Edmonton Oilers

R1 G3 Oilers at Sharks: Distracted or Disciplined
April 16, 2017, 12:24 PM ET [29 Comments]
Matt Henderson
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I was intensely critical of Todd McLellan after the first game because he was unable to make corrections within the game to get his club back on track. The response from his team in game 2, however, was an incredible reversal of roles. The Oilers played the part of dominating club and the Sharks were pinned into their own zone all game. The rubber match is set to go tonight.

Edmonton thoroughly dominated the 5v5 play after working on their breakouts and entries in practice. They also made a couple lineup changes that helped in this regard. Specifically, the puck moving talents of Matt Benning were swapped in for the puck separating talents of Eric Gryba. I don’t want to reduce Benning’s abilities to just that of an offensive defenseman, because that’s not the case. He gets in on the physical play as well and did so with a thunderous hit of his own (he was credited with 5 hits in total). However, his ability to distribute the puck to the forwards helped Edmonton dominate possession 5v5.

Edmonton out-shot the Sharks 36-16 on Friday and out attempted them 77-36 in total. During 5v5 play the Oilers out attempted the Sharks 47-21. That’s a 69.1% Corsi For percentage, which is absolute dominance. The decision to play Benning paid off as the Oilers had 22 shot attempts for compared to just 2 against while Benning was on the ice. Martin Jones did an incredible job of keeping the Sharks in the game, but a virtuoso performance by Zack Kassian was enough to seal the deal for Edmonton as Talbot recorded the shutout.

I will concur with the rest of the observers that the game played by Oiler 3rd line winger Zack Kassian was likely the best of his professional career. To quote Dave Randorf, he was everywhere. Kassian is blessed with speed and size and just enough offensive ability to score once in a while. He should have had at least 10 goals this year but finished with only 7 after having an unfortunate number of them called back on video reviews. Who knows how much money the video review system cost him in this contract year, but he’s probably earned a fair chunk of that back with his game 2 performance.

Kassian was a man on fire and asserted himself physically (6 hits) and offensively (4 shots) in just a little more than 14 minutes of ice time, including 4 minutes on the PK. He drew a penalty with a disrupted breakaway in which he was begging for the penalty shot. He was obviously feeling it. He got his chance to get that shot away while shorthanded. And if the offense was all he added he would have still been the first star of the game, but it wasn’t. Among those 6 hits he registered there were two explosive collisions with Dillon and Couture. He was right on the edge, but stayed on the right side of the rule book.

If Kassian was out front with his physicality, his teammates weren’t far behind. The Oilers layed the body on the Sharks to the tune of 41 hits. In fact, they’ve have 90 hits in the first two games combined. Edmonton is running San Jose’s players at every opportunity, and if you saw Logan Couture’s intermission interview you’d know that it’s having the intended affect. Life is not easy for the Sharks in this series. If Edmonton can just get their discipline under control then taking control of the series will be a lot easier of a task.

LINEUP

Let’s go with the same group as Friday. Klefbom didnt practice yesterday after taking a shot on the inside of his leg but we assume he's playing.

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

Klefbom Larsson
Sekera Russell
Nurse Benning

Talbot
Brossoit

OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME

1) Distracted. Tonight we’re going to find out how badly Zack Kassian got into the heads of the San Jose Sharks. If the focus of the Sharks is to prevent Edmonton’s 3rd line from running all over them physically and even for a few moments they let their guard down against McLellan’s top two lines then Kassian’s impact was bigger than imagined. The Oilers scored shorthanded, but failed to capitalize 5v5 or on the Power Play. Even though the Oil dominated the game, the trap is set for the Sharks to fall into. If their focus is getting back at Kassian or upping their physical play then that plays into Edmonton’s hand. The Sharks won’t want to get pushed around at home. With a little luck and some smart play, the Oilers can take advantage of a team with their priorities out of order.

2) Matched. One of the things the Oilers managed to do MUCH better in the second game compared to the first was get their own matchups going. For the majority of the season Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has had the job of playing against the top offensive players on the other side of the ice. In game one, however, RNH only played 3:52 against Pavelski 5v5. In that time RNH had a 54.6 CF%, which suggests he was getting the job done but the coach didn’t get him out against Pavelski’s line enough. In game two RNH played 8:31 against Pavelski with a whopping 83.3 CF% in that matchup. With Nuge defusing Pavelski it opens up McDavid’s line to play against weaker competition. It’s a major key to success. It will be harder on the road to get the matchups that favor the Oil, but we keep an eye on how well RNH plays against Pavelski.

3) Disciplined. The Oilers have made finishing checks and grinding down the Sharks a priority, but they’ve also paid for it with penalty minutes. The refereeing in general has been abjectly terrible, with an emphasis on inconsistent, but some blatant stick infractions by the Oilers aren’t helping their case either. In total the Sharks have been gifted 12 power play opportunities in two games so far. The Ducks are the only team close (11) then the next highest number of opportunities in two games is Washington’s 8. Obviously I have questions about why the Alberta teams are being targeted by the NHL so much. I mean, the Flames have Wideman, but Edmonton hasn’t ruined anyone’s career. In any event, the Oilers have to find a way to stay out of the box. They are playing with fire by letting the Sharks play so much on the man-advantage.

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