Edmonton Oilers

G70 Oilers vs Bruins: The Hart of the Oilers
March 16, 2017, 3:42 PM ET [230 Comments]
Matt Henderson
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSS • Archive • CONTACT
McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers are in a dead heat as they make their way to a playoff appearance for the first time in 10 years. McDavid was 9 years old the last time this club made the post-season. That’s scarcely old enough for him to be playing against teenagers and dominating. Now, at 20 years old, he’s the Captain of an NHL team and carrying that club on his shoulders. He’s the best player in the Western Conference and maybe the NHL. No lower than 2nd best and I firmly believe that. Not only is he taking the Oilers to the Playoffs (probably), but he’s leading the league in scoring, or at least co-leading.

With the Bruins in town after playing the Flames (and beating them) last night, one of the other co-leaders in NHL scoring is in the building. Brad Marchand is technically 1st in league scoring because he leads in goals with 70GP, 36-40-76 this season. He’s shooting the lights out this season with a 17.6% shooting percentage. McDavid has the lowest shooting percentage of anyone in the top 5 of NHL scoring. This is actually pretty exciting news for the long run, Oiler fans, because it means this isn’t a mirage at all.

Oiler fans knew that already, but what’s driving his numbers is his raw, unparalleled talent. There are plenty of players who are elite in their talent. Sidney Crosby is the only one I put at McDavid’s level, but they aren’t clones of each other. Crosby doesn’t possess McDavid’s speed and McDavid doesn’t have Crosby’s tree-trunk legs and lower body strength. Same effect but they go about their business a little differently.

It’s been a very long time since the Oilers had someone legitimately make a run at a major award and especially the Hart and Art Ross trophies. I think McDavid has as good a chance as any at winning the NHL’s scoring title with 13 games to play in the season, but I firmly believe he ought to win the Hart trophy as the league’s top player.

Now I always hate the way writers break down the sentence that describes the Hart trophy, which is that it is awarded to “the player judged most valuable to his team”. I think they should reword it to be the most outstanding player in the NHL or some other description because I think the writers get too worked up about their perception of that phrase. Surely the intended meaning was always the best player in the NHL, but I digress. The point I’m going to make about McDavid though is that in the conversation for the Hart trophy, he satisfies both the outstanding “implied” meaning and the value to team “literal” meaning of the Hart description.

I don’t think that it can be overlooked how McDavid, in only his 2nd season, is both leading the NHL in scoring and captaining THE EDMONTON OILERS towards a playoff spot and respectability. I know Oiler fans might not want to hear this, but this team has been the laughing stock of the NHL for a decade. The franchise wasn’t mired in mediocrity, because that would have been an upgrade. They were a joke of a club run by buffoons who had lady luck drop a Get Out Of Suckville Free card right in their lap in the form of a McDavid lottery win.

Everything McDavid touches is gold. All of his linemates experience huge boosts in scoring. He can dance through NHL defenders like they’re standing still. He is a free agent magnet. He is the fastest player I have ever seen in my life. And, he fully understands that he’s going to be the face of the NHL for the next 10-15 years. He’s the guy.

Edmonton has gone from the 2nd worst team in the NHL and a perennial contender for the lottery to having a very real chance at home ice in the playoffs. That *has* to be a consideration when we talk about who should win the Hart trophy. It can be after we take into consideration the other things that McDavid has accomplished on the ice this year, but it has to be in there somewhere.

LINEUP

Hendricks out, Caggiula in

Maroon McDavid Draisaitl
Lucic RNH Eberle
Pouliot Desharnais Kassian
Caggiula Letestu Slepyshev

Klefbom Larsson
Sekera Russell
Nurse Benning

Talbot
Brossoit

OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME

1) 3rd Watch. Edmonton’s 3rd line is heating up. David Desharnais has 3 points in his last 5 games. Kassian has 4 points in his last 5 games. And, Pouliot – YES, POULIOT – has finally scored a goal again (his first in almost 30 games). The Oilers 3rd line might have just found the missing piece with David Desharnais who was apparently used as a winger by the Habs instead of his more natural role at centre. Maybe it’s that, maybe it’s just dumb luck, maybe the pieces just fit together, but if the Oilers keep getting contributions from this line then good thing will happen for them. I don’t know if you can count on Desharnais and Kassian to keep a 60% Goals For percentage while theyre on the ice together, but the 53.5% shot attempt percentage is a nice feather in the cap. Sample size, I know. Still, early returns are positive and unlocking the offense for Kassian and Pouliot could be a huge x-factor down the stretch.

2) Boston’s Finest. The Bruins are 12-3 since they made their coaching change and a few people will quote some obscure changes in the system that their new bench boss has made, but the fact is that the Bruins skaters have been performing great by several metrics for most of the year. They were getting punished by bad bounces for a long stretch. Sometimes hockey people hate hearing that because they want “results” and don’t like to hear about the bounces. The results we can see that have been there all along are their shot attempts and shots for. They are among the very best in the NHL by those metrics, and we knew that these were going to forecast goals eventually. We can see Julien was fired at the lowest. This team has been good for a while. Only now they’re being rewarded for it.




3) Rookie Blue. I will continue to be impressed by former Boston Bruin draft pick, Matthew Benning. The only Oiler rookie defender is handling his first professional season quite well. He looks tired and pale in every picture I ever see him in, and his relatively thin frame LOOKS like it’s about to give way because of the rigors the NHL schedule has put him through. However, on the ice, he is still performing better than I ever anticipated. There is a good case that he ought to be Sekera’s partner on the 2nd pair by next season if the Oilers are unable to find a suitable improvement on Kris Russell. There’s an argument to be made that he should be there RIGHT NOW. That’s how well Benning has performed on the right side of the ice. That said, he’s performing well in the role he has right now and if it aint broke, don’t fix it. He is top on the Oiler blueline in shot attempt percentage and goals for percentage 5v5. How good can this young man get in the right situations?

Puck drops tonight at 7PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. Game On!