McDavid without Drai was winning their chances battle almost as well as McDavid+Drai, but the Nuge-McDAvid pair just couldn't cash in on chances. In analytics land, a guy would argue that McDavid is doing almost as well with without Drai as with, and the only difference is luck. If you believed that, then you really should put all your energy into figuring out the best line for Drai to center, and you can really focus on eliminating as much of that "without McDavid or Drai" time as possible.

This is all regular season too of course. Really need to keep playoffs in mind this year. 1 line teams just don't win in the playoffs. The whistles go away, teams figure out a strategy over the series to smother 1 line and beat you with matchups down the lineup. It'll just never work out if we don't figure out how to create depth in our attack.

The need to shelter Keith/Ceci as well. Likely will be needed, but hey, maybe miracles do still happen for the Oilers :)

"We need to get better immediately. That starts today"
- Lowe, 2013

"Next year I would forecast as another developmental year"
- MacT, 2015

5 x $5,000,000