Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Take Your Pick, Edmonton Or Montreal

11/22/2017 at 4:40pm EST

from Scott Cullen of TSN,

Two of the biggest, and possibly saddest, stories in the NHL right now involve the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens, two teams that entered the season with expectations for at least relative success and right now they are two teams that sit 27th and 28th in the standings.

Starting with Edmonton, because they were a team that came into the year with Stanley Cup aspirations, the Oilers have not only had a hard time getting enough goals from the supporting cast, but they are apparently still looking for help on the blueline.

That problem will be addressed, to some degree, when Andrej Sekera is finally ready to play, but he's coming off a serious injury and if the Oilers are really going to improve defensively, the first area of concern is goaltending. Last season, Cam Talbot was a workhorse who had a .919 save percentage, a season worthy of Vezina consideration. This year he’s played a lot, starting 19 games, but only has a .900 save percentage and that’s a big difference. It would be one thing if the Oilers were giving up a bunch of high-quality shots against, but that’s not really the case....

While the Montreal Canadiens may not have looked like a Cup contender coming into the season, they are a team that had made the playoffs in four of the previous five seasons and certainly had to expect that the playoffs were a reasonable target this season.

The issues plaguing the Canadiens are not entirely different than those in Edmonton.

Start with goaltending, because that’s a huge one for Montreal, given how much the franchise is invested in Carey Price. The one season in the past five years that they didn’t make the playoffs was 2015-2016, when Price was limited to a dozen games and the Habs couldn’t survive his absence from the lineup.

much more

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About Kukla's Korner Hockey

Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

From breaking news to in-depth stories around the league, KK Hockey is updated with fresh stories all day long and will bring you the latest news as quickly as possible.

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