Boy, do I have a lot to talk about or what?
First of all, healing vibes for Darnell Nurse. We all hope he can heal up soon, but seeing screenshots of that hit the next day makes my head hurt. It was announced yesterday that Maple Leafs enforcer Ryan Reaves had been given a five game suspension after his hit that took Nurse out of Saturday night’s game with a concussion. As a repeat offender, given the severity of the injury, I think it’s a pretty light punishment and should’ve been bigger. It was reported that he went over to the Oilers locker room at one point to apologize. I’ll give him props for that. Edmonton recalled defenseman Josh Brown from Bakersfield. He’s more of a #6 or #7 defenseman at best, but should be up here to just replace Nurse’s toughness and physicality. While there’s always plenty to say about Darnell’s contract, he’s still a top 4 defenseman and he was just starting to have better games lately. After seeing blood over his face and jersey, I can’t believe he wasn’t lying on a stretcher. Ending this portion on a lighter note, congrats to Oliver Ekman-Larsson on being recognized for playing 1000 NHL games before that one started.
Evan Bouchard or Stuart Skinner? Whose fault was it? Both, that’s not hard to say. But Oilers fans want to argue who blew it worse. Saturday night went from being a boring, tight-checking game to being a complete goal circus, thanks to those two. I’ll start with Skinner. If the last three shots your team allows turn into goals, you instinctively look at the goalie. As soon as Toronto went the other way in Overtime, I knew the game was finished. I didn’t have to hope for a save. I just knew the puck would go in the net. Last season, Stu would allow 2 or 3 goals on 2 or 3 shots before making 20+ saves. Now, this season, he’ll make 20+ saves before allowing 2 or 3 goals on 2 or 3 shots. That being said, I usually blame mistakes in front before I blame goalies. I hope Bouchard takes social media breaks from time to time. The game-tying goal late in the third period came off a giveaway on his own end on an intended pass. Then, on the go-ahead goal moments later, he stopped skating on the backcheck. For all of his offensive talents, and he has a lot of them, it’s these moments that make your jaw drop in shock. He reminds me of P.K. Subban in his prime, except he doesn’t have Carey Price to bail him out.
One issue I sometimes have is fans not showing as much willingness to call out a particular player as they would someone else. Not that I want to pull a concussed Nurse into this, but if he were on the ice for the second and third Toronto goals, you can’t tell me we wouldn’t see more $9M jokes. Fans being biased over Bouchard and Skinner instead of blaming both, while harping on other players with no mercy, feels like a double standard to me. I’d like to see more accountability on the bench for the rest of the season. In Edmonton’s 4th game, Leon Draisaitl was benched to start the third period and then scored the winning goal in OT. If you can send that kind of message to your second best player, the same message should apply to everyone else. Even if Olivier Rodrigue doesn’t start a single Oilers game, call him up from Bakersfield as a way of letting Stu know he needs to be better. Take shifts off of Bouchard like you did with Draisaitl, and off the top pairing for a bit. This was the third straight game that, just when we think our team has it in the bag, all momentum was depleted. One horrendous gaffe is all it takes, no matter how the game was going prior to. The sky isn’t falling, we got 7 out of a possible 8 points in 4 games and are in a Wild Card spot. But these current trends need to stop being trends. The keys to the game are…
Brightside: In fairness to Bouchard and Skinner, as tough as I was on them, the Oilers really should’ve converted on the 5 minute powerplay they got from the Reaves hit at least once. That’s the negative, but the positive was them killing off a minute-long 5v3 PP as well as one more minute shorthanded afterward. For having the second-worst penalty kill in the league, this was where you sort of take the good with the bad.
Goal Lead Chase: Draisaitl is tied for the league lead in goals and Cole Caufield is one goal behind him. Leon has his office as a left-handed shot on the right side, and Cole has his office as a right-handed shot on the left side. Caufield, being the younger player, would absolutely get out of bed excited about this matchup. Don’t just cover him, also make sure Nick Suzuki doesn’t have enough room to pass him the puck.
Pick A Lane: Sometimes, when your team is in a position to start contending for a Cup, you can’t wait too long for draft picks to pan out. You have to risk parting with some, even for a secondary player. That was the case with Brett Kulak. Although Kulak is solid at his position, it leaves a sour taste knowing that Montreal used the pick in that trade to select Lane Hutson. The 20 year right handed defenseman has 11 points in his first NHL season and averages 20-25 minutes a night, one night close to 30, for the Habs. Seeing young player type mistakes defensively is still expected, but he has the offensive instincts of a veteran. How does he hold up against these forwards?
