Kr55 wrote on Thu, 09 May 2024 16:23

RDOilerfan wrote on Thu, 09 May 2024 15:07 Kr55 wrote on Thu, 09 May 2024 14:18 Adam wrote on Thu, 09 May 2024 14:14 g2k wrote on Thu, 09 May 2024 11:35 RDOilerfan wrote on Thu, 09 May 2024 11:12 Brown - 1 hit. Really disappointed with him. I got into it with a poster that as a fan base, we should be wanting all players to do well, not hoping for them to fail like the poster was. Okay, obviously this quip is directed toward myself. I want you to show us all in the pregame thread where I said I wanted Brown to fail. If you are going to make this claim 2X now, prove your point or stfu. I know I went to bed last night cursing the name g2k for the Game One defeat. I hope you'll be much more upbeat in the run-up to Game Two so that Brown, if in the lineup, plays much better! As we slowly moving back to the fans negativity a province away being the reason for the teams failures? :) I'm sure Spector will go there if the series goes worse. Sounded almost wimpery on the radio this morning with his anger at fans that dared to blame Nurse/Ceci for anything last night. I thought the whole D core needed to be better, Nurse and Ceci for sure. But which goals did you feel were totally their fault? A big part of my job is figuring out solutions for my projects instead of pointing fingers when something wrong happens so what should they have done better so it doesn't happen again? 1st Goal. Clean faceoff loss. Point shot goes wide, bounces perfectly off the boards to deflect out to Joshua who is there to fire it in. I don't think anyone can anticipate it would bounce that perfectly including Skinner but it did. From the time it hit the boards to it being in the net was what, 1 second, maybe 2? 2nd goal. Nothing play. Lindholm pushed away from the front. Throws the puck towards the goal, deflects off Skinners stick and in. 3rd goal. Boeser can't get to the goal or doesn't have a great shooting lane because both Nurse and McD are there blocking it so he flings it towards the goal. It's going probably 4 feet wide, Miller at the goal line makes an incredible tip. Now I saw probably 10 second earlier Nurse had a chance to get it out by banking it off the boards. You don't want to fire it up the middle because Miller was right there. So he tries to go up the wall but it looks like McD and Boeser where in a scrum at the boards right as Nurse went to bank it and it hit one of their legs and popped to Miller. So in that case, sure blame Nurse. Maybe he should have shot it harder or tried to beat Miller 1 on 1. A little misfortune to have it hit one of Boeser or McD but that was an incredible tip by Miller. 4th goal. He keeps Garland wide and gives him a sharp angle shot from the corner. Skinner by his own admission totally misplayed it and it goes in. I am not sticking up for them. They need to be better but for this playoff, the Oilers are stuck with them and need them to be good. If the screwed up a coverage, bad pinch, stupid pass, then 100% they deserve to be bashed. I just don't know what they could have done for most of those goals. 2 goals are lucky bounces and 1 was a goal your goalie has to stop 10 out of 10 and he admitted he screwed up. It sucks. 1st goal. Ceci in no mans land, 2 Canucks at the net. Bad things happened. 2nd goal. Bad clear by Ceci up the boards. lost puck battle by Ceci in the corner. Nurse stick waving at Lindholm, somehow doesn't manage to do a single thing with his stick and Linholm just acts like he isn't there and throws the puck across the crease. 3rd goal. Nurse, pathetic attempt to get the puck out near our blue line. Ceci just staking around clueless having no idea what's happening. McDavid signals to Nurse to take Miller because he has Boeser covered, but Nurse decides he wants to screen his goalie, almost does. Then another stick wave and Miller just casually deflects the puck like Nurse's stick doesn't exist. 4th goal. Terrible read on the rush, Ceci and Nurse again totally failing to stop an entry. Nurse just needed to skate 2 more strides and he can just toss Garland into the corner, or at least get his, ONCE AGAIN, useless stick actually on Garland's stick. He becomes just a pylon. Garland makes the exact move he wants and somehow NUrse's stick does absolutely nothing to interrupt him. The fixation on the 1 second right before the goal, sure, you can try to excuse this pair. But there was lots more bad stuff leading to these goals. Bad stuff that this pair did over and over. Same kinda bad stuff that ended our playoffs a year ago.

I mentioned after the first period last night that we were loose and sloppy on a bunch of plays, costing us a breakaway (against Ceci & Nurse) and almost a couple more (against Desharnais & Kulak). Breakouts were an option and we saw a bunch of people making bad choices throughout the game. I saw some people commending Kane for his aggressive play, but he gave the puck away at our blueline repeatedly all night long. McDavid wasn't even doing a great job getting the puck out.

I think coaching plays some role last night too - because they just stopped pushing and that looked tactical. There's this stupid hockey myth that there's some merit in just shutting things down and closing out a game the boring way, but in reality, that's just allowing for a ton of zone time for the other side that wears out your goaltender and defence. Which the Oilers did with predictable results.

Finally, Skinner wasn't good. He just has to be better than that. At least three of those goals weren't great and while everyone is going to make mistakes from time to time, the 5-minute let-down was a hallmark of his play last year in the second round that we just cannot afford to see again. He looked like his belief was reeling when they tied it up, and then that weak, weak sharp angle goal just was a back-breaker.

They need to be better in Game 2. Fortunately, we showed that we shouldn't be afraid of their netminder at all, and that if we take more than 18 shots, we might actually be too much for them to handle.

"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
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