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Re: Season 39 (NHL 32), 2011-12: Enter the Nuge [message #825457 is a reply to message #825455 ]	Mon, 18 September 2023 11:12

CrusaderPi
Messages: 7803
Registered: December 2003
Location: AB Highway 100

6 Cups

Dragon_Matt wrote on Mon, 18 September 2023 10:53

you can't argue, we did get 'tougher'.
High point of the Oil Change docu-series was the reaction to Belanger wanting more term.

He did want to be here.

Please do not feed the bears. Feeding the bears creates a dependent population unable to survive on their own. Bears.

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Re: Season 39 (NHL 32), 2011-12: Enter the Nuge [message #825463 is a reply to message #825451 ]	Mon, 18 September 2023 14:12

Adam
Messages: 7174
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

Steve wrote on Fri, 15 September 2023 15:09

CrusaderPi wrote on Fri, 15 September 2023 13:07

The Cam Barker signing is when I knew the Tambo years were going to be a disappointment. It was so obvious the guy couldn't skate at the NHL level that anyone who thought he should be signed should have been fired on the spot.

That July 1st was horrendous.

Looking at the transactions listed, only the selections of Nuge and Klefbom are positives. Tambo was the worst of this team's string of bad GMs.

Honestly, I go around and around on who was the worst GM. Tambellini made some truly wretched signings. He wanted to basically build his whole team on July 1 every year, but he didn't exactly show the greatest instincts.

https://www.capfriendly.com/staff/steve-tambellini - take this list, sort for UFA and here's the external signings he brought in:
- Khabibulin - 4 yrs, $3.75MM per - only one of which saw him spend time in an Arizona prison, and also only one of which he was much good at playing goal.
- Comrie - 1 yr, $1.25MM - decent gamble but sidelined by mononucleosis and injuries
- Martin Gerber - 2 yrs, $1.8MM per - good goalie, but basically used as third string during this period.
- Eric Belanger - 3 yrs, $1.75MM per - played terribly, struggled with the team dynamics (maybe not entirely his fault), hated by the media around the team (again, that's not necessarily a fault for him), bought out of the last year.
- Ben Eager - 3 yrs, $1.1MM per - after his first year, he played more in the AHL (53 games) than for the Oilers (21 games)
- Darcy Hordichuk - 1 yr, $825K - He scored 3 points that year...then Tambo re-signed him for a second tour of duty (where he played 85% of his games in the AHL)
- Andy Sutton - 1 yr, $1.5MM - he actually exceeded expectations here.
- and farmhands with a cup of coffee in Corey Potter and Yann Danis.

I think at one point in Oil Change, don't they briefly show his screen and he had up the then equivalent of CapFriendly.com? That was the high point of Oilers analytics in that era too.

But he didn't make any trades that flat out crippled the franchise and we didn't reduce all our young players to useless bags of crap. So as bad as he was - and I think he was atrocious - I might still give him the edge over MacTavish and Chiarelli. Holland's been pretty disgustingly awful too...he just has the best tools to work with, in part because the other guys were all so jaw-droppingly bad before him.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks

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Season 40 (NHL 33); 2012-13:Short and not so Sweet [message #825470 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Mon, 18 September 2023 22:44

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://scontent.fyxd3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.18169-9/945984_10151587152162128_1110139546_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=cdbe9c&_nc_ohc=QNcF7-4pjqIAX9IIjnS&_nc_ht=scontent.fyxd3-1.fna&oh=00_AfDklcf-ENysKLa_PtMrolZbd54mtvxvJ_XC76dFqWUqIA&oe=6530AA12


	Coach: Ralph Krueger						
	GM: Steve Tambellini (16-18-7) and Craig MacTavish (3-4-0)						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		19	22	4	3	45	0.469
		GF:	125	GA:	134		
		Finish:	12th Western Conference (24th overall)--Out of Playoffs				
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	Hall, Taylor	F	45	16	34	50	
2	Gagner, Sam	F	48	14	24	38	
3	Eberle, Jordan	F	48	16	21	37	
4	Yakupov, Nail	F	48	17	14	31	
5	Schultz, Justin	D	48	8	19	27	
6	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	40	4	20	24	
7	Hemsky, Ales	F	38	9	11	20	
8	Paajarvi, Magnus	F	42	9	7	16	
9	Whitney, Ryan	D	34	4	9	13	
10	Smyth, Ryan	F	47	2	11	13	
11	Horcoff, Shawn	F	31	7	5	12	
12	Petry, Jeff	D	48	3	9	12	
13	Petrell, Lennart	F	35	3	6	9	
14	Schultz, Nick	D	48	1	8	9	
15	Jones, Ryan	F	27	2	5	7	
16	Fistric, Mark	D	25	0	6	6	
17	Potter, Corey	D	33	3	1	4	
18	Smid, Ladislav	D	48	1	3	4	
19	Hartikainen, Teemu	F	23	1	2	3	
20	Belanger, Eric	F	26	0	3	3	
21	Eager, Ben	F	14	1	1	2	
22	Smithson, Jerred	F	10	1	0	1	
23	Lander, Anton	F	11	0	1	1	
24	Brown, Mike	F	27	1	0	1	
25	Arcobello, Mark	F	1	0	0	0	
26	Peckham, Theo	D	4	0	0	0	
27	Hordichuk, Darcy	F	4	0	0	0	
28	Vande Velde, Chris	F	11	0	0	0	
	 						
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Dubnyk, Devan	38	2101	2.57	0.920	14-16-6	
2	Khabibulin, Nikolai	12	684	2.54	0.923	4-6-1	
3	Danis, Yann	3	110	3.82	0.881	1-0-0

Transactions

June 22, 2012
• 2012 NHL entry draft (round 1)—Oilers selected Nail Yakupov (1).

June 23, 2012
• 2012 NHL entry draft (rounds 2-7)—Oilers selected Jujhar Khaira (63).

July 1, 2012
• Signed Justin Schultz as free agent (formely with Anaheim).
• Taylor Chorney signed as free agent by St. Louis.

NHL lockout, September 16, 2012 to January 12, 2013. No transactions.

January 13, 2013
• Cam Barker signed as free agent by Vancouver.

January 14, 2013
• 3rd round pick in 2013 (Niklas Hansson) traded to Dallas for Mark Fistric.

March 4, 2013
• 4th round pick in 2014 (Nicholas Magyar (Colorado)) traded to Toronto for Mike Brown.

April 3, 2013
• 4th round pick in 2013 (Matt Buckles) traded to Florida for Jerred Smithson.

So after three years coaching in Edmonton, the last two as the head coach, Tom Renney had not been able to get the team out of the basement, and it would cost him his job, as he was terminated in the off-season. The Oilers promoted assistant Ralph Krueger up to the head job. Krueger had spent a long time coaching the Swiss national team, and this would be his first NHL head coaching gig.

Two other big things happened in the offseason, both fortunate for the team. They had won the draft lottery and would draft 1st overall for the third consecutive season. They would pick skilled but enigmatic forward Nail Yakupov and immediately add him to their roster. The other big news was that the Oilers had won the bidding war for the services of college defenseman Justin Schultz. Schultz was a 2nd round pick of the Ducks (ironically using one of the picks the Ducks got from the Oilers in the Penner signing), but used a loophole to become a UFA and sign with Edmonton. He was highly touted at this point, and his signing was considered a big win for Edmonton.

Then we had to wait as yet another lockout delayed the start of the season until January 2013. A shortened 48 game season would be played. Many thought the Oilers would have an advantage going into the season, as many of thier top players (Hall, Eberle, Nugent-Hopkins, and Justin Schultz) had played in the AHL during the lockout and it was hoped they would be more up to speed.

Devan Dubnyk played almost the full season in goal for Edmonton, with Khabibulin in the last year of his deal and relegated to backup duty. Dubnyk was quite good (as was Khabibulin in his limited time) and he seemed destined to be the Oilers goalie going forward. Hmm....

On defense, all eyes were on Justin Schultz, especially after he absolutely tore up the AHL during the lockout, getting 48 points in 34 games. This was a ridiculous total for a rookie defnseman, and obviously he wouldn't be able to sustain this at the NHL level. He was still good, playing all 48 games and leading the Oilers' blueliners with 27 points. Also playing all the games were Petry, Smid, and Nick Schultz. Petry had a bit of a down year, while Smid and Nultz were solid if unspectacular. Rounding out the d-core, Whitney was better than the previous year in his limited 34 games (still not even close to his peak) and newcomers playing semi-regular shifts were Mark Fistric and Corey Potter, neither of whom were too impressive at this point.

After two injury plagued under-performing seasons, Hall finally broke out. He was healthy (missing just 3 games because of suspension) and got 50 points in 45 games, easily leading the team. Gagner and Eberle were right behind getting 38 and 37 points respctively, while Yakupov had a decent rookie season leading the team (and all rookies) with 17 goals. After this group it was mostly sub-par campaigns; RNH managed just 24 points and 4 goals while Paajarvi was better that the previous season, but still trying to find his offense. The veterans Horcoff, Hemsky, and Smyth did not shine, each getting well below point expectations. Rounding out the bottom forwards we had Petrell, Jones, Eager, Belanger back for more with a couple of new guys in Teemu Hartikainen and Mike Brown. None of these really stood out.

So with their core of young guys ready to go in a short season there was some hope that maybe they could do some damage this year. They started out ok, had a bit of down period in February, and then at the end of March went on a five game winning streak to put themselves over 0.500 and on the cusp of a playoff spot at the tradeline. Tambellini responded by sitting on his hands (only acquiring little used Jerrod Smithson) and the Oilers then went into an April free fall, losing their next six games and quickly being knocked out of contention. Tambellini would be fired with 7 games left in the season, and Craig MacTavish was brought back into the fold to be the new GM.

In the end their record was 19-22-7; certainly another improvement but still a long way to go before they could make a serious ran at a playoff birth.

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Re: Season 40 (NHL 33); 2012-13:Short and not so Sweet [message #825471 is a reply to message #825470 ]	Tue, 19 September 2023 01:57

Adam
Messages: 7174
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

I think you missed a few details on this one!

- best Oilers draft pick of this year was Erik Gustafsson!
- Renney wasn't really terminated, his contract was up. The Oilers asked him to write an essay explaining why he should be asked back and what his plan for the next season would be if he did. Apparently the essay wasn't good enough, or it was just a single pointed sentence to Tambellini.
- Nuge was really limited due to injury - he had a shoulder surgery after his year was finally shut down, and could barely shoot the puck all year.
- Hemsky also was seriously injured, breaking his foot in March, and eventually getting shut down in April...the day after the Mark Spector hatchet piece on him that the team never responded to.

It was mentioned earlier in the thread, but again, outside of the Schultz signing, what a miserable year for Tambellini. Critical season, and they did nothing other than fire the coach (despite saying that they planned to be awful in both of those seasons). Just hoped it would all work out. Even the injury management was dithering...

I always wonder if the management had done anything at the deadline if it makes any difference. Nuge and Hemsky would have been hard to replace and they weren't coming back. The old guys were all really starting to decline so probably didn't have a lot more in the tank. That losing streak was devastating and a big part of what ended Krueger's tenure here, but in hindsight, it's hard to imagine the team holding their spot once the injuries piled up. And if they made the playoffs, they're probably out quick, and we just get a much lower pick than the one that got us Darnell Nurse.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks

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Season 41 (NHL 34); 2013-14: Eakins' World [message #825490 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Thu, 21 September 2023 01:08

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/members-of-the-edmonton-oilers-pose-for-the-official-20132014-team-picture-id488845087


	Coach: Dallas Eakins						
	GM: Craig MacTavish						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		29	44	6	3	67	0.409
		GF:	203	GA:	270		
		Finish:	7th Pacific Division; 14th Western Conference (28th overall)--Out of Playoffs				
							
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	Hall, Taylor	F	75	27	53	80	
2	Eberle, Jordan	F	80	28	37	65	
3	Perron, David	F	78	28	29	57	
4	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	80	19	37	56	
5	Gagner, Sam	F	67	10	27	37	
6	Schultz, Justin	D	74	11	22	33	
7	Hemsky, Ales	F	55	9	17	26	
8	Yakupov, Nail	F	63	11	13	24	
9	Smyth, Ryan	F	72	10	13	23	
10	Gordon, Boyd	F	74	8	13	21	
11	Arcobello, Mark	F	41	4	14	18	
12	Ference, Andrew	D	71	3	15	18	
13	Petry, Jeff	D	80	7	10	17	
14	Larsen, Philip	D	30	3	9	12	
15	Belov, Anton	D	57	1	6	7	
16	Marincin, Martin	D	44	0	6	6	
17	Jones, Ryan	F	52	2	4	6	
18	Potter, Corey	D	16	0	5	5	
19	Acton, Will	F	30	3	2	5	
20	Joensuu, Jesse	F	42	3	2	5	
21	Schultz, Nick	D	60	0	4	4	
22	Gazdic, Luke	F	67	2	2	4	
23	Klefbom, Oscar	D	17	1	2	3	
24	Hendricks, Matt	F	33	3	0	3	
25	Fedun, Taylor	D	4	2	0	2	
26	Pinizzotto, Steve	F	6	0	2	2	
27	Smid, Ladislav	D	17	1	1	2	
28	Horak, Roman	F	2	1	0	1	
29	Grebeshkov, Denis	D	7	0	1	1	
30	Eager, Ben	F	7	0	1	1	
31	Pitlick, Tyler	F	10	1	0	1	
32	Fraser, Mark	D	23	1	0	1	
33	Lander, Anton	F	27	0	1	1	
34	Omark, Linus	F	1	0	0	0	
35	Hamilton, Ryan	F	2	0	0	0	
36	Hunt, Brad	D	3	0	0	0	
37	Brown, Mike	F	8	0	0	0	
	 						
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Dubnyk, Devan	32	1678	3.36	0.894	11-17-2	
2	Scrivens, Ben	21	1235	3.01	0.916	9-11-0	
3	Bryzgalov, Ilya	20	1135	3.01	0.908	5-8-5	
4	Fasth Viktor	7	396	2.73	0.914	3-3-1	
5	Labarbera, Jason	7	348	3.28	0.870	1-3-0	
6	Bachman, Richard	3	139	3.02	0.916	0-2-1

Transactions

May 30, 2013
• Signed Anton Belov as free agent.

June 30, 2013
• 2nd round pick in 2013 (Valentin Zykov) traded to Los Angeles for 2nd (William Carrier (St. Louis)), 3rd (Anton Slepyshev), and 4th (Kyle Platzer*) round picks in 2013.
• 2nd round pick in 2013 (William Carrier) traded to St. Louis for 3rd (Bogdan Yakimov), and two 4th (Jason Houck* and Aidan Muir*) round picks in 2013.
• 2013 NHL entry draft—Oilers selected Darnell Nurse (7), Bogdan Yakimov (83), and Anton Slepyshev (88).

July 5, 2013
• Shawn Horcoff traded to Dallas for Philip Larsen and 7th round pick in 2016 (Otto Somppi (Tampa Bay)).
• Signed Andrew Ference (formerly with Boston) as free agent.
• Signed Boyd Gordon (formerly with Phoenix) as free agent.
• Signed Jason Labarbera (formerly with Phoenix) as free agent.
• Signed Jesse Joensuu (formerly with NY Islanders) as free agent.
• Yann Danis signed as free agent by Philadelphia.
• Signed Ryan Hamilton (formerly with Toronto) as free agent.
• Signed Will Acton as free agent.
• Nikolai Khabibulin signed as free agent by Chicago.

July 6, 2013
• Signed Richard Bachman (formerly with Dallas) as free agent.
• Signed Brad Hunt as free agent.

July 10, 2013
• Magnus Paajarvi, 2nd round pick in 2014 (Ivan Barbashev), and 4th round pick in 2015 (Adam Musil) traded to St. Louis for David Perron and 3rd round pick in 2015 (Mike Robinson (San Jose)).

July 12, 2013
• Signed Derek Nesbitt* (formerly with Pittsburgh) as free agent.

July 18, 2013
• Signed Denis Grebeshkov (formerly with Nashville) as free agent.

July 19, 2013
• Theo Peckham signed as free agent by Chicago.

July 29, 2013
• Bryan Rodney signed as free agent by Nashville.

August 20, 2013
• Mark Fistric signed as free agent by Anaheim.

September 29, 2013
• Claimed Luke Gazdic on waivers from Dallas.
• Ryan Whitney signed as free agent by Florida.

October 21, 2013
• Mike Brown traded to San Jose for 4th round pick in 2014 (Zach Nagelvoort*).

November 6, 2013
• Jerred Smithson signed as free agent by Toronto.

November 8, 2013
• Olivier Roy* and Ladislav Smid traded to Calgary for Laurent Brossoit and Roman Horak.
• Signed Ilya Bryzgalov (formerly with Philadelphia) as free agent.

December 12, 2013
• Chris Vande Velde signed as free agent by Philadelphia.

December 14, 2013
• Jason Labarbera traded to Chicago for future considerations (not exercised).

December 19, 2013
• Linus Omark traded to Buffalo for conditional 6th round pick in 2014 (not exercised).

January 15, 2014
• Devan Dubnyk traded to Nashville for Matt Hendricks.
• 3rd round pick in 2014 (Dominic Turgeon (Detroit)) traded to Los Angeles for Ben Scrivens.

January 17, 2014
• Ryan Martindale* and Derek Nesbitt* traded to Florida for Jack Combs* and Steve Pinizzotto.

January 31, 2014
• Cameron Abney* and Teemu Hartikainen traded to Toronto for Mark Fraser.

March 4, 2014
• 5th round pick in 2014 (Matthew Berkovitz) and 3rd round pick in 2015 (Dennis Yan (Tampa Bay)) traded to Anaheim for Viktor Fasth.
• Ilya Bryzgalov traded to Minnesota for 4th round pick in 2014 (William Lagesson).

March 5, 2014
• Corey Potter claimed on waivers by Boston.
• Ales Hemsky traded to Ottawa for 5th round pick in 2014 (Liam Coughlin*) and 3rd round pick in 2015 (Sergey Zborovskiy (NY Rangers)).
• Nick Schultz traded to Columbus for 5th round pick in 2014 (Tyler Bird (Columbus)).

March 31, 2014
• Signed Jordan Oesterle as free agent.

April 17, 2014
• Signed Andrew Miller as free agent.

This year marked some realignment for the league, as the six division format was abandoned for the 4-division format that continues today. There were 14 teams in the west and 16 in the east with the understanding that expansion would soon balance this out (as we now know would happen). The top 3 teams in each division plus two wild card times in each conference made the playoffs. The Oilers were now in the Pacific Division with Calgary, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Jose, and Phoenix.

On the Oiler front we would get a lot of change under new GM MacTavish. MacT had given verbal assurance to Ralph Krueger that he would continue on as head coach; but then he interviewed Dallas Eakins, fell in love, and soon after fired Krueger and hired Eakins as the Oilers' new head coach.

MacTavish then got busy remaking the team in his own image. While Tambellini was often accused of sitting on his hands, this was not an issue for MacT. Horcoff’s 15 years in the organization would end as he was dealt to Dallas. He then proceeded to sign a whole slew of players, the most prominent ones being Anton Belov (a highly touted KHL d-man), Andrew Ference (a main stay d-man from the Bruins), Jason Labarbera (a backup goalie), and Boyd Gordon (a defensive center). He even brought back Denis Grebeshkov for a second go-round. Shortly after that he made his biggest splash acquiring scoring winger David Perron from the Blues in exchange for Paajarvi. Whitney, Peckham, and Khabibulin would also depart as UFAs.

This was probably the messiest goaltending season in Oiler history. At the beginning of the season Dubnyk was the starter with Labarbera backing him. Dubnyk was a bit out of form from his previous two seasons to start, while Labarbera really struggled in his limited appearances. So MacT traded away Labarbera and signed UFA Ilya Brygalov, a former all-star who had struggled recently in Philadelphia and was bought out of a huge multi-year deal. Dubnyk and Bryzgalov shared duties for a while (Dubnyk was still the main guy), but MacTavish grew impatient and decided to make another change, trading Dubnyk to Nashville (for fourth line centre Matt Hendricks) and acquiring Edmonton native Ben Scrivens from the Kings. Scrivens had shown some good stuff with the Kings while Quick had been injured and MacT felt he would be an upgrade. Scrivens did play better than Dubnyk had (most memorably in a 60 shot shutout of the Sharks), but MacT still wasn’t done. At the trade deadline he shipped of Brygalov and acquired Viktor Fasth, and the Scrivens/Fasth duo would be the Oiler goaltending for the next little while.

On defence, the Oilers began the year with a top 6 of Justin and Nick Schultz, Petry, Ference (named the new captain), Smid, and Belov. Jultz would be their only major scoring threat from the back-end. Petry and Ference had ok if not spectacular seasons, while Belov had some trouble adjusting to the NHL game and never could get any offense going. Smid would be traded early in the year, while Nultz would be dealt at the deadline. Also seeing time on the backend were Potter (claimed on waivers late), Phillip Larsen (acquired in Horcoff deal), Martin Marincin (a 2010 2nd rounder), and Mark Fraser (a mid-season acquisition). Grebeshkov’s return was a big flop as he played just 7 games, spending the rest in the minors.

At forward, Hall continued to develop and improve. He lead the team again in points, this time potting 80 in 75 games. Eberle, Perron, and Nugent-Hopkins (who rebounded nicely from his sophomore season) all had decent seasons as well. Gagner had his worst season, but still managed 37 points to finish 5th in team scoring. Yakupov had a sophomore slump with just 24 points and 11 goals. Veterans Hemsky and Smyth would see their last days in Oilers silks. Hemsky after cruising along with mediocre numbers was dealt at the deadline for draft picks, while Smyth was on his last legs and would retire at the end of the season. On the lower lines Gordon was decent enough, Marc Arcebello (a free agent signing) showed a bit of offensive talent, while Jones seemed to lose all his offensive ability. Other contributors were Joensuu, Will Acton, Luke Gadzic, Matt Hendricks, and Anton Lander who all played a few games but didn’t do anything to remember.

This season was a disaster right from the start. Eakins tried to implement his coaching style and it just never worked. The team was brutal out of the gate and never recovered, having a losing record in every month of the season. The baby steps they had taken forward the last two seasons were erased as they regressed getting 67 points, which put them last place in the west and third last overall. After seven years of no playoffs it was incredibly disheartening to actually get worse this year. And we were by no means done with the suckitude yet….

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Re: Season 41 (NHL 34); 2013-14: Eakins' World [message #825491 is a reply to message #825490 ]	Thu, 21 September 2023 08:54

CrusaderPi
Messages: 7803
Registered: December 2003
Location: AB Highway 100

6 Cups

2013-14 is the season that broke me. If you're ever wondering why I'm such a miserable sod about the Oilers, this season is the reason. I held a 1/3 share of season tickets this year and it sucked. I remember clearly having a tickets to a late season weekday game against the Kings (who would win the Stanley Cup in a couple of months). I couldn't give the tickets away so I took my dad and we just sat up in the mid 200s being miserable. Even during warmups we could see the Kings were bigger, faster, and snapped the puck around better. The Oilers were a total speedbump getting shut out in a game where the Kings stopped playing their good players very early.

https://www.hockey-reference.com/boxscores/201404100EDM.html

I called my buddy and said I wasn't renewing for the next season after that.

Please do not feed the bears. Feeding the bears creates a dependent population unable to survive on their own. Bears.

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Re: Season 41 (NHL 34); 2013-14: Eakins' World [message #825495 is a reply to message #825491 ]	Thu, 21 September 2023 10:39

Adam
Messages: 7174
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

CrusaderPi wrote on Thu, 21 September 2023 08:54

I remember having tickets to a couple early games and watching the team do baffling things over and over that resulted in glorious chances against. The first few times it just looked like players were making awful mistakes, until you started realizing that no - the whole system was designed that way. We so often didn't have a defenceman anywhere near the slot, because Eakins wanted them aggressively attacking the puck carrier - and then we'd just get picked apart.

Our goaltending got pilloried that year, especially Dubnyk, but the system hung them out to dry. Just so many point blank chances against. Having the coach suggest within the first 6 weeks of the season that the whole team doesn't understand how to play defence was pretty special too.

Looking at that incredible list of transactions, MacTavish makes a pretty great case for himself as the worst Oilers GM. And that's not even including all the verbal mistakes, which include:

- Schultz is a future Norris candidate
- Dubnyk "if you have to ask the question..."
- Petry - can only have so many $4MM price point defencemen AND one-year show-me deal!
- Hemsky & Horcoff - told the world that he thinks the team needs to move on from them (leading to hilariously low value offers and liquidation value trades)
- leaked every trade or signing he didn't accomplish
- "box checked" on goaltending with Scrivens & Fasth.

I think towards the end of this year was some of the first Oilers games I hate-watched. The end of Eakins tenure was worse, but it was pretty frustratingly clear that things were not going well. All of Smid, Hemsky and Bryzgalov throwing shade at the coach after they left was pretty stunning to see. Just not something that happens often.

And the media was at their water-carrying best during this point in time - continually selling Eakins as some kind of wunderkind right up until he was fired at which point they all immediately exhaled and told stories about the weird things he was doing, the practices where he lectured more than anyone skated, the fact they never really were sure he was the right guy. The team wasted a year and a half on one of the worst coaches ever, the media all thought he was a joke, and the only criticism they were ever willing to level while he was here was that he took away their doughnuts. Cowards, all.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks

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Re: Season 41 (NHL 34); 2013-14: Eakins' World [message #825500 is a reply to message #825495 ]	Thu, 21 September 2023 12:26

Dragon_Matt
Messages: 766
Registered: January 2009
Location: edmonton

No Cups

I enjoy that one of this seasons highlights was Scrivens 59 shot shutout... THEY GOT 59 SHOTS ON NET and 100 shot attempts... that is outstanding.

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Re: Season 41 (NHL 34); 2013-14: Eakins' World [message #825513 is a reply to message #825495 ]	Fri, 22 September 2023 20:00

stemhovlichski
Messages: 349
Registered: March 2006
Location: NSR

No Cups

Taylor Hall soaking Eakins with the water bottle was the high point of the season for me. The mini-mite scramble defence looked horrible from Day One but they stuck with it. The team turned itself off and mailed in so many games, but I can't blame the players. This season was the epitome of management suck.

Restored: "We're sucking hind banana here." - Pat Quinn, Jan 18, 2010

"...the Oilers have been rebuilding for so long that it’s hard not to be cynical." - NBC's Ryan Dadoun Jan 2, 2015

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Season 42 (NHL 35), 2014-15: Misery continues [message #825607 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Thu, 28 September 2023 18:39

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/members-of-the-edmonton-oilers-pose-for-the-official-20142015-team-picture-id469605102


	Coach: Dallas Eakins (7-19-5) and Todd Nelson (17-25-9)						
	GM: Craig MacTavish						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		24	44	7	7	62	0.378
		GF:	198	GA:	283		
		Finish:	6th Pacific Division; 13th Western Conference (28th overall)--Out of Playoffs				
							
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	Eberle, Jordan	F	81	24	39	63	
2	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	76	24	32	56	
3	Hall, Taylor	F	53	14	24	38	
4	Pouliot, Benoit	F	58	19	15	34	
5	Purcell, Teddy	F	82	12	22	34	
6	Yakupov, Nail	F	81	14	19	33	
7	Schultz, Justin	D	81	6	25	31	
8	Roy, Derek	F	46	11	11	22	
9	Lander, Anton	F	38	6	14	20	
10	Klefbom, Oscar	D	60	2	18	20	
11	Perron, David	F	38	5	14	19	
12	Hendricks, Matt	F	71	8	8	16	
13	Petry, Jeff	D	59	4	11	15	
14	Ference, Andrew	D	70	3	11	14	
15	Gordon, Boyd	F	68	6	7	13	
16	Arcobello, Mark	F	36	7	5	12	
17	Nikitin, Nikita	D	42	4	6	10	
18	Fraser, Matt	F	36	5	4	9	
19	Draisaitl, Leon	F	37	2	7	9	
20	Fayne, Mark	D	74	2	6	8	
21	Miller, Andrew	F	9	1	5	6	
22	Marincin, Martin	D	41	1	4	5	
23	Pinizzotto, Steve	F	18	2	2	4	
24	Joensuu, Jesse	F	20	2	2	4	
25	Hunt, Brad	D	11	1	2	3	
26	Pakarinen, Iiro	F	17	1	2	3	
27	Gazdic, Luke	F	40	2	1	3	
28	Klinkhammer, Rob	F	40	1	2	3	
29	Musil, David	D	4	0	2	2	
30	Hamilton, Ryan	F	16	1	1	2	
31	Pitlick, Tyler	F	17	2	0	2	
32	Oesterle, Jordan	D	6	0	1	1	
33	Davidson, Brandon	D	12	1	0	1	
34	Aulie, Keith	D	31	0	1	1	
35	Hamilton, Curtis	F	1	0	0	0	
36	Yakimov, Bogdan	F	1	0	0	0	
37	Nurse, Darnell	D	2	0	0	0	
38	Acton, Will	F	3	0	0	0	
	 						
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Scrivens, Ben	57	3228	3.16	0.890	15-26-11	
2	Fasth Viktor	26	1336	3.41	0.888	6-15-3	
3	Bachman, Richard	7	317	2.84	0.911	3-2-0	
4	Brossoit, Laurent	1	60	2.00	0.961	0-1-0	
5	Bunz, Tyler	1	20	9.00	0.750	0-0-0

Transactions

June 16, 2014
• Signed Iiro Pakarinen (formerly with Forida) as free agent.

June 25, 2014
• 5th round pick in 2014 (Tyler Bird) traded to Columbus for Nikita Nikitin.

June 27, 2014
• 2014 NHL entry draft (round 1)—Oilers selected Leon Draisaitl (3).

June 28, 2014
• 2014 NHL entry draft (rounds 2-7)—Oilers selected William Lagesson (91) and Liam Coughlin* (130).

June 29, 2014
• Sam Gagner traded to Tampa Bay for Teddy Purcell.

July 1, 2014
• Signed Mark Fayne (formerly with New Jersey) as free agent.
• Signed Benoit Pouliot (formerly with NY Rangers) as free agent.
• Taylor Fedun signed as free agent by San Jose.
• Signed Keith Aulie (formerly with Tampa Bay) as free agent.

November 20, 2014
• Will Acton traded to Vancouver for Kellan Lain*.

December 18, 2014
• Mark Fraser signed as free agent by New Jersey.

December 29, 2014
• Claimed Matt Fraser on waivers from Boston.
• Mark Arcobello traded to Nashville for Derek Roy.

January 2, 2015
• David Perron traded to Pittsburgh for Rob Klinkhammer and 1st round pick in 2015 (Mathew Barzal (NY Islanders)).

March 2, 2015
• Jeff Petry traded to Montreal for 2nd (Jonas Siegenthaler (Washington)) and 4th (Caleb Jones) round picks in 2015.

So another terrible season meant another high draft pick for the Oilers—they used their 3rd overall pick to select the young German centre Leon Draisaitl—we’ll have to keep an eye on that guy. Outside of that MacTavish did continue to tinker, although not the extent he did in the previous season. Gagner was dealt after seven years as an Oiler, with forward Teddy Purcell coming back in the deal. Other acquisitions included new free agent defensemen Mark Fayne and Nikita Nikitin as well as forwards Benoit Pouliot and Iiro Pakarinen.

After the chaos of the previous season, this year’s goaltending was more established with Scrivens as the clear starter and Fasth as the backup. Unfortunately, neither had very good years—both had sub 0.900 save percentages and Scrivens particularly never seemed as sharp as he did late in the 13-14 season.

The defense was quite different this year. Jeff Schultz, Petry, and Ference were the only regular returnees. Newly acquired Fayne and Nikitin slotted in along with Oscar Klefbom—a first round pick from 2011 who finally made the jump to the big leagues. The seventh guy was another high round pick in Martin Marincin who had been marinating in the minors since being a 2nd round pick in 2010. This septet of blueliners were at best ok. Schultz was starting to lose favour as his point totals dipped and he started to be exposed in his own end. Petry had an ok season, but his UFA status (MacTavish had foolishly signed him to a one year deal) meant he was dealt at the deadline for picks. Ference and Fayne were the shut down guys. Klefbom made the biggest splash, showing well in his rookie season, while Nikitin was a disappointment, not able to match some of the flashiness he had shown in previous years.

The Oilers main group of young forwards were all back. Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins were the standouts of the group, both having good seasons. Hall had his worst season as an Oiler—missing 29 games with injury and being limited to just 38 points. Yakupov was a bit better than the previous year (particularly in the second half of the year—see below), but still far from where fans expected from a first overall pick. Perron started poorly before getting slightly disgruntled, which would lead to his being dealt mid-season (for a 1st round pick). New recruits Pouliot and Perron were decent enough, and perhaps the most pleasant surprise was Derek Roy. Roy was acquired (for sometimes used Mark Arcabello) mid-season, and seemed to fit in well, generating some chemistry with Yakupov which gave some hope to fans. Rounding out the bottom forwards were Hendricks, Gordon, Lander, and various other guys who came and went (I won’t mention them all). Oh yeah, what about that Draisaitl guy? He made the team out of camp and played 37 games, but mostly struggled mightily with just 9 points (hard to believe now). He would be sent back to junior in December where he really regained some confidence.

After getting through October with a reasonable 4-5-1 record, the Oilers took a complete nosedive in November and December, (4-17-7). This lead to the end of Dallas Eakins who was fired and replaced by Todd Nelson who had been coaching the Oilers’ AHL affiliate. This switch did seem to galvanize the team somewhat as they were better (but still not very good) the rest of the way. In the end, they wound up with a 24-44-14 record and yet another miserable 62 point season. Fans went into the offseason with a lot of dread and most had no hope that MacTavish would be able to pull them out of this…..

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Re: Season 42 (NHL 35), 2014-15: Misery continues [message #825609 is a reply to message #825607 ]	Thu, 28 September 2023 21:59

Adam
Messages: 7174
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

benv wrote on Thu, 28 September 2023 18:39

This lead to the end of Dallas Eakins who was fired and replaced by Todd Nelson who had been coaching the Oilers’ AHL affiliate.

You forgot to mention the five games with MacTavish as Co-coach! Certainly one of the weirdest moments in this awful stretch of years. After getting slaughtered in the bulk of those games, going 0-3-2, MacT declared Nelson finally ready and stepped aside. The official record book lists MacT as head coach and Nelson as assistant for those games.

It's actually mind-boggling that Dallas Eakins landed another NHL head coaching job post-Edmonton, while Nelson has never yet had another opportunity. In the time since, he's had four years as an AHL head coach (winning the championship twice with different teams!!!) and four more as an assistant in Dallas, but never a shot at the big league head job again.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks

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Season 43 (NHL 36); 2015-16: 5-14-6-1 [message #825653 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Sat, 30 September 2023 22:19

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.e59d845718007ce59abb0d0fd8fd3657?rik=JUbS0sRpx5KRFg&riu=http%3a%2f%2fvafloc02.s3.amazonaws.com%2fisyn%2fimages%2ff717%2fimg-1952717-f.jpg&ehk=KN%2bpsPjnu6yWVbRHQC%2fKt823bKmnEU2nX1JHv64XCAs%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0


	Coach: Todd McLellan						
	GM: Peter Chiarelli						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		31	43	5	3	70	0.427
		GF:	203	GA:	245		
		Finish:	7th Pacific Division; 14th Western Conference (29th overall)--Out of Playoffs				
							
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	Hall, Taylor	F	82	26	39	65	
2	Draisaitl, Leon	F	72	19	32	51	
3	McDavid, Connor	F	45	16	32	48	
4	Eberle, Jordan	F	69	25	22	47	
5	Pouliot, Benoit	F	55	14	22	36	
6	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	55	12	22	34	
7	Purcell, Teddy	F	61	11	21	32	
8	Sekera, Andrej	D	81	6	24	30	
9	Letestu, Mark	F	82	10	15	25	
10	Yakupov, Nail	F	60	8	15	23	
11	Korpikoski, Lauri	F	71	10	12	22	
12	Maroon, Patrick	F	16	8	6	14	
13	Pakarinen, Iiro	F	63	5	8	13	
14	Klefbom, Oscar	D	30	4	8	12	
15	Hendricks, Matt	F	68	5	7	12	
16	Davidson, Brandon	D	51	4	7	11	
17	Schultz, Justin	D	45	3	7	10	
18	Nurse, Darnell	D	69	3	7	10	
19	Kassian, Zack	F	36	3	5	8	
20	Fayne, Mark	D	69	2	5	7	
21	Clendening, Adam	D	20	1	5	6	
22	Gryba, Eric	D	53	1	5	6	
23	Oesterle, Jordan	D	17	0	5	5	
24	Pardy, Adam	D	9	0	3	3	
25	Lander, Anton	F	61	1	2	3	
26	Khaira, Jujhar	F	15	0	2	2	
27	Nikitin, Nikita	D	11	0	1	1	
28	Slepyshev, Anton	F	11	0	1	1	
29	Klinkhammer, Rob	F	14	1	0	1	
30	Reinhart, Griffin	D	29	0	1	1	
31	Gazdic, Luke	F	29	1	0	1	
32	Ference, Andrew	D	6	0	0	0	
33	Miller, Andrew	F	6	0	0	0	
34	Hunt, Brad	D	7	0	0	0	
35	Cracknell, Adam	F	8	0	0	0	
	 						
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Talbot, Cam	56	3223	2.55	0.917	21-27-5	
2	Nilsson, Anders	26	1413	3.14	0.901	10-12-2	
3	Brossoit, Laurent	5	300	3.60	0.873	0-4-1

Transactions

June 26, 2015
• 2015 NHL entry draft (round 1)—Oilers selected Connor McDavid (1).
• 1st (Mathew Barzal) and 2nd (Mitchell Stephens (Tampa Bay)) round picks in 2015 traded to NY Islanders for Griffin Reinhart.

June 27, 2015
• 2nd (Jonas Siegenthaler (Washington)), 3rd (Sergei Zborovskiy), and 7th (Adam Huska) round picks in 2015 traded to NY Rangers for Cam Talbot and 7th round pick in 2015 (Ziyat Paigin*).
• Martin Marincin traded to Toronto for Brad Ross* and 4th round pick in 2015 (Filip Ahl (Ottawa)).
• Travis Ewanyk* and 4th round pick in 2015 (Filip Ahl) traded to Ottawa for Eric Gryba.
• 2015 NHL entry draft (rounds 2-7)—Oilers selected Caleb Jones (117) and Ethan Bear (124).

June 30, 2015
• Boyd Gordon traded to Arizona for Lauri Korpikoski.

July 1, 2015
• Signed Andrej Sekera (formerly with Los Angeles) as free agent.
• Signed Mark Letestu (formerly with Columbus) as free agent.
• Richard Bachman signed as free agent by Vancouver.

July 2, 2015
• Matt Fraser signed as free agent by Winnipeg.

July 6, 2015
• Liam Coughlin* traded to Chicago for Anders Nilsson.

December 28, 2015
• Ben Scrivens traded to Montreal for Zack Kassian.

January 27, 2016
• Claimed Adam Clendening on waivers from Anaheim.

February 24, 2016
• Philip Larsen traded to Vancouver for 5th round pick in 2017 (Michael Karow (Arizona)).

February 27, 2016
• Anders Nilsson traded to St. Louis for Niklas Lundstrom* and 5th round pick in 2016 (Graham McPhee*).
• Teddy Purcell traded to Florida for 3rd round pick in 2016 (Matthew Cairns*).
• Justin Schultz traded to Pittsburgh for 3rd round pick in 2016 (Filip Berglund*).

February 29, 2016
• Claimed Adam Cracknell on waivers from Vancouver.
• Claimed Adam Pardy on waivers from Winnipeg.
• Martin Gernat* and 4th round pick in 2016 (Jack Kopacka) traded to Anaheim for Patrick Maroon.

No sooner had the miserable 14-15 season ended when MacTavish announced that 15-16 would be another rebuilding season for the team, angering some fans who needed to see some team success….

And then the miracle happened. The Oilers went in to the draft lottery with just an 11.5% chance of winning, but the balls fell their way, and they would have the first overall pick and the right to draft the most hyped player since Sidney Crosby. This stroke of good fortune seemed to be a wake-up call for the ownership group. Within days they re-assigned MacTavish and hired ex-Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli as their new general manager. Chiarelli then proceeded to bring in Todd McLellan as the new head coach; both of these moves were generally seen as positive by the fan base (although both would cost the Oilers draft picks).

And thus began a much anticipated off-season. On draft day, the Oilers drafted Connor McDavid, and then used their stockpile of draft picks to make moves for the present. Griffin Reinhart (a from 4th overall pick from the Oil Kings) was had for a mid-1st and early 2nd rounder. Cam Talbot cost a 2nd and 3rd rounder, while Eric Gryba cost a couple of prospects. The Reinhart deal has been dissected to death (it was terrible for Edmonton) but Talbot would prove worthy to be the Oilers’ goalie of the near future. The big free agent signings would be top pairing d-man Andrej Sekera, and defensive centre Mark Letestu. In other deals, Boyd Gordon was traded for the similar Lauri Korpikoski, while Anders Nilsson was acquired for extra.goaltending depth.

The Oilers went into training camp with three guys vying for the two jobs: Talbot, Nilsson, and Scrivens (Fasth had returned to Europe). Somewhat surprisingly, Scrivens lost out to Nilsson for the backup job and would spend the first half of the year in the AHL before the Oilers dealt him to Montreal for Zack Kassian in December. Talbot was the guy in net, but he struggled early on, with Nilsson actually having better numbers early in the season. Talbot eventually regained his form and was decent down the stretch, playing 56 games to Nilsson’s 26. Nilsson would be dealt away at the trade deadline with Laurent Brossoit backing up Talbot to end the season.

The defence was very patch-work with many injuries and new faces to plug in. Sekera was the one guy who played the full year and was quite good getting 30 points. No one else had more than 12. Klefbom was plagued with injuries, playing just 30 games while being less effective when he was dressed. Fayne and Gryba were steady stay at home guys playing 69 and 53 games respectively. Darnell Nurse had graduated up to the big leagues getting 69 games in. He was still green, but improving. Schultz had his most disappointing season with the team, as his confidence seemed shot and we was dealt away at the deadline for a pick. Other guys to see time were Brandon Davidson (a late 2010 pick) and of course Reinhart, who played just 29 games in Edmonton (and was not great when he played) while spending half the season in the AHL. It should be also noted that Ference went on LTIR and didn’t play the year—the Oilers chose not to name a new captain, and this would be the only season in team history where they went without a captain.

But of course all eyes were on Connor McDavid. He took a few games, but eventually started to show his incredible speed and skill and started to show dominance even at 18 years old. And then just a month into the season, Brandon Manning slammed him into the boards at Rexall and he broke his clavicle, putting him out of the lineup for over 3 months. He came back and didn’t miss a beat—he would end the season with 48 points in 45 games, and leaving Oiler fans salivating at what was to come.

It was up to the other forwards to make up for McDavid’s long absence. Draisaitl had made huge steps forward and found chemistry with Hall. The two lead the team with 51 and 65 point respectively. Eberle was able to chip in 47, while Nugent-Hopkins had an off year, also suffering an injury. Yakupov’s production continued to go in the wrong direction as he had a very disappointing 23 points. Pouliot and Purcell contributed 30+ point seasons (Purcell would be dealt at the deadline), while the bottom guys were rounded out by the likes of Letestu, Korpikoski, Pakarinen, and Hendricks. Zack Kassian was a mid-season acquisition who added some grit, while Patrick Maroon came at the deadline and showed instant chemistry with McDavid, getting 14 points in just 16 games.

The season got off to a poor start as the schedule was not favourable and the Oilers quickly found themselves behind the eight-ball. The McDavid injury seemed to drain all hope and excitement from the season, at least until he came back after the all-star break. But by then it was too late, as the Oilers were too far back from the playoff cut-off line. They would finish dead last in the Western Conference and 2nd last overall in the league—an embarrassing 10th straight season out of the playoffs.

On a final note, this would be the last season the team would play out of Rexall Place (formerly Edmonton Colliseum, Northlands Colliseum, SkyReach Centre, and probably some other names I’ve forgotten). The stadium had been home to the team for 40 years and a big ceremony was held where all former Oilers were invited back to close the stadium.

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Season 44 (NHL 37); 2016-17: Playoffs?! PLAYOFFS! [message #825745 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Fri, 06 October 2023 17:55

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://preview.redd.it/xp1xthagpzny.jpg?auto=webp&s=7f343a0c22dd61c3e47835d58241fd8120e1935e


	Coach: Todd McLellan						
	GM: Peter Chiarelli						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		47	26	4	5	103	0.628
		GF:	247	GA:	212		
	Finish: 2nd place Pacific Division; 4th place Western Conference; 8th overall						
	  						
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	McDavid, Connor	F	82	30	70	100	
2	Draisaitl, Leon	F	82	29	48	77	
3	Eberle, Jordan	F	82	20	31	51	
4	Lucic, Milan	F	82	23	27	50	
5	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	82	18	25	43	
6	Maroon, Patrick	F	81	27	15	42	
7	Klefbom, Oscar	D	82	12	26	38	
8	Letestu, Mark	F	78	16	19	35	
9	Sekera, Andrej	D	80	8	27	35	
10	Kassian, Zack	F	79	7	17	24	
11	Larsson, Adam	D	79	4	15	19	
12	Caggiula, Drake	F	60	7	11	18	
13	Benning, Matthew	D	62	3	12	15	
14	Pouliot, Benoit	F	67	8	6	14	
15	Russell, Kris	D	68	1	12	13	
16	Pitlick, Tyler	F	31	8	3	11	
17	Nurse, Darnell	D	44	5	6	11	
18	Slepyshev, Anton	F	41	4	6	10	
19	Puljujarvi, Jesse	F	28	1	7	8	
20	Hendricks, Matt	F	42	4	3	7	
21	Gryba, Eric	D	40	2	4	6	
22	Pakarinen, Iiro	F	14	2	2	4	
23	Desharnais, David	F	18	2	2	4	
24	Lander, Anton	F	22	1	3	4	
25	Fayne, Mark	D	4	0	2	2	
26	Khaira, Jujhar	F	10	1	0	1	
27	Davidson, Brandon	D	28	0	1	1	
28	Oesterle, Jordan	D	2	0	0	0	
29	Simpson, Dillon	D	3	0	0	0	
30	Beck, Taylor	F	3	0	0	0	
	 						
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Talbot, Cam	73	4294	2.39	0.919	42-22-8	
2	Brossoit, Laurent	8	332	1.99	0.928	4-1-0	
3	Gustavsson, Jonas	7	328.9666667	3.10	0.878	1-3-1	


Playoff result: Eliminated in Second Round						
Round/Team	Result	Wins	Losses	GF	GA	
1. San Jose	Win	4	2	12	14	
2. Anaheim	Loss	3	4	24	21	
						
Summary	Series: 1-1	7	6	36	35	
						
			Playoffs			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points
1	Draisaitl, Leon	F	13	6	10	16
2	Letestu, Mark	F	13	5	6	11
3	McDavid, Connor	F	13	5	4	9
4	Maroon, Patrick	F	13	3	5	8
5	Larsson, Adam	D	13	2	4	6
6	Lucic, Milan	F	13	2	4	6
7	Klefbom, Oscar	D	12	2	3	5
8	Russell, Kris	D	13	0	4	4
9	Desharnais, David	F	13	1	3	4
10	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	13	0	4	4
11	Sekera, Andrej	D	11	1	2	3
12	Benning, Matthew	D	12	0	3	3
13	Slepyshev, Anton	F	12	3	0	3
14	Caggiula, Drake	F	13	3	0	3
15	Kassian, Zack	F	13	3	0	3
16	Nurse, Darnell	D	13	0	2	2
17	Eberle, Jordan	F	13	0	2	2
18	Reinhart, Griffin	D	1	0	1	1
19	Pakarinen, Iiro	F	1	0	0	0
20	Gryba, Eric	D	3	0	0	0
21	Pouliot, Benoit	F	13	0	0	0
						
				Goalies		
						
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L
1	Talbot, Cam	13	799	2.48	0.924	7-6
2	Brossoit, Laurent	1	27	4.42	0.750	0-0

Transactions

May 7, 2016
• Signed Drake Caggiula as free agent.

May 9, 2016
• Signed Patrick Russell as free agent.

June 24, 2016
• 2016 NHL entry draft (round 1)—Oilers selected Jesse Puljujarvi (4).

June 25, 2016
• 2016 NHL entry draft (rounds 2-7)—Oilers selected Tyler Benson (32), Markus Niemelainen (63), and Vincent Desharnais (183).

June 29, 2016
• Taylor Hall traded to New Jersey for Adam Larsson.

July 1, 2016
• Signed Milan Lucic (formerly with Los Angeles) as free agent.
• Signed Jonas Gustavsson (formerly with Boston) as free agent.
• Adam Clendening signed as free agent by NY Rangers.
• Andrew Miller signed as free agent by Carolina.

July 2, 2016
• Brad Hunt signed as free agent by St. Louis.

July 3, 2016
• Adam Cracknell signed as free agent by Dallas.
• Signed Taylor Beck (formerly with Colorado) as free agent.

July 5, 2016
• Luke Gazdic signed as free agent by New Jersey.

August 27, 2016
• Signed Matt Benning (formerly with Boston) as free agent.

October 7, 2016
• Nail Yakupov traded to St. Louis for Zach Pochino* and 3rd round pick in 2017 (Cameron Crotty (Arizona)).
• Signed Kris Russell (formerly with Dallas) as free agent.

October 10, 2016
• Lauri Korpikoski signed as free agent by Dallas.

December 1, 2016
• Adam Pardy signed as free agent by Nashville.

February 28, 2017
• Brandon Davidson traded to Montreal for David Desharnais.

March 1, 2017
• Taylor Beck traded to NY Rangers for Justin Fontaine*.

March 28, 2017
• Signed Joseph Gambardella as free agent.

Chiarelli really started to put his stamp on the Oilers during the 2016 offseason. Firstly the Oilers had the 4th overall pick and were delighted when the 3rd ranked prospect Jesse Puljujarvi was passed over by Columbus and the Oilers couldn’t get up to the stage fast enough to call his name. Fans were generally pleased by this turn of events as well (particularly during the youngstars tourney when Jesse dominated) but public sentiment for Chiarelli would take a quick about face. Four days after the draft the Oiler fans were stunned with the news that Taylor Hall had been traded straight up for stay-at-home defenseman Adam Larsson. While Chiarelli justified his decision as taking from an area of strength to shore up an area of weakness, most fans felt he didn’t get nearly enough for a player the calibre of Hall (who would go on to win the Hart trophy the following season). This would be the start of the perception of Chiarelli getting fleeced in trades.

The other big offseason move was the signing of bruising power forward Milan Lucic to a lucrative seven-year deal. Chiarelli felt Lucic was the perfect winger for McDavid, but we obviously know how this would eventually turn out. Other signings included veteran defenseman Kris Russel, college players Drake Caggiula and Adam Benning, both who would make the team out of camp, and veteran goalie Jonas Gustavsson (to back up Talbot). Finally, just prior to the start of the season the Oilers cut bait with another first overall, dealing the underperforming Yakupov to St. Louis for scraps.

In goal, Talbot had a monster season, playing nearly every game—73 in all and setting the mark for most wins by an Oiler netminder with 42. This was the kind of goaltending performance Oiler fans had longed for and it was such a relief to have such a reliable guy back there. It didn’t even matter that Gustavsson was a total bust, playing just 7 games and looking bad in most of them (this was one of the reasons Talbot had to play so much). Gustavsson would be demoted mid-season and replaced by Laurent Brossoit who had ripened enough to make the jump to the NHL and was much more competent as Talbot’s backup.

On defence, obviously all eyes would be on Larsson to see if he could justify his worth in the Hall trade. He played most of the season paired with his countryman Klefbom and the two were quite good together. Klefbom had a breakout season leading the backend with 38 points and starting to shows signs of being a good top pairing guy, while Larsson acted as a solid if unspectacular rock on his right side. Sekera would have another great season on the second pair, playing often with newcomer Kris Russel who had his warts, but put in a solid season. Nurse missed nearly half the year with injury but was starting to show signs of his high draft position, while Adam Benning surprisingly made the team as the number 6 guy, and fit in very well. Gryba was serviceable as the 7th man, while Brandon Davidson would get a few games in before being dealt at the deadline for David Desharnais. On a more sad note, both Mark Fayne and Griffin Reinhart were relegated to spend almost the entire season in the minors.

Up front, McDavid was now healthy and with an extra year under his belt was named the captain of the team, a title he will presumably carry until such time he is no longer here. He would explode for a nice 30/70/100 season becoming the first Oiler in twenty-one years to get 100 points. This would lead the league and net McDavid both the Hart and Art Ross trophies—not since Pronger could the Oilers claim to have an elite player in the league. Draisaitl also continued on the upswing getting 77 points and giving the Oilers an enviable 1-2 punch at centre. The top 6 were rounded out by the now veteran Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins who both had slightly disappointing seasons, but still managed to contribute. Lucic played most of the year on McDavid’s left and turned that into a good 50 point season, giving the Oilers a bruising contributor and maybe giving hope he would justify his contract. Finally Pat Maroon continued to play over his head scoring 27 goals (something he’d never even come close to before) continuing his hot streak from the previous season. The Oilers bottom six was headlined by Letestu (who had an out of his mind playoff), Kassian, Caggiula, and Pouliot who were all decent, while guys like Slepyshev, Hendricks, Lander, and Pitlick made some contributions. Puljujarvi would make the team out of camp, but struggled early and would be sent to the AHL having played just 28 games.

The Oilers played their first season in the brand new Roger’s Place and they made it memorable. After ten years of absolute misery everything finally seemed to come up Oilers this year. They were ridiculously healthy with their starting goalie, top four d-men, and top six forwards all going injury free all season (Nurses’ injury was the only significant injury all season). This helped contribute to an actual winning season. They stormed out of the gate at 7-2, before fading a bit in November but then were pretty consistent the rest of the year, ending strong with a 13-4-1 record. They improved by 33 points over 15-16 finishing the season at 47-26-9, good for 103 points and 2nd place in the Pacific Division. For the first time in 11 years, the Oilers were in the playoffs.

Their first round opponent was San Jose and Roger’s Place was absolutely electric for game 1. The Oilers dropped it in OT, but would rebound with a couple of tight checking wins in games 2 and 3, with Talbot shutting out the Sharks in both. The Oilers no-showed and got drubbed 7-0 in game 4, and things seemed grim in game 5 when they were down late. In the most memorable Oiler game in forever, Klefbom tied it with a stickbending rocket, and then the Oilers absolutely dominated the OT period before the unheralded Desharnais took a feed from Draisaitl to end the game. A tidy 3-1 victory in game 6 and the Oilers were off to the second round to face the Ducks.

The Oilers took both games 1 and 2 in Anaheim, but then dropped games 3 and 4 at home. Game 5 was one of the most infamous in recent Oiler history, with the Oilers taking a commanding 3-0 lead with just 3 minutes remaining, the Ducks got two seeing high long distance goals before scoring the tying goal with just a few seconds left (with of course Kesler laying on top of Talbot and prying his legs open). The eventual double OT loss was one of the most devastating ever. Nothing is worse than mentally putting a game in the win column and having it snatched away. But the Oilers weren’t quite done, and ran the Ducks out of the building in 7-1 thrashing in game 6. Unfortunately, the Ducks brought their A-game to game 7 and posted a tidy 2-1 victory to eliminate the Oilers.

Despite this rather upsetting series loss, we could all rejoice that the Oilers were finally a force again and with two young superstars could only improve from here.

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Re: Season 44 (NHL 37); 2016-17: Playoffs?! PLAYOFFS! [message #825750 is a reply to message #825745 ]	Fri, 06 October 2023 22:10

Adam
Messages: 7174
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

That week at the end of June was one of my least favourite as an Oilers fan. I was apoplectic when that deal went down. The team had gone out of their way to try to justify the deal BEFORE it was made, with Stauffer and Rishaug given marching orders to try to convince the fanbase about the need to "lose a trade to make the team better." I was coming back from a business meeting when the news of the deal broke, and I had to pull in to a parking lot because I was too angry to drive.

On July 1, I was on a trip with my wife, still angry about the trade, and the news just kept getting worse. I'd written a long post here on Lucic guessing at the Oilers intentions. I nailed the term and was even very close on the dollars they gave him...and the rest of the post on why it was a really bad investment and he wouldn't live up to the deal. Gustavsson was icing on the cake. Anyone who'd even looked at the back of his hockey card the last few years would have known he was terrible and not likely to be an adequate back-up.

And then the Oilers had a pretty good season nonetheless. They were ridiculously healthy, with almost no important players missing any real stretch of time. Talbot played very well. McDavid was clearly a star, Draisaitl started to come in to his own...and Chiarelli went out for an interview a couple weeks before the trade deadline, said the team wasn't ready to be contenders and that he was unlikely to do much at the deadline. We got Desharnais as our only move, just slightly above the level of the Tambellini Smithson deal.

This was also the point at which Oilers fans finally figured out why the Sharks could never quite clear the last hurdle when they had an excellent team. Todd McLellan just isn't up to the task of playoff coaching. He didn't have much of a game plan, and didn't adjust it when things weren't going well. He let the Ducks manipulate the referees by complaining before the series about how McDavid and Draisaitl always get the calls, and then he stood quietly and patiently while Kesler and the Ducks just mugged our stars on every faceoff. The crazy thing is how close the Oilers came to overcoming their GM's lack of faith and their coach's lack of ability. They choked in game 7, with a little help from the refs ("what would I say to Corey?") or they would have been in the final 4, with a decent chance of going all the way to the Finals. This is the first "what might have been" year of the McDavid era.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks

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Season 45 (NHL 38); 2017-18: A grim regression [message #825792 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Tue, 10 October 2023 23:30

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://vafloc02.s3.amazonaws.com/isyn/images/f570/img-2529570-f.jpg

	Coach: Todd McLellan						
	GM: Peter Chiarelli						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		36	40	5	1	78	0.476
		GF:	234	GA:	263		
	Finish: 6th place Pacific Division; 12th place Western Conference; 23rd overall: out of playoffs						
	  						
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	McDavid, Connor	F	82	41	67	108	
2	Draisaitl, Leon	F	78	25	45	70	
3	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	62	24	24	48	
4	Strome, Ryan	F	82	13	21	34	
5	Lucic, Milan	F	82	10	24	34	
6	Maroon, Patrick	F	57	14	16	30	
7	Nurse, Darnell	D	82	6	20	26	
8	Cammalleri, Mike	F	51	4	18	22	
9	Klefbom, Oscar	D	66	5	16	21	
10	Khaira, Jujhar	F	69	11	10	21	
11	Benning, Matthew	D	73	6	15	21	
12	Russell, Kris	D	78	4	17	21	
13	Puljujarvi, Jesse	F	65	12	8	20	
14	Caggiula, Drake	F	67	13	7	20	
15	Letestu, Mark	F	60	8	11	19	
16	Kassian, Zack	F	74	7	12	19	
17	Larsson, Adam	D	63	4	9	13	
18	Slepyshev, Anton	F	50	6	6	12	
19	Rattie, Ty	F	14	5	4	9	
20	Auvitu, Yohann	D	33	3	6	9	
21	Aberg, Pontus	F	16	2	6	8	
22	Sekera, Andrej	D	36	0	8	8	
23	Bear, Ethan	D	18	1	3	4	
24	Davidson, Brandon	D	23	3	1	4	
25	Yamamoto, Kailer	F	9	0	3	3	
26	Pakarinen, Iiro	F	40	2	1	3	
27	Gryba, Eric	D	21	0	2	2	
28	Jokinen, Jussi	F	14	0	1	1	
29	Lowe, Keegan	D	2	0	0	0	
30	Walker, Nathan	F	2	0	0	0	
31	Malone, Brad	F	7	0	0	0	
							
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Talbot, Cam	67	3730	3.02	0.908	31-31-3	
2	Brossoit, Laurent	14	740	3.24	0.883	3-7-1	
3	Montoya, Al	9	469	2.94	0.906	2-2-2

Transactions

June 21, 2017
• Griffin Reinhart claimed by Vegas in expansion draft.

June 22, 2017
• Jordan Eberle traded to NY Islanders for Ryan Strome.

June 23, 2017
• 2017 NHL entry draft (round 1)—Oilers selected Kailer Yamamoto (22).

June 24, 2017
• 2017 NHL entry draft (rounds 2-7)—Oilers selected Stuart Skinner (78) and Dmitri Samorukov (84).

July 1, 2017
• Benoit Pouliot signed as free agent by Buffalo.
• Tyler Pitlick signed as free agent by Dallas.
• Jordan Oesterle signed as free agent by Chicago.
• Signed Ty Rattie (formerly with St. Louis) as free agent.
• Signed Keegan Lowe (formerly with Montreal) as free agent.

July 3, 2017
• Signed Brad Malone (formerly with St. Louis) as free agent.

July 4, 2017
• David Desharnais signed as free agent by NY Rangers.

July 7, 2017
• Signed Jussi Jokinen (formerly with Florida) as free agent.

July 10, 2017
• Signed Yohann Auvitu (formerly with New Jersey) as free agent.

August 26, 2017
• Matt Hendricks signed as free agent by Winnipeg.

November 14, 2017
• Jussi Jokinen traded to Los Angeles for Mike Cammalleri.

December 1, 2017
• Claimed Nathan Walker on waivers from Washington.

December 3, 2017
• Claimed Brandon Davidson on waivers from Montreal.

December 20, 2017
• Nathan Walker claimed on waivers by Washington.

January 4, 2018
• 4th round pick in 2018 (Jasper Weatherby (San Jose)) traded to Montreal for Al Montoya.

February 24, 2018
• Brandon Davidson traded to NY Islanders for 3rd round pick in 2019 (Ilya Konovalov*).

February 25, 2018
• Mark Letestu traded to Nashville for Pontus Aberg.

February 26, 2018
• Patrick Maroon traded to New Jersey for JD Dudek* and 3rd round pick in 2019 (Alexander Campbell (Nashville)).

March 21, 2018
• 3rd round pick in 2019 (Alexander Campbell (Nashville)) traded to Philadelphia for Cooper Marody.

The league was now up to 31 teams with the addition of the Vegas Golden Knights, who play with the Oilers in the Pacific Division. The little used (but dearly bought) Griifin Reinhart would be the Oilers' sacrifice to Vegas in the expansion draft.

The Oilers started the offseason by making another controversial one-for-one trade, dealing Eberle straight up for Ryan Strome. Like the Hall trade, it again seemed the Oilers' got fleeced, but Eberle's poor performance in the 2017 playoffs (just 2 assists in 13 games) lessened the outcry about this trade. The big highlight of the offseason was securing both McDavid and Draisaitl to eight year contract extensions that secured the future of the Oilers' two superstars. With our six year hindsight it can easily be said that these two extensions were probably Chiearelli's best positive contribution to the team.

There wasn't much other big news. The Oilers made no big free agent splashes, and would lose a few contributors including Pouliot (bought out to save cap space), Desharnais, and Hendricks. Coming in were Ty Rattie, a high draft pick but career minor leaguer who the OIlers hoped to redeem, veteran shoot-out specialist Jussi Jokkinen, and depth d-man Yohann Auvitu (a veteran from France who had made his NHL debut with New Jersey the previous season). So it would be a very similar team that would start out in October.

Talbot carried on where he left off, playing 67 games, but the results were just not quite the same. After going 42-22 with a .919 save % this was reduced to 31-31 and .908, not a monumental drop but the reliability just didn't seem the same. The 14 games when Brossoit backed got in were even worse, and management would demote Brossoit mid-season and replace him with the more veteran Al Montoya who was a bit better, but saw limited action.

The defense core was practically identical to that we had seen play so well in the 2017 playoffs with Klefbom/Larsson at the top Nurse/Russel on the 2nd pairing and Sekera/Benning on the third. Nurse took a big step forward, remaining healthy the whole year and having his best NHL campaign so far (leading the blueliners with 26 points). Both Klefbom and Larsson contended with injuries and were not as sharp as they had been, and this was one of the big hinderances of the team. Russel and Benning were fine for what they were, but Sekera missed over half the year with injury and was mostly ineffective when he did play. Filling in when needed were Auvitu, Gryba, Brandon Davidson (re- acquired and then re-traded), and young Ethan Bear getting a look late in the season after good showings on the farm.

In his third NHL season McDavid kept on improving. He again stayed healthy and racked up 41 goals and 108 points, leading the league in the latter and winning his second straight scoring title. Draisaitl held serve, getting 70 points, down just a bit from the previous season. Nugent-Hopkins missed 20 games with injury, but sill managed to improve his point total finishing with 48--still a ways from his career best. It would be a big drop after those three. Lucic was less effective getting just 34 points, after his 50 the previous year. Strome got the same amount which was pretty typical of his recent play, but a drop from what fans remembered from regular season Eberle. Rounding out the top end, Maroon was also less effective, and his pending UFA status saw the Oilers dealing him near the deadline. In the bottom half, both Kassian and Letestu dropped down to earth after their great playoff showings (Letestu actually had more playoff points in 2017 than McDavid--also a UFA, he would be dealt at the deadline in 2018). Jokinen would last just a month as an Oiler before being flipped for another veteran in Mike Cammalleri who was fine in his 51 games with the team. Jujhar Khaira finally made the jump to full time Oiler and showed some scoring touch from the bottom two lines. Slepyshev and Caggiula basically duplicated their previous seasons and Puljujarvi played the full season with the team, but they were still waiting for his draft potential to emerge (just 20 points in 67 games).

Based on all this description, you might expect the Oilers had a slight drop, but were still a force to be reckoned--no such luck. The Oilers got off to a really poor start and could just never recover. Every little hot streak would be accompanied by a cold streak and they puttered through the entire season like this to finish with a record of 36-40-6 good for just 78 points. This was a full 25 point drop from the previous year and put the Oilers in 12th place in the West, a full 17 points out of a playoff spot. This was a devastating blow to a team that had just broken out of a decade long funk and it seemed unbelievable that we could be this bad again, particularly with the most dyanmic player in the league having a career season.

But this was reality and Chiarelli and McLellan would have more work to do.

[Updated on: Tue, 10 October 2023 23:32]

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Re: Season 45 (NHL 38); 2017-18: A grim regression [message #825927 is a reply to message #825792 ]	Fri, 13 October 2023 12:04

Adam
Messages: 7174
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

A few things:

- I forgot Jussi Jokinen was ever an Oiler. What an underwhelming signing!

- I still maintain that Pontus Aberg got tarred unfairly because McLellan didn't like his attitude. He was productive when he was given a chance. Strome too...for some reason, McLellan didn't ever give him a top-6 opportunity despite the Oilers hopes for him when he was acquired.

- Al Montoya remains a frustrating demonstration of how little thought the Oilers put in to decision-making sometimes. The deal for Montoya was that it was a 5th round pick if he played 6 or less games, and upgraded to a 4th round pick if he played 7 or more. He was acquired in January, starting one game and appearing in two others that month. He performed decently, getting an easy shutout (19 saves) against a woeful Coyotes team in his start. In February, he got three more starts, playing terribly. He was 1-2 with a 6-5 SO win and 6-4 and 4-3 losses. McLellan doesn't play him again for 17 days, in which time the roster limits come off and the Oilers are pretty much out of contention for the playoffs. Then on March 14th they start Montoya again. They could have called Brossoit back up if they felt Talbot needed a rest, but instead they just needlessly sacrificed the extra round. He'd play three games in March in the end, losing all of them and ending his NHL career.

Now, the pick became Jasper Weatherby, who is still in the Sharks organization but doesn't look like he's going to become a world beater five years later. He has managed 50 games, which is five and a half times more than Montoya played for us. There's not really anyone close to that in that draft who looks amazing now either. But the Oilers wouldn't have known that at that time. The Oilers traded the 5th pick in the end to Montreal as well, and that again looks like a dead end. But I still don't understand why you'd create the situation where that condition gets realized when A) you don't need him to play the game - it wasn't injury forced for example, B) he hadn't played very well when he was used and C) the team wasn't in the hunt for a playoff spot, so worst case Brossoit loses the game (which Montoya did anyhow) and the team is relatively unimpacted by it.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks

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Re: Season 45 (NHL 38); 2017-18: A grim regression [message #825928 is a reply to message #825927 ]	Fri, 13 October 2023 12:29

Dragon_Matt
Messages: 766
Registered: January 2009
Location: edmonton

No Cups

To be fair, we would have tried to picked a school bus with that pick.

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Season 46 (NHL 39), 2018-19; A resounding thud [message #825993 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Tue, 17 October 2023 13:31

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://vafloc02.s3.amazonaws.com/isyn/images/f860/img-2781860-f.jpg

Coach: Todd McLellan (9-10-1) and Ken Hitchcock (26-28-8)						
GM: Peter Chiarelli (23-24-3) and Keith Gretzky (12-14-6)						
						
	Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
	35	38	6	3	79	0.482
	GF:	232	GA:	274		
Finish: 7th place Pacific Division; 14th place Western Conference; 25th overall: out of playoffs						
  						
						
 			Regular Season			
Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
McDavid, Connor	F	78	41	75	116	
Draisaitl, Leon	F	82	50	55	105	
Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	82	28	41	69	
Nurse, Darnell	D	82	10	31	41	
Chiasson, Alex	F	73	22	16	38	
Klefbom, Oscar	D	61	5	23	28	
Kassian, Zack	F	79	15	11	26	
Lucic, Milan	F	79	6	14	20	
Larsson, Adam	D	82	3	17	20	
Khaira, Jujhar	F	60	3	15	18	
Benning, Matthew	D	70	5	12	17	
Russell, Kris	D	72	3	13	16	
Caggiula, Drake	F	29	7	4	11	
Rattie, Ty	F	50	4	7	11	
Rieder, Tobias	F	67	0	11	11	
Gagner, Sam	F	25	5	5	10	
Puljujarvi, Jesse	F	46	4	5	9	
Brodziak, Kyle	F	70	6	3	9	
Jones, Caleb	D	17	1	5	6	
Currie, Josh	F	21	2	3	5	
Sekera, Andrej	D	24	0	4	4	
Gambardella, Joseph	F	15	0	3	3	
Spooner, Ryan	F	25	2	1	3	
Cave, Colby	F	33	2	1	3	
Gravel, Kevin	D	36	0	3	3	
Wideman, Chris	D	5	0	2	2	
Yamamoto, Kailer	F	17	1	1	2	
Strome, Ryan	F	18	1	1	2	
Bouchard, Evan	D	7	1	0	1	
Petrovic, Alexander	D	9	0	1	1	
Manning, Brandon	D	12	1	0	1	
Garrison, Jason	D	17	1	0	1	
Zykov, Valentin	F	5	0	0	0	
Marody, Cooper	F	6	0	0	0	
Russell, Patrick	F	6	0	0	0	
Malone, Brad	F	16	0	0	0	
						
			Goalies			
Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	 
Koskinen, Mikko	55	2992	2.93	0.906	25-21-6	
Talbot, Cam	31	1695	3.36	0.893	10-15-3	
Stolarz, Anthony	6	239	3.77	0.897	0-2-0

Transactions

May 1, 2018
• Signed Mikko Koskinen (formerly with NY Islanders) as free agent.

May 18, 2018
• Signed Joel Persson as free agent.

June 22, 2018
• 2018 NHL entry draft (round 1)—Oilers selected Evan Bouchard (10).

June 23, 2018
• 2018 NHL entry draft (rounds 2-7)—Oilers selected Ryan McLeod (40) and Michael Kesselring* (164).

July 1, 2018
• Signed Tobias Rieder (formerly with Los Angeles) as free agent.
• Signed Kevin Gravel (formerly with Los Angeles) as free agent.
• Signed Kyle Brodziak (formerly with St. Louis) as free agent.
• Laurent Brossoit signed as free agent by Winnipeg.
• Dillon Simpson signed as free agent by Columbus.
• Eric Gryba signed as free agent by New Jersey.

July 18, 2018
• Signed Josh Currie as free agent.

August 20, 2018
• Signed Jakub Jerabek* (formerly with Washington) as free agent.

October 1, 2018
• Jakub Jerabek* traded to St. Louis for 6th round pick in 2020 (Cole Reinhardt (Ottawa)).
• Pontus Aberg claimed on waivers by Anaheim.

October 2, 2018
• Signed Jason Garrison (formerly with Vegas) as free agent.
• Signed Alex Chiasson (formerly with Washington) as free agent.

November 16, 2018
• Ryan Strome traded to NY Rangers for Ryan Spooner.

November 22, 2018
• 6th round pick in 2020 (Cole Reinhardt) traded to Ottawa for Chris Wideman.

November 30, 2018
• Claimed Valentin Zykov on waivers from Carolina.

December 29, 2018
• Valentin Zykov claimed on waivers by Vegas.

December 30, 2018
• Chris Wideman and 3rd round pick in 2019 (John Ludvig) traded to Florida for Alexander Petrovic.
• Drake Caggiula and Jason Garrison traded to Chicago for Brandon Manning and Robin Norell*.

January 16, 2019
• Claimed Colby Cave on waivers from Boston.

February 15, 2019
• Cam Talbot traded to Philadelphia for Anthony Stolarz.

February 16, 2019
• Ryan Spooner traded to Vancouver for Sam Gagner.

The Oilers went into the 18-19 season with a intense need to show the previous season had been an aberration and they could quickly bounce back to their 2017 form. With that in mind, most of the offseason moves were fairly underwhelming. Mikko Koskinen, perhaps the best goalie in the KHL was brought in to either back-up and/or bolster Talbot (Brossoit fled to Winnipeg as a UFA). Otherwise it was mostly periphery moves: signing forwards Tobias Rieder and Kyle Brodziak (making a return) as well as depth d-man Kevin Gravel. They brought in two PTOs who would be signed just prior to the season in Alex Chiasson and Jason Garrison. But for the most part it would be mostly the same crew trying to get the team back on track.

In goal, Talbot did not rebound from his poor showing in 17-18--in fact he somehow got worse. Meanwhile, while Koskinen had a brutal pre-season he would eventually start to show something and by mid-season he had taken over the starter's job from Talbot. This lead to Koskinen receiving a lucrative 3-year deal and Talbot being discarded in February to Philadelphia. Koskinen's play actually fell off a bit towards the end after Talbot's departure which did not bode well for his new contract.

On defence, there were 5 guys that returned and would all play the bulk of the games: Klefbom, Nurse, Larsson, Russel, and Benning all stayed relatively healthy and played over 70 games each. Nurse continued to improve and had his best season so far (finishing fourth overall on the team in scoring with 41 points). The others were fine if not exceptional. Sekera was the designated sixth guy but missed most of the season with injury. The newly acquired Gravel chipped in occasionally as did a host of others including Garrison, Caleb Jones, Brandon Manning, Alex Petrovic, and Chris Wideman. The last three were all acquired mid-season but none really made much of an impression and none would stick around for any length of time. Shiny new first rounder Evan Bouchard got in his first few games before going back to junior, but wasn't yet ready for prime time.

McDavid's excellence continued as he improved his point totals once again, this time accumulating 116 despite missing 4 games. Surprisingly this was only second in the league (Kucherov in Tampa Bay had an out of body season). Draisaitl finally pushed himself into the upper stratosphere of the league forwards getting 50 goals (second only to Ovechkin) and 105 points (good for fourth in the league). Nugent-Hopkins had a fine season getting 69 points, but then there was a big black hole in terms of other forwards contributing. Their next two top scoring forwards were Chiasson who had a once in a lifetime 22 goals and 38 points, while Kassian chipped in 26 points. Everyone else could probably be considered a disapointment. Lucic really fell of a cliff getting just 6 goals and 20 points. Ryan Strome could not get anything going getting just two points in 18 games before Chiarelli shipped him off for Ryan Spooner. Spooner was even worse and he would subsequently be dealt for a returning Sam Gagner. (who was definitely the best performer of the three in limited time). Other disappointments were Caggiula, who would be traded mid-season for the aforementioned Manning, Tobias Rieder who failed to score a single goal all season (and laughingly had Bob Nicholson blaming him for the poor season to season ticket holders) and Puljujarvi who seemed to regress rather than improve. A lot of forwards made minimal contributions, but I won't mention them all except for perhaps Khaira who did show some gumption as a useful fourth liner, Ty Rattie who started the season playing with McDavid, but soon showed his brief hot-streak couldn't last, and Brodziak who was what he was--an aging fourth liner centre.

So yes, it was another incredibly disappointing season for the fans that seemingly wasted two great performances by two of the top two offensive players in the league. McLellan was fired 20 games in after putting up a 9-10-1 record. Chiarelli pulled Ken Hitchcock out of retirement to coach the remainder of the season on an interim basis, but he couldn't get any more from the group going a similar 26-28-8. Chiarelli himself was fired after 50 games (weirdly a few days after signing the big Koskinen deal) with Keith Gretzky coming up from the AHL to finish the season as interim GM. The Oilers would finish the season with 79 points which was second last in the division and conference (although there were plenty of eastern teams who were worse) and a full 11 points out of the playoffs.

Oh, and to add insult, in the final meaningless game of the season in Calgary, McDavid crashed into the Flames' goal after being tripped up by Giordano and severely injured his leg.
The extent of the injury would be revealed later, but it was a fitting end to a miserable seqson. It was now 12 playoff misses in 13 seasons and no patience left from an angry fanbase.

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Season 47 (NHL 40); 2019-20: Covidus Interuptus [message #827250 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Wed, 15 November 2023 22:45

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://pallomeri.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Edmonton-Oilers-Colby-Cave-ele-Pallomeri.net_.jpg

	Coach: Dave Tippett						
	GM: Ken Holland						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		37	25	7	2	83	0.585
		GF:	225	GA:	217		
	Finish: 2nd place Pacific Divison; 5th place Western Conference; 12th overall						
	  						
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	Draisaitl, Leon	F	71	43	67	110	
2	McDavid, Connor	F	64	34	63	97	
3	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	65	22	39	61	
4	Kassian, Zack	F	59	15	19	34	
5	Klefbom, Oscar	D	62	5	29	34	
6	Nurse, Darnell	D	71	5	28	33	
7	Neal, James	F	55	19	12	31	
8	Yamamoto, Kailer	F	27	11	15	26	
9	Chiasson, Alex	F	65	11	13	24	
10	Archibald Josh	F	62	12	9	21	
11	Bear, Ethan	D	71	5	16	21	
12	Sheahan, Riley	F	66	8	7	15	
13	Gagner, Sam	F	36	5	7	12	
14	Haas, Gaetan	F	58	5	5	10	
15	Khaira, Jujhar	F	64	6	4	10	
16	Nygard, Joakim	F	33	3	6	9	
17	Jones, Caleb	D	43	4	5	9	
18	Russell, Kris	D	55	0	9	9	
19	Benning, Matthew	D	43	1	7	8	
20	Larsson, Adam	D	49	1	5	6	
21	Russell, Patrick	F	45	0	5	5	
22	Ennis, Tyler	F	9	2	2	4	
23	Granlund, Markus	F	34	3	1	4	
24	Athanasiou, Andreas	F	9	1	1	2	
25	Jurco Tomas	F	12	0	2	2	
26	Persson, Joel	D	13	0	2	2	
27	Benson, Tyler	F	7	0	1	1	
28	Manning, Brandon	D	9	1	0	1	
29	Cave, Colby	F	11	1	0	1	
30	Green, Mike	D	2	0	0	0	
31	Lagesson, William	D	8	0	0	0	
							
							
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Smith, Mike	39	2157	2.95	0.902	19-12-6	
2	Koskinen, Mikko	38	2117	2.75	0.917	18-13-3	



Playoff result: Eliminated in play-in round						
Round/Team	Result	Wins	Losses	GF	GA	
1. Chicago	Loss	1	3	15	16	
						
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points
1	McDavid, Connor	F	4	5	4	9
2	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	4	2	6	8
3	Draisaitl, Leon	F	4	3	3	6
4	Neal, James	F	4	2	1	3
5	Ennis, Tyler	F	3	1	1	2
6	Klefbom, Oscar	D	4	0	2	2
7	Nurse, Darnell	D	4	0	2	2
8	Chiasson, Alex	F	4	1	1	2
9	Benning, Matthew	D	4	0	1	1
10	Archibald Josh	F	4	1	0	1
11	Haas, Gaetan	F	1	0	0	0
12	Jones, Caleb	D	2	0	0	0
13	Larsson, Adam	D	2	0	0	0
14	Bear, Ethan	D	4	0	0	0
15	Russell, Kris	D	4	0	0	0
16	Athanasiou, Andreas	F	4	0	0	0
17	Kassian, Zack	F	4	0	0	0
18	Khaira, Jujhar	F	4	0	0	0
19	Sheahan, Riley	F	4	0	0	0
20	Yamamoto, Kailer	F	4	0	0	0
						
				Goalies		
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L
1	Koskinen, Mikko	4	209	3.16	0.889	1-2
2	Smith, Mike	1	27	11.31	0.783	0-1

Transactions

May 24, 2019
• Signed Joakim Nygard as free agent.

June 21, 2019
• 2019 NHL entry draft (round 1)—Oilers selected Philip Broberg (8).

June 22, 2019
• 2019 NHL entry draft (rounds 2-7)—Oilers selected Raphael Lavoie (38).

July 1, 2019
• Signed Markus Granlund (formerly with Vancouver) as free agent.
• Signed Mike Smith (formerly with Calgary) as free agent.
• Andrej Sekera signed as free agent by Dallas.
• Kevin Gravel signed as free agent by Toronto.
• Signed Tomas Jurco (formerly with Chicago) as free agent.
• Signed Gatean Haas as free agent.

July 2, 2019
• Anthony Stolarz signed as free agent by Anaheim.

July 16, 2019
• Signed Josh Archibald (formerly with Arizona) as free agent.

July 19, 2019
• Milan Lucic and 3rd round pick in 2021 (Kirill Kirsanov (Los Angeles)) traded to Calgary for James Neal.

September 5, 2019
• Signed Riley Sheahan (formerly with Florida) as free agent.

September 26, 2019
• Alexander Petrovic signed as free agent by Boston.

September 29, 2019
• Tobias Rieder signed as free agent by Calgary.

February 24, 2020
• Kyle Brodziak and 4th round pick in 2020 (Jan Bednar) traded to Detroit for Mike Green.
• Sam Gagner and 2nd round picks in 2020 (Brock Faber (Los Angeles)) and 2021 (Aatu Raty (NY Islanders)) traded to Detroit for Andreas Anthanasiou and Ryan Kuffner*.
• 5th round pick in 2021 (Gage Alexander (Anaheim)) traded to Ottawa for Tyler Ennis.
• Joel Persson traded to Anaheim for Angus Redmond*.

I know I've been delinquent in updating this thread, but as work is finally easing up, it's time to put it to bed with the last four seasons so let's get to it.

Neither the interim coach nor GM would keep their jobs going into the 19-20 season. Hitchcock went back into retirement and would be replaced by Dave Tippett, a veteran coach with both Dallas and Phoenix. The new GM was a bit of a surprise in longtime Detroit head man Ken Holland, recently put out to pasture by the Wings, but eagerly scooped up by the Oilers brass.

There was of course a lot of work to do for both men. Holland immediately decided to buy out the last two years of Sekera’s contract and then proceeded to sign a pile of free agents: Mike Smith in goal, and bunch of lower line forwards in Joakim Nygard, Markus Granlund, Tomas Jurco, Gatean Haas, Josh Archibald, and Riley Sheahan. His biggest move was swinging a deal with Calgary, trading Lucic for James Neal in a deal of under-performing long term cap-hits.

Smith and Koskinen would have a healthy competition in net with each guy playing half the games. Koskinen had slightly better numbers (in what was his best NHL season), but there was very little to choose between the two as both performed quite well.

The defense was lead by Klefbom and Nurse who both had good offensive seasons. Larsson missed a chunk of the season due to injury and the death of his father., but was still easily the third best d-man Bear played every game and had by far his best NHL season to date. Rounding out the defensemen were the returning Russell and Benning plus 2015 4th rounder Caleb Jones playing his first NHL campaign.

At forward it was the year of Draisaitl. The German had a phenomenal season, getting 110 points to lead the league and capture his first Hart and Art Ross trophies, not to mention a first team all-star selection. McDavid wasn’t too bad but surprisingly trailed his teammate in points all season getting 97—good enough for second in the league. Nugent-Hopkins playing in his 9th season in Edmonton had his usual steady season with 61 points, while James Neal exceeded expectations early in the season, exploding out of the gate to lead the league in goals in the first month. He would of course cool off, but still managed a respectable 19 goals in 55 games (or as the NHL counted for terms of awarding Calgary a draft pick: 20 goals). There wasn’t a ton of offense outside of these guys. Kassian had a decent season with 34 points (that was actually fourth on the team), Chiasson was unable to duplicate his lightning in a bottle 18-19 season, Gagner played sporadically before being dealt at the deadline, and Khaira was decent in his fourth line role. The remainder of the forwards are those free agents listed above who all made minor contributions. A deadline addition was the speedy Andreas Athanasiou, but he never seemed to find his game in Edmonton.

The Oilers were able to rebound from the disappointment of the previous two seasons. They got off to a perfect 5-0 start where they set a record by trailing in each game and managing to win them all. They worked their way through a bit of sag in December, but were able to rebound in the new year and accelerated down the stretch. In mid-March they were 2nd in the Pacific, hoping for a division title, as they trailed the Golden Knights by just 3 points…..

And then all that COVID stuff happened. The league (and the world) shut everything down, leaving the Oilers in limbo. Things got worse for the team in April when news arrived that Colby Cave who had spent some time with the team the previous two years had suffered a brain bleed and would pass away in a Toronto hospital. This was a devastating time for the team.

The league eventually scrapped the remainder of the regular season and decided to have the playoffs in a couple of fan-less COVID bubbles in Edmonton and Toronto in August. Bad news for the Oilers was that their 5th place in the west based on point percentage meant they would have to face the 12th place Black Hawks in a play-in best of 5 in order to qualify for the main dance.

The Hawks were a bad team that wouldn’t have had a sniff at the playoffs without the play-in, and the Oilers were heavily favoured. They went with Smith in game 1 and it did not go well as he allowed 5 goals in 27 minutes and was quickly pulled never to return in the series (Koskinen was better but hardly world class the rest of the way). After the 6-4 loss, the Oilers rebounded in game 2 with a tidy 6-3 victory, but things would sour after that. In game 3 they had a late 3-2 lead before allowing the Hawks to get two late goals for the win. Facing elimination in game 4, they entered the third tied 2-2, but again Chicago managed the only third period goal and the Oilers saw their great season down the drain just like that.

While it can be said the Oilers should never have needed to play this series to get in the main playoff bracket, the fact remains that they should have been able to come-up with the goods against a weak Hawks team, but just didn’t get it done. With all the COVID uncertainty still looming it wasn’t even known when they might have the opportunity to get back on the ice.

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Season 48 (NHL 41); 2020-21; Life in a Bubble [message #827318 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Sun, 19 November 2023 01:37

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/62054671d7c214cb53b8c2ce/0x0.jpg?format=jpg&width=1200


	Coach: Dave Tippett						
	GM:Ken Holland						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		35	19	2	0	72	0.643
		GF:	183	GA:	154		
	Finish: 2nd place North Division; 11th overall						
	  						
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	McDavid, Connor	F	56	33	72	105	
2	Draisaitl, Leon	F	56	31	53	84	
3	Barrie, Tyson	D	56	8	40	48	
4	Nurse, Darnell	D	56	16	20	36	
5	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	52	16	19	35	
6	Puljujarvi, Jesse	F	55	15	10	25	
7	Yamamoto, Kailer	F	52	8	13	21	
8	Chiasson, Alex	F	45	9	7	16	
9	Kahun, Dominic	F	48	9	6	15	
10	Archibald Josh	F	52	7	6	13	
11	Khaira, Jujhar	F	40	3	8	11	
12	Neal, James	F	29	5	5	10	
13	Larsson, Adam	D	56	4	6	10	
14	Ennis, Tyler	F	30	3	6	9	
15	Russell, Kris	D	35	0	9	9	
16	Shore, Devin	F	38	5	4	9	
17	Bear, Ethan	D	43	2	6	8	
18	Bouchard, Evan	D	14	2	3	5	
19	Kassian, Zack	F	27	2	3	5	
20	Turris, Kyle	F	27	2	3	5	
21	Jones, Caleb	D	33	0	4	4	
22	Haas, Gaetan	F	34	2	1	3	
23	Russell, Patrick	F	8	0	2	2	
24	Kulikov, Dmitry	D	10	0	2	2	
25	Lagesson, William	D	19	0	2	2	
26	McLeod, Ryan	F	10	0	1	1	
27	Koekkoek, Slater	D	18	1	0	1	
28	Nygard, Joakim	F	9	0	0	0	
							
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Smith, Mike	32	1847	2.31	0.923	21-6-2	
2	Koskinen, Mikko	26	1438	3.17	0.899	13-13-0	
3	Skinner, Stuart	1	60	5.03	0.868	1-0-0	

Playoffs

Playoff result: Eliminated in Canadian Division Semi-finals						
Round/Team	Result	Wins	Losses	GF	GA	
1. Winnipeg	Loss	0	4	8	14	
						
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points
1	Draisaitl, Leon	F	4	2	3	5
2	McDavid, Connor	F	4	1	3	4
3	Larsson, Adam	D	4	0	2	2
4	Kassian, Zack	F	4	1	1	2
5	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	4	1	1	2
6	Puljujarvi, Jesse	F	4	1	1	2
7	Shore, Devin	F	2	0	1	1
8	Chiasson, Alex	F	3	1	0	1
9	Barrie, Tyson	D	4	0	1	1
10	Koekkoek, Slater	D	4	0	1	1
11	Nurse, Darnell	D	4	0	1	1
12	Khaira, Jujhar	F	4	1	0	1
13	Yamamoto, Kailer	F	4	0	1	1
14	Russell, Kris	D	1	0	0	0
15	Ennis, Tyler	F	2	0	0	0
16	Haas, Gaetan	F	2	0	0	0
17	Kahun, Dominic	F	2	0	0	0
18	Neal, James	F	2	0	0	0
19	Kulikov, Dmitry	D	3	0	0	0
20	Archibald Josh	F	3	0	0	0
21	Bear, Ethan	D	4	0	0	0
22	McLeod, Ryan	F	4	0	0	0
						
				Goalies		
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L
1	Smith, Mike	4	300	2.40	0.912	0-4

Transactions

October 6, 2020
• 2020 NHL entry draft (round 1)—Oilers selected Dylan Holloway (14).

October 9, 2020
• Signed Kyle Turris (formerly with Nashville) as free agent.
• Matt Benning signed as free agent by Nashville.
• Josh Currie signed as free agent by Pittsburgh.
• Signed Seth Griffith (formerly with Winnipeg) as free agent.

October 10, 2020
• Signed Tyson Barrie (formerly with Toronto) as free agent.

October 11, 2020
• Tomas Jurco signed as free agent by Vegas.

November 2, 2020
• Signed Dominik Kahun (formerly with Buffalo) as free agent.

December 26, 2020
• Signed Slater Koekkoek (formerly with Nashville) as free agent.

December 28, 2020
• Andreas Athanasiou signed as free agent by Los Angeles.

January 8, 2021
• Riley Sheahan signed as free agent by Buffalo.

January 14, 2021
• Signed Devin Shore as free agent (formerly with Columbus).

April 12, 2021
• 4th round pick in 2022 (Charlie Leddy) traded to New Jersey for Dmitry Kulikov.

The 20-21 season was probably the strangest in NHL history. In the midst of the COVID pandemic, the season was only 56 games and didn’t get underway until mid-January. It was played without fans in four divisional bubbles. With the Canada/US border closed to non-essential crossing, the league decided to realign the divisions for just this season, creating a Canadian division and having teams play only within the division.

It was actually a busy offseason for Edmonton. Departing the team were Benning, Jurco, Athanasiou, and Sheahan who all left as free agents. The biggest loss however would be off the ice where it was reported that Klefbom would miss the entire season with shoulder surgery. As of this writing, Klefbom remains out of action and it seems likely he may never play again. Joining the team as free agents were Kyle Turris, Dominik Kahun, Slater Koekkoek, Devin Shore, and most significantly Tyson Barrie. The closed border meant in-season were almost impossible and the only in-season transaction was Dmitry Kulikov.

For the second straight year Smith and Koskinen split the net fairly evenly, but this time it was Smith who dominated. In 32 games he went an incredible 21-6-2 with a .923 save %; easily his best performance in an Oiler jersey. Koskinen was just ok going 13-13 with a pedestrian .899.

On defense, Barrie was a welcome addition, particularly on the power play where he really racked up the points. He would finish 3rd in overall team scoring with 48 points. Nurse was right behind him in fourth place with 36. No other d-man had more than 10. Larsson, Russell, Bear, and Jones were the other regulars, while Bouchard, Kulikov, Lagesson, Koekkoek made occasional appearances.

Up front McDavid and Draisaitl absolutely feasted on the Canadian division. McDavid got nearly 2 points a game with 105 in just 56 games while Draisaitl chipped in 84—no one else in the entire league had more than 69. It was a good thing these two were so dominant, since every other forward had a bad season. Nugent-Hopkins was 5th in team scoring with 35 points, but not too many great totals after that. Yamamoto, Neal, Chiasson, were all down in their seasons. Kahun could never find the chemistry playing with his German countryman and the rest of the forwards (Archibald, Khaira, Ennis, Shore, Kassian, Haas, Turris) had some moments but nobody took the reins. One small bright spot was the return from Europe of Jesse Puljujarvi who finally settled in and was actually fourth in scoring among Oiler forwards with 25 points.

The Canadian division was good to the Oilers as they really feasted on the weaker teams in Calgary, Vancouver, and particularly Ottawa who they went 9-0 against (the first time a team beat another 9 times in one season). Despite the lack of secondary scoring, lead by their dynamic duo up front, and the goaltending of Smith, they finished with a 35-19-2 record; good for 2nd in the division, just behind the Leafs.

That would set up a first round series against Winnipeg, who they had beaten 6 times in the regular season, and confidence was high going into the series. That confidence evaporated quickly as Winnipeg played them hard and tight and their goalie, Hellybuck was absolutely phenomenal. Smith was fine for Edmonton, but the vaunted Oiler offense just couldn’t put the puck in the net, scoring only 8 goals in the entire series. After dropping the first game, the Oilers would go to overtime in the next three games, but it was always Winnipeg who came up with the winners. Game 3 was the worst, as the Oilers built up a 4-1 lead with just 10 minutes left, and managed to allow 3 quick goals to allow Winnipeg to tie it up and win in OT. A four game sweep was the last thing we expected, but that's what happened.

Back to the drawing board.

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Season 49 (NHL 42); 2021-22: Big steps forward [message #827654 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Sun, 26 November 2023 23:00

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.c6941a20d53c4083d12d3adccee86179?rik=7tKh3QZn04b6lA&pid=ImgRaw&r=0


	Coach: Dave Tippett  (23-18-3) and Jay Woodcroft (26-9-3)						
	GM:Ken Holland						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		49	27	5	1	104	0.634
		GF:	290	GA:	252		
	Finish: 2nd place Pacific Division; 11th overall						
	  						
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	McDavid, Connor	F	80	44	79	123	
2	Draisaitl, Leon	F	80	55	55	110	
3	Hyman, Zach	F	76	27	27	54	
4	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	63	11	39	50	
5	Bouchard, Evan	D	81	12	31	43	
6	Barrie, Tyson	D	73	7	34	41	
7	Yamamoto, Kailer	F	81	20	21	41	
8	Kane, Evander	F	43	22	17	39	
9	Puljujarvi, Jesse	F	65	14	22	36	
10	Nurse, Darnell	D	71	9	26	35	
11	Ceci, Cody	D	78	5	23	28	
12	Foegele, Warren	F	82	12	14	26	
13	Ryan, Derek	F	75	10	12	22	
14	Keith, Duncan	D	64	1	20	21	
15	McLeod, Ryan	F	71	9	12	21	
16	Kassian, Zack	F	58	6	13	19	
17	Shore, Devin	F	49	5	6	11	
18	Russell, Kris	D	31	2	7	9	
19	Kulak, Brett	D	18	2	6	8	
20	Perlini, Brandon	F	23	4	1	5	
21	Sceviour, Colten	F	35	2	3	5	
22	Koekkoek, Slater	D	19	0	4	4	
23	Turris, Kyle	F	23	1	3	4	
24	Lagesson, William	D	30	0	4	4	
25	Brassard, Derick	F	15	2	1	3	
26	Broberg, Philip	D	23	1	2	3	
27	Malone, Brad	F	8	1	1	2	
28	Benson, Tyler	F	29	1	1	2	
29	Marody, Cooper	F	1	0	1	1	
30	Archibald Josh	F	8	0	1	1	
31	Niemelainen, Markus	D	20	0	1	1	
32	Samorukov, Dmitri	D	1	0	0	0	
33	Griffith, Seth	F	1	0	0	0	
							
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Koskinen, Mikko	45	2629	3.10	0.903	27-12-4	
2	Smitih, Mike	28	1580	2.81	0.915	16-9-2	
3	Skinner, Stuart	13	734	2.62	0.913	6-6-0	


Playoffs

Playoff result: Eliminated in Western Conference Final						
Round/Team	Result	Wins	Losses	GF	GA	
1. Los Angeles	Win	4	3	27	17	
2. Calgary	Win	4	1	25	20	
3. Colorado	Loss	0	4	13	22	
						
Summary	Series: 2-1	8	8	65	59	
						
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points
1	McDavid, Connor	F	16	10	23	33
2	Draisaitl, Leon	F	16	7	25	32
3	Kane, Evander	F	15	13	4	17
4	Hyman, Zach	F	16	11	5	16
5	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	16	6	8	14
6	Bouchard, Evan	D	16	3	6	9
7	Yamamoto, Kailer	F	14	2	5	7
8	Ceci, Cody	D	16	1	6	7
9	Nurse, Darnell	D	15	2	4	6
10	Barrie, Tyson	D	16	1	4	5
11	Keith, Duncan	D	16	1	4	5
12	Kulak, Brett	D	16	0	5	5
13	McLeod, Ryan	F	16	3	1	4
14	Kassian, Zack	F	16	2	2	4
15	Ryan, Derek	F	15	1	2	3
16	Puljujarvi, Jesse	F	16	2	1	3
17	Archibald, Josh	F	13	0	1	1
18	Foegele, Warren	F	13	0	1	1
19	Broberg, Philip	D	1	0	0	0
20	Brassard, Derick	F	1	0	0	0
21	Holloway, Dylan	F	1	0	0	0
22	Malone, Brad	F	2	0	0	0
23	Russell, Kris	D	6	0	0	0
						
				Goalies		
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L
1	Smith, Mike	16	872	3.37	0.913	8-6
2	Koskinen, Mikko	3	89	4.02	0.897	0-2

Transactions

July 12, 2021
• Caleb Jones and 3rd round pick in 2022 (Jeremy Langlois (Arizona)) traded to Chicago for Duncan Keith and Tim Soderlund*.

July 21, 2021
• Adam Larsson claimed by Seattle in expansion draft.

July 28, 2021
• Ethan Bear traded to Carolina for Warren Foegele.
• Jujhar Khaira signed as free agent by Chicago.
• Signed Cody Ceci (formerly with Pittsburgh) as free agent.
• Signed Zach Hyman (formerly with Toronto) as free agent.
• Signed Derek Ryan (formerly with Calgary) as free agent.

July 29, 2021
• Dmitry Kulikov signed as free agent by Minnesota.
• Joseph Gambardella signed as free agent by New Jersey.

August 7, 2021
• Signed Brendan Perlini (formerly with Detroit) as free agent.

October 7, 2021
• Tyler Ennis signed as free agent by Ottawa.

October 9, 2021
• James Neal signed as free agent by St. Louis.

October 12, 2021
• Alex Chiasson signed as free agent by Vancouver.

October 13, 2021
• Signed Colten Sceviour (formerly with Pittsburgh) as free agent.

January 27, 2022
• Signed Evander Kane (formerly with San Jose) as free agent.

March 2, 2022
• Signed James Hamblin as free agent.

March 21, 2022
• William Lagesson, 2nd round pick in 2022 (Lane Hutson), and 7th round pick in 2024 traded to Montreal for Brett Kulak.
• 4th round pick in 2023 traded to Philadelphia for Derick Brassard.

With the COVID pandemic winding down, the league returned to normalcy in the fall of 2021. Divisions were returned to normal while the Seattle Kraken were welcomed into the league, joining the Oilers in the Pacific division (Arizona would move to the central).

Holland was busy in the offseason. Leaving the team would be Larsson (esxpansion claim by Seattle), Jones, Bear (traded), and Kulikov (UFA) on the backend as well as Neal, Chiasson, and Khaira (all UFAs) up front. The big names coming in would be Duncan Keith (Jones trade), and Cody Ceci (UFA) on the back end, while Zach Hyman was the prize free agent signing up front, while Warren Foegele (Bear trade), and Derek Ryan (UFA) were also added.

Smith was re-signed to be the starter once more, but he suffered an early injury and the team was forced to use Koskinen for the first part of the season, with rookie Stuart Skinner backing him up. Smith would eventually return and have a decent (if abbreviated) season posting a 0.915 save percentage. Koskinen was decent as well, while Skinner showed good stuff in limited appearances.

The Oilers would ice a top 5 d-corps of Nurse, Bouchard, Barrie, Keith, and Ceci with the sixth and seventh spots alternating among Russell, Lagesson (traded at the deadline), Broberg, Koekkoek, and Neimelainen. Bouchard and Barrie both had great seasons point wise with 43 and 41 respectively, while Nurse and Ceci were a bit behind them. Keith was well past his prime, and while he was a step or two slower he still took a regular shift. Overall, while Larsson was definitely missed, this crew was able to get the job done most nights. Brett Kulak was added late in the season to complete the top 6.

Up front saw McDavid and Draisaitl again improve on their totals and again finishing 1-2 in the league scoring race with 123 and 110 points respectively. A long ways back, Hyman made an impressive Oiler debut finishing with 27 goals and 54 points behind only the big 2. Nugent-Hopkins contributed 50 points, while a host of others also had decent seasons. Both Yamamoto and Puljujarvi improved while the bottom lines were patrolled by Ryan, Foegele, Kassian, Shore, and deadline acquisition Derick Brassard. Mid-season, the Oilers made some waves by acquiring Evander Kane, whose personal issues had made him poisonous to a lot of teams, but he behaved himself completely while in Edmonton and had a terrific half season, getting 22 goals in his half season.

The Oilers were able to roar out of the gate with a 15-5 start before they cooled off with a bad December. They continued to be in a bit of a funk in January, which would eventually lead to the termination of Dave Tippett with Jay Woodcroft being brought up from Bakersfield to become the new head coach. This move coupled with the aforementioned Kane acquisition seemed to galvanize the team, and they were terrific down the stretch, eventually finishing with 104 points, good for 2nd in the Pacific Division.

It would be a first round match up with the Kings, the eighth in NHL history. After dropping a close one in game 1, the Oilers took charge by blowing LA out of the building in games 2 and 3. But LA refused to die and after a 4-0 game 4 win by the Kings, the series returned to Edmonton where the Kings orchestrated a come from behind 5-4 OT win causing some butt clenching in the Alberta capital. But after a gut wrenching 4-2 win in LA, the Oilers returned home and managed to win a tight 2-0 game to win their first game 7 in 24 years and advance to the 2nd round.

And that series would be against Calgary, in the first battle of Alberta in 31 years. Game 1 was a comedy of errors, with the Flames taking a 5-1 lead only for the Oilers to storm back and tie it 6-6, before Calgary eventually won. After that, however it was all Oilers who took the next 3 games, comfortably before game 5 went to OT where McDavid potted the winner to put the Oilers on to the Conference finals.

Going up against Colorado, the Oilers were overmatched in this series. They failed to win a single game, getting swept aside, and keeping only a couple of the games close. While the team had taken a big step forward, it was clear they had a ways to go to compete with the big boys. It should be noted that McDavid and Draisaitl lead the league in playoff scoring, despite not making the finals, each averaging two points a game. It was hoped with a few tweaks, the team would be even better come the fall.

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Season 50 (NHL 43); 2022-23: Powerplay mania [message #827772 is a reply to message #824021 ]	Tue, 28 November 2023 23:16

benv
Messages: 601
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

https://preview.redd.it/your-2022-2023-edmonton-oilers-v0-8ggzi9am6rra1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=641c08cba1993680c8bf2e4437310d689f770bcc

	Coach: Jay Woodcorft						
	GM:Ken Holland						
							
		Wins	Losses	OTL	SOL	Pts	%
Regular Season Record		50	23	5	4	109	0.665
		GF:	325	GA:	260		
	Finish: 2nd place Pacific Division; 6th overall						
	  						
							
	 			Regular Season			
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	
1	McDavid, Connor	F	82	64	89	153	
2	Draisaitl, Leon	F	80	52	76	128	
3	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	82	37	67	104	
4	Hyman, Zach	F	79	36	47	83	
5	Barrie, Tyson	D	61	10	33	43	
6	Nurse, Darnell	D	82	12	31	43	
7	Bouchard, Evan	D	82	8	32	40	
8	Kane, Evander	F	41	16	12	28	
9	Foegele, Warren	F	67	13	15	28	
10	Yamamoto, Kailer	F	58	10	15	25	
11	Janmark, Mattias	F	66	10	15	25	
12	McLeod, Ryan	F	57	11	12	23	
13	Kostin, Klim	F	57	11	10	21	
14	Ryan, Derek	F	80	13	7	20	
15	Kulak, Brett	D	82	3	17	20	
16	Ceci, Cody	D	80	1	14	15	
17	Ekholm, Mattias	D	21	4	10	14	
18	Puljujarvi, Jesse	F	58	5	9	14	
19	Shore, Devin	F	47	1	8	9	
20	Holloway, Dylan	F	51	3	6	9	
21	Broberg, Philip	D	46	1	7	8	
22	Bjugstad, Nick	F	19	4	2	6	
23	Desharnais, Vincent	D	36	0	5	5	
24	Murray, Ryan	D	13	0	3	3	
25	Demers, Jason	D	1	0	0	0	
26	Benson, Tyler	F	2	0	0	0	
27	Hamblin, James	F	10	0	0	0	
28	Malone, Brad	F	10	0	0	0	
29	Niemelainen, Markus	D	23	0	0	0	
							
							
							
				Goalies			
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L-OL	
1	Skinner, Stuart	50	2903	2.75	0.913	29-14-5	
2	Campbell, Jack	36	2026	3.41	0.888	21-9-4	
3	Berlin, Matt	1	2	0.00	1.000	0-0-0	


Playoff result: Eliminated in Pacific Division Final						
Round/Team	Result	Wins	Losses	GF	GA	
1. Los Angeles	Win	4	2	25	20	
2. Vegas	Loss	2	4	19	22	
						
Summary	Series: 1-1	6	6	44	42	
						
	Player	Position	Games	Goals	Assists	Points
1	McDavid, Connor	F	12	8	12	20
2	Draisaitl, Leon	F	12	13	5	18
3	Bouchard, Evan	D	12	4	13	17
4	Hyman, Zach	F	12	3	8	11
5	Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan	F	12	1	10	11
6	Ekholm, Mattias	D	12	1	6	7
7	Kane, Evander	F	12	3	2	5
8	Kostin, Klim	F	12	3	2	5
9	McLeod, Ryan	F	12	0	5	5
10	Nurse, Darnell	D	11	0	4	4
11	Yamamoto, Kailer	F	12	1	3	4
12	Ryan, Derek	F	11	1	2	3
13	Bjugstad, Nick	F	12	3	0	3
14	Foegele, Warren	F	12	2	1	3
15	Kulak, Brett	D	12	1	1	2
16	Desharnais, Vincent	D	12	0	2	2
17	Janmark, Mattias	F	5	0	1	1
18	Ceci, Cody	D	12	0	1	1
19	Broberg, Philip	D	9	0	0	0
						
						
						
				Goalies		
	Goalie	Games	Min	GAA	SV %	W-L
1	Skinner, Stuart	12	619	3.68	0.883	5-6
2	Campbell, Jack	4	118	1.01	0.961	1-0

Transactions

July 7, 2022
• Zack Kassian, 1st round pick in 2022 (Maverick Lamoreux), 3rd round pick in 2024, and 2nd round pick in 2025 traded to Arizona for 1st round pick in 2022 (Reid Schaefer*).
• 2022 NHL entry draft (round 1): Oilers selected Reid Schaeffer* (32).

July 13, 2022
• Signed Jack Campbell (formerly with Toronto) as free agent.
• Josh Archibald signed as free by Pittsburgh.
• Cooper Marody signed as free agent by Philadelphia.

July 17, 2022
• Signed Mattias Janmark (formerly with Vegas) as free agent.

September 2, 2022
• Signed Ryan Murray (formerly with Colorado) as free agent.

October 9, 2022
• Dmitri Samorukov traded to St. Louis for Klim Kostin.

October 10, 2022
• Derick Brassard signed as free agent by Ottawa.

December 18, 2022
• Signed Jason Demers (formerly with Arizona) as free agent.

January 28, 2023
• Signed Matt Berlin as free agent (amateur tryout).

February 28, 2023
• Jesse Puljujarvi traded to Carolina for Patrik Puistola*.
• Tyson Barrie, Reid Schaeffer*, 1st round pick in 2023, and 4th round pick in 2024 traded to Nashville for Mattias Ekholm and 6th round pick in 2024.

March 1, 2023
• Michael Kesselring* and 3rd round pick in 2023 traded to Arizona for Nick Bjugstad and Cam Dineen*.

It’s almost silly to talk in detail about the 22-23 season since it just happened and you all know about it, but I need to wrap up this thread, so let’s keep it brief and go over the 50th season in team history.

Not a ton of off-season movement: Kassian was dumped for cap relief and Brassard was not re-signed. The only big signing was Jack Campbell as the new starting goalie, while Mattias Janmark and Ryan Murray were signed for some depth. In a seemingly minor deal, the Oilers acquired Klim Kostin from St. Louis.

The team would be mostly the same with the exception of goal; Smith retired, while Koskinen was not re-signed. That left the team with Stuart Skinner (graduating to full time Oiler) and new big UFA signing Jack Campbell as the hopeful starter. Skinner outplayed Campbell by a wide margin early, and would take over the starting job early in the year, keeping it into the playoffs. Skinner was mostly very good, being a finalist for the Calder trophy, while Campbell struggled for most of the year.

The Oilers had a returning top 5 of Nurse, Bouchard, Kulak, Ceci, and Barrie with Murray (played only 13 games due to injury), Niemelainen, and Broberg filling in early as the 6th and 7th guys. Nurse, Bouchard and Barrie had good offensive seasons while Ceci and Kulak had moments of good and bad. Longtime farmhand Vincent Desharnais would come up mid-season and solidify a spot as the main number 6 guy, then at the trade deadline, the Oilers made a big swap acquiring stalwart defender Mattias Ekholm from Nashville for Barrie and picks which really solidified things on the back-end.

Up front it felt like Oprah handing out career seasons to everyone. McDavid (153 points), Draisaitl (128), Nugent-Hopkins (104) and Hyman (83) all had outstanding career highs and the Oilers were the best offensive team in the league with a power play that was almost automatic (best in league history). After this big four it was bit harder to find offense. Kane suffered a horrific wrist injury that cost him half the season and some effectiveness when he did play (just 28 points in 41 games). Elsewhere saw Foegele, Yamamoto, Janmark, McLeod, Kostin, and Ryan all contributing decently with 20+ point seasons. Puljujarvi had quite a poor showing and the Oilers washed their hands of him dealing him for scraps at the deadline. Also of note were the deadline acquisition of Nick Bjugstad and the debut of 2020 first rounder Dylan Holloway who played 51 games, showed some flash, but was maybe not quite NHL ready yet.

The Oilers had a bit of a slower start, finishing 2022 at just a couple games over 0.500, but really turned it on starting in January. Once March hit and they acquired Ekholm, they were almost unbeatable, losing in regulation just twice in their final 21 games. They erased a big deficit to Vegas and came within two points of winning the Pacific, finishing with 109 points just behind Golden Knights.

It would be another first round match up with the Kings. The Oilers won game 2, but that was sandwiched between two OT losses in games 1 and 3, both on power plays on controversial penalties against Edmonton. Game 4 was the turning point where the Oilers erased an early 3-0 deficit to come back for an emotional 5-4 OT victory (Hyman) to even the series. A tidy game 5 win was followed by an unlikely hero in game 6 when Yamamoto scored the winner late in the third to push the Oilers to the 2nd round.

How much do I need to say about the Vegas series—I’m sure it’s still burned in all your memories. Brief summary: the teams split the first two games, and then the league screwed the Oilers over by suspending Nurse the same as Pieterangelo (I don’t need to elaborate). The Oilers then proceeded to blow 2nd period leads in both games 5 and 6 to go down in 6 games and it would be next year time again. I guess that’s where we are now.

So that wraps up my summary of 50 season of Oiler hockey. Thank you for reading and here’s to another 50 seasons.

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Re: Season 50 (NHL 43); 2022-23: Powerplay mania [message #827788 is a reply to message #827772 ]	Wed, 29 November 2023 10:33

Dragon_Matt
Messages: 766
Registered: January 2009
Location: edmonton

No Cups

You're a legend Benv!

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