Edmonton Oilers

R1 G2 Sharks at Oilers: Adjustments Needed
April 14, 2017, 10:39 AM ET [148 Comments]
Matt Henderson
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It started pretty well. After the jitters were worked out of the system in the first 5 minutes, the Oilers played a pretty successful 1st period. Edmonton opened the scoring 2-0 and were very physical. You couldn’t have asked for a better start to the club’s first playoff appearance in 11 years. Edmonton owned the shot attempt and scoring chance share through the first 20. Then it all fell apart.

The Oilers attempted to play defensive hockey and the result was predictably awful. The penalties against are as much an excuse as they are an explanation. All that really matters is that the Oil killed off 5 of 6 penalties in that game but failed to muster any momentum through the final two regulation periods and overtime. The Sharks smelled blood, so to speak, and were circling.

Playing with the lead has been Edmonton’s Achilles heel all year. They have been fortunate enough to have Connor McDavid ready to strike at a moment’s notice on the transition because they drop like a stone in terms of possession. When the Oilers are trailing games they had the 5th highest Fenwick For percentage in the NHL this season. When the game was tied they drop to 15th in the NHL. When they lead by two, as they were after the 1st period in game 1, they sat 14th in the NHL with a 43.4 FF%. That’s the image of a team that hasn’t figured out how to keep their foot on the throat of their opponents and giving the Sharks 40 minutes to make their comeback proved too much to hold off.

And I’ll grant that the officiating was extremely poor. Plays that were penalties in the 1st and 2nd for the Oilers were not for the Sharks in the 3rd. Connor McDavid was getting hooked and held onto and there were no calls despite the fact that the Sharks received double the Power Play opportunities. Yes, that’s bad officiating. And I’m sure it threw off the rhythm of the game for the guys who don’t kill penalties, but the PK did its job. The Penalty Killers kept the puck out of the net for the most-part. Still the Oilers were brutal from their own zone and outwards.

Given the problems the Oilers had leaving their zone I wouldn’t be surprised to see Benning given another opportunity to play. Gryba had a tough night (just as Russell and Sekera did). It’s not necessarily a knee-jerk reaction. The 6th defender spot was always a 50/50 coin toss and Gryba’s toughness was as much a negative as a positive as it landed the Oiler in the box. Gryba’s penalty differential on the season has been the thing preventing his season from being proclaimed a total success. It burned him again in the last game on a call that I thought was extremely weak. His elbow touched Couture’s helmet with what I thought was expected contact, but the big guy got a reputation call.

What we need to see from Edmonton in game two is a return to their brand of hockey and some discipline. When the game is being refereed as poorly as it was, you cannot have Drake Caggiula blatantly stick someone in the face. That’s just asking for more penalty time. Big hits and ultra-physical hockey is fantastic, but Edmonton needs to keep things simple and apply pressure with their speed as the first priority.

If Edmonton can be positive about one thing from the first game, it’s the play of goaltender Cam Talbot. He stood on his head and really kept the Oilers in the game well past when they should have. Making 41 of 44 stops, the Oil have to play a much better game in front of their starting netminder. He was really the lone bright spot from the beginning to the end of the game.

LINEUP

There’s no indication who will be in or out yet, but Benning practiced with Nurse and Gryba was in for Larsson who was taking a maintenance day. I lean towards Benning in and Gryba out. Desharnais is still likely to stay in but he needs a bounceback performance.

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

Klefbom Larsson
Sekera Russell
Nurse Benning

Talbot
Brossoit

OILERS KEY TO THE GAME

1) Blocking Brent. Brent Burns was a manimal for the Sharks in game one. He played 27:34 and recorded 8 shots on goal. To add to how impressive that was, he had a total of 18 shot attempts. With the Sharks better forwards not at 100%, Burns is more important than ever to his club. It looked like he was never off the ice at all and he appeared to be unleashing hell from all over the Oiler zone. He is big, tough, plays a ton, and has a ridiculous skill level. It is going to be one hell of an assignment to keep him in check. Part of that is to quit giving him opportunities to rack up PP minutes. He recorded 9:36 of PP time in the first game alone. If Burns is going to play almost 30 minutes a night in this series the Oilers need to make them hard minutes. A full 1/3 of his time was spend abusing Edmonton on the man-advantage. Edmonton’s inability to stay out of the box just empowers San Jose’s best player to be ultra-effective.

2) McLellan Adjusts. As much as part of last game’s story was about the Referees choosing the winner, it was about Todd McLellan getting outcoached by Pete DeBoer. The Sharks were behind the eight ball after 20 minutes and they made changes. They came out for the 2nd like a rocket. The Oilers were out-attempted 20-5 during 5v5 play in the 2nd period. Ok. That’s bad. But what did McLellan do for the 3rd period and overtime to swing the balance back in Edmonton’s favor? As far as we can tell…nothing. Edmonton was out-attempted 18-9 in the 3rd period 5v5 as well. With Home Ice advantage the Oilers opted not to match any particular line against McLellan’s defenders. Perhaps just as bad, he allowed DeBoer to go forward with his plan to hard-match Vlasic and Braun against McDavid. Once the Sharks took over that game, McLellan did nothing to disrupt their plans. He allowed them to gain confidence in their plans. McLellan’s poor decision making also lead to the Overtime goal. This should not be controversial, but if David Desharnais was only allowed to play 6 minutes all game and was caved in possession-wise to the tune of a 12.5% shot attempt share, what on God’s green earth was he doing on the ice in overtime against Pavelski, Couture, Vlasic, Braun, and the eventual game winner Karlsson??? If Edmonton wants to win this series their head coach needs to shape up.

3) 60 Minutes. If the Oilers even played close to a complete game and lost I would be much more worried about the state of this series moving forward. What appears to have happened was that the inexperience of this team caught up with the excitement of the moment and the plan was lost for 40+ minutes. The team was derailed completely and couldn’t right itself at all. Even one more solid period out of them and they might have been able to hold onto the win. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. McLellan’s club must find a way to play a complete game tonight. Edmonton’s offensive stars need to find ways to assert themselves late in this game. Going down 2-0 to the Sharks before even playing a game in San Jose would be a disaster. Not something the team couldn’t overcome, but a disaster nonetheless.

Puck drops tonight at 8:30 PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet. Game On!