I would be curious of all the points he gets how many were with Mcdavid. Would he do anywhere near as good without Mcdavid either feeding him or scoring with an assist going to him.

I sat back and listened to the hype about how Edmonton was going to win the cup because of McDavid and Draisaitl, and waited for it to be proven once again, that you don't win the Stanley Cup without quality defense and goaltending. And once again, it was proven. While having the top two goalscorers is exciting, it takes more to win a Stanley Cup.

So you were waiting for the misery to occur before showing up? Good to know. Hope your Penquin's have a great year next year.

How does the coach keep starting the guy he keeps pulling game after game??
That's my question.

Sent from my SM-S918W using Tapatalk

I thought that the Ekholm trade moved the Oilers from being a bubble team to a team with a decent chance.
Woodcroft's handling of the goaltending played a role. Maybe Campbell should have played a couple of games to let Skinner get settled.

I like the off season almost as much as the playoffs. This year will be interesting with the cap not rising as much as the general managers would want. As always, teams that have players on value contracts tend to have the most success. Generally those will be guys on ELCs and players who are in the 'restricted' category.

For the Oilers, Bouchard's contract will be an interesting one to watch.

I wonder if McDavid would do as good without Dri feeding him or scoring with an assist going to him?

Not much action on your teams thread?

But good question. You should google it and let us know what you find out. Doesn't really seem like a stat anyone would bother keeping track of.

Well I guess someone bothered.......lol

I don't imagine the pens will have much success for a few years. They're still riding their top 2 goal scorers.... unfortunately they're both long past their prime. Need to start on the rebuild asap

Great season once again. Next year will be better yet with the young guns coming up. Will be Canada's team once again

Current salaries they are 2 of the best bargains in the league.

A week ago the bandwagon was overfilled, today they are jumping off in record numbers :sHa_sarcasticlol:


If the oil played at full tilt like they did for half of the series, we would be waiting for the next round to begin.

If we tried Campbell more, might have a different outcome vs giving Skinner chance after chance and falling behind a couple goals before yanking him.


If the refs called what they should have, might be a different story.

If we did not run into a hot back up goalie(I thought for sure our guns would run him from the net but he did great). They threw everything at him last night and could not get any puck luck whatsoever.


I am as disappointed with the season being over this early as anyone but another good step into the playoffs and more learning on what it takes to go deep in the playoffs. Now if Holland can make some moves to get even deeper, dump dead weight. Who knows how deep they can go next year.


It was a fun ride watching the Oilers. They broke a lot of long standing team records this season but I guess that means nothing if you don't get to the finals/win the cup. I look at it as another good step forward.

Yep.

It was a heckuva ride all year long. I watched some amazing hockey and got to see my team make the final 8. Definitely not the ultimate goal, but nothing to be ashamed of. The Oilers are a very good hockey team, capable of hoisting the Cup on their good days, just not quite there on their bad to average days. They came up short in the goaltending department, had a few subpar performances from key players, and ran outta steam, they were just outplayed as the series went on. Me thinks there's some nagging injuries in that room, but that's the playoffs...

Holland has been steadily building towards a winner, he's now got another critical offseason to continue the build. Having Ekholm signed long term is a HUGE win. The emergence of Skinner and McLeod, and the progess of Bouchard are all important steps. Gotta get some guys signed to fair deals, and we need Lavoie and Holloway to push next year, along with Broberg taking the next step. A healthy Kane is a major difference as well.

Campbell was the big swing that was supposed to be the answer this year. It didn't work out to say the least. That's going to be a $5MM yoke that Holland has to deal with for a lonnng time. I agree with the statement above that what the coaching staff was seeing behind the scenes must have been pretty bad. Loyalty to your starter is one thing, but they clearly had ZERO faith in him being a better option than a very mediocre Skinner.

I'd like to see Holland find a new home for Yamamoto, he tries hard, but he's just not the answer at $3MM. Unless they can bump Ceci to the 3rd pair, he's not the answer either. I like the guy, but I'm not at all convinced Desharnais is an NHL defencemen, especially on a Cup winning team. RD was a glaring weakness in the playoffs, they really need to sign a 1RD/2RD somehow, and that's a tall order.

All in all, it was a very good season. I'm disappointed it's over, but the memories of the decade of darkness are still all too fresh, so seeing a team this good on so many nights, with a legit chance of hoisting the Cup, is massive for me. I'm going to focus on enjoying the ride while it lasts.

Next year!

They "missed" it because it wasn't a penalty. Follow through on a shot.

Well, you fellas did better than we did, see you next year.

The Oilers won't go no where as long as they keep giving #25 the amount of ice time they do!

By paying so much for two players a team can’t afford no support. Wont win cups with out a balanced team.
Once the contracts come up for renewal it only gets worst. The next set of contracts is were a team gets ripped off

And yet there isn't enough left to buy a quality defence, and goaltender.

When contracts are up yes…….. right now they are both a couple of the best contracts going.

Give me an example of a goaltender or stud d man that was available.
Stud d men and top goalies are not displayed in store front windows and they never go on sale.

For the right trade, you might be surprised who might be available, but with no money, and not willing to trade a top level player , there definitely will be no chance to get a good goaltender or defenseman.

How do you trade with no trade clauses?

Skinner is a rookie. He will be fine, and at 24 will just get better and better. Very few top tier goalies out there, let alone 20 year old ones.

What was Ullmark's save % in the playoffs?
Heard him and the team did pretty good in the regular season ;)

Trades to come?
 

I think, and I am certainly no expert, that one of the first guys to go if possible would be Nurse. Way overrated, but great trade bait someone who would be a much better asset.

Agree 100%. Worth 9 million a year? I don't think so.

Good luck with that! Who in their right mind would want that.

When 4 of your top six forwards don’t pizz a drop you don’t out score your shortfalls and a sub 0.900 save % isn’t going to get you very deep. I get the sense a lot of the key guys were banged up as guys who elevated last year looked laboured all playoffs long.

Team is just coming into their prime. Gotta keep tweaking roster, need a prospect or 2 to over achieve, and need to be healthy. It’s the toughest trophy in professional sports to win for a reason.

....

Pretty tough to do with a no movement clause. There's bigger issues on the Oilers roster than Darnell Nurse.

Another issue with trading Nurse is he is in tight with the top guys on the team. I know its hockey but if you trade one of their best friends on the team, do the top guys take it personally or realize that's hockey?


Good GM's make hard decisions all the time to keep the team strong, maybe that's on the table for Kenny. Ya it was a bad contract from Chiarelli but at the time, that was the price to keep him. Does losing him to shave a few bucks help or hurt the core of the team? I do face palm a few times here and there on the mistakes he makes as a veteran but he is a good dman 99% of the time.

A lot of misguided hate for Nurse.
But stats don’t lie.

The biggest issue facing the Oilers might be getting Bouchard signed to a contract that makes everyone happy.

He's an RFA with a few more seasons until he can be a UFA. Oilers could play hardball with him but I seriously doubt they take that route. He plays considerable minutes and deserves a decent bump in pay. The problem is the salary cap isn't going up that much so there isn't a lot to go around.
I suspect that he gets a bridge contract for 1 or two years with the hope of then signing him longer term when the cap increases.