Edmonton Oilers

A Few Things
May 4, 2017, 12:12 PM ET [132 Comments]
Matt Henderson
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A few things about last night’s Overtime Loss to the Ducks.

1) The Oilers were awful for the middle 30 minutes of the game.

Pretty much from the opening of the 2nd period to roughly the halfway mark of the 3rd, the Oilers were not even close to good enough. The Ducks took over and the Oilers didn’t respond. Yes, there were some officiating hijinx (and we’ll get to that) but at the end of the day McLellan’s club still got pounded into the ground.

The 1st period ended with the shots 16-10 Oilers, shot attempts were 23-21 overall in favor of the Oilers and 19-14 during 5v5 play. It was an excellent period marked by Oiler control of the play, two goals for the good guys, and an excellent penalty kill. It was a fantastic period.

By contrast, the 2nd period saw the shots go 21(!) – 5 for the Ducks, with shot attempts 37-12 overall and 30-12 5v5. The Oilers were totally buried in that frame and for all the things that the referees and linesmen did that turned the outcome on its head, the Oilers allowed the Ducks to put themselves in a position to receive those beneficial calls by playing poorly.

2) They were bad in the same ways they had been bad previously.

It was the soft plays on the boards or high in the zone that continued to plague Edmonton. As good as the 1st period was and as good as the final 10 minutes looked, the team couldn’t string together 60 minutes (and 45 seconds) of hard play.

The 1st Ducks goal occurred because Jordan Eberle is afraid to take a hit from Corey Perry and he throws the puck away, inexplicably, to Montour at the point. I have believed for quite a while that Eberle has more to give and will give more in the future than he has this season. I also believe that at times he’s played well defensively, but that scoring chance was a result of softness along the boards. No doubt about it.

The 2nd Ducks goal occurred because the Ducks owned the boards again, this time it was everything behind Talbot.

The 3rd Ducks goal was simply Ryan Nugent-Hopkins getting completely out-muscled by Ryan Getzlaf. The Oilers have not, and may not ever this series, found a way to stop him from running their show. Yeah, he gets away with murder when it comes to the interference/pick plays, but the standard has been set and the Oilers need to adapt. This guy is unreal and RNH needs to be more keenly aware that he’s lurking there.

The 4th Ducks goal, the OT winner, comes off a play where Adam Larsson, who had been on the ice for the 3 other Ducks goals and owned the worst shot attempt share of any Oiler defender, flails at the puck along the boards. Larsson makes a soft play along the boards while under pressure, Milan Lucic just gives up position to (yet again) Ryan Getzlaf, and the rest is history. So we have Lucic who appears to be daydreaming and Larsson who appears to be overwhelmed. Not a great look.

All of these goals are resultant off of plays that have plagued Edmonton all series long. All of them.

3) Three of the goals were plays that should have been blown dead.

Yes. The Oilers invited the plays to happen because of their crappy play, but the first, second, and fourth Ducks goals never should have been allowed to count at all. The referees and the linesmen blew these calls and it directly affected the outcome of the game. They know it. The panel – the ENTIRE panel – knew it. And we know it too.

There’s absolutely nothing that can be done about it, but Randy Carlyle played these oafs and he goes home with the series tied because of it.

GOAL 1

On the Ducks 1st goal Corey Perry very clearly makes contact with the right skate, shoulder, and blocker of Cam Talbot, who is in the blue paint save for a portion of his foot. The puck goes in blocker side. Replay clearly shows the contact and the rule book clearly indicates that NO MATTER whether the goalie is inside the crease or out, any contact beyond incidental contact should result in NO GOAL.










I cannot come up with a good explanation for why the challenge was not held up. At least none that actually follows the rules as they exist now and the way the game is called in 2017. It was a blown call. Full stop.

And it might seem as though Perry’s contact with the skate is the sticking point, but in reality it’s his contact with the blocker and shoulder that Cam Talbot was irate about. And since the puck went in blocker side, immediately after the contact, you can see his point.

GOAL 2

Heartbreakingly, this goal is allowed to count because of the blown call by the referees on goal 1. A result of the failed challenge above is that McLellan loses his timeout and thus loses his ability to challenge another goal.

The second Ducks goal was the result of an offside play.




Corey Perry’s back foot is off the ice before the puck crosses the blueline. As Kassian can tell you, this is offside. The NHL voted against changing the rules to a “broken plane” type of system. They wanted this play to be offside.

No challenge available, the linesman missed the call. Goal.

GOAL 4

This was icing. It appears to be the textbook definition of icing. The rear linesman called it icing. For reasons that appeared questionable unanimously to the panel, the 2nd lineman waved the icing off.




You can see here that when Klefbom turns he can see the arm up by the official signifying icing. He swats the puck below the red line assuming that there will be a call and he holds up in the corner. Silfverberg peels off wide, Klefbom naturally doesn’t follow because he thinks the play will be dead. If you’re wondering how Silfverberg gets so wide open, that’s how.

Now, there was no whistle and if you want to blast Edmonton’s players for failing to play to the whistle then that’s fine. But why wasn’t it icing?

The prevailing theory is that it relates to the direction that Klefbom turns when he transitions to the race for the puck. He turns inside and in doing so never turns his back to Silfverberg. For this reason, which seems crazy at best, the linesman waves off the icing. If he had turned his back to the racing forward the theory is that icing doesn’t get waved off.

Does that make sense to anybody? It doesn’t to me.

So to recap, the Oilers really dropped the ball in the middle of the game, they did it in ways that ought to have been addressed by now, but – in saying that – the referees and linesmen also dictated the outcome of this game with their incompetence.

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