Articles in Edmonton Oilers

via Sportsnet,

Edmonton Oilers president of hockey operations and general manager Ken Holland said Wednesday that he intended to honour the final year of his contract and remain in the role for the 2023-24 season.

But he added that, while he has "unfinished business," he can't say for sure how long he'll remain in the role.

"I don't invest in green bananas," Holland said at his end-of-season press conference.

Holland, 67, is entering the fifth and final year of his contract after joining the Oilers ahead of the 2019-20 season. Before that, he was general manager of the Detroit Red Wings for 22 years.

The Oilers have made the playoffs in all four seasons under Holland. This season, Edmonton posted a 50-23-9 record and finished second in the Western Conference with 109 points. But the Oilers season ended in the second round against the Vegas Golden Knights and now the GM is looking at his roster to plan for another run next season.

from David Staples of the Edmonton Journal,

This in from hockey commentator Chris Gawlik of the Locked On VGK podcast, some hardcore criticism of the work of Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft for his work during the Oilers loss the the Vegas Golden Knights.

Gawlik had predicted heading into the series that Vegas would win in seven games because of coach Bruce Cassidy and goalie Laurent Brossoit being superior to Woodcroft and Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner: “Give me the best coach and give me the best goaltending and then we’ll go from there and try to figure things out…. We’ve got the notch in those two categories… Both those checkmarks go to Vegas.”

Did Gawlik’s prediction prove out?

The Vegas commentator is blasting Woodcroft for many of the same things now being heard in Edmonton, with the Oilers coach taking major heat i for not going with goalie Jack Campbell in Game Six, and for his decisions on line-matching in Game Six as well.

Gawlik is astonished that Campbell did not get a start. “You pull Skinner three times in five games and you roll with him in Game Six? I don’t get it.”

Woodcroft failed to start either Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl in Games Five and Six and instead went with Ryan McLeod, who took an early penalty in Game Five and was out for the early goal against in Game Six.

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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The hike to the peak is never a constant ascent. It comes with dips and detours, dashed hopes and the odd switchback.

It’s a merciless process, one that doesn’t care when the climb began or what spring you had planned on planting your flag.

In a season where the path to ol’ Stanley was wide open, the Edmonton Oilers ran out of oxygen before the halfway point, losing their Round 2 series to the Vegas Golden Knights in six games. The longer this series went — culminating in a 5-2 clincher on Sunday — the clearer it became that this version of the Oilers was not yet the one.

“It feels like every team that wins, that goes on a stretch of winning, kind of experiences this,” began captain Connor McDavid, valiant with 20 points in 12 playoff games this spring. “Obviously, it's not what you want to do, not what you want to feel. That being said, I really feel that you’ve got to go through some of this to win. I think we've seen that all the way through.

“Let's hope it’s the last time.”...

“It's tough to find words right now,” Draisaitl said in the post-game dressing room. “When you start a season, you're in it to win it. We're at that stage, and if you don't complete that then just feels like a failure. Like a wasted year, almost. So that hurts.

“I’ve got to take a lot of ownership myself. I wasn’t good tonight.”

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The Golden Knights defeated the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 tonight to win their series 4-2.

VGK will face the winner of the Dallas/Seattle game 7 (8pm ET Monday). Vegas will host the first 2 games of the WCF.

Below watch Marchessault's natural hat trick, handshakes and highlights.

Game 6 in Edmonton tonight. Oilers need a win to play in game 7 against the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday.

Watch on ESPN, CBC, Sportsnet and TVAS. Puck drops at 10:07pm ET.

McDavid after the morning skate.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

Play better. Play smarter.

It’s as simple as that.

On a night where the Oilers didn’t score a five-on-five goal, where Leon Draisaitl’s line got very little done, where Stuart Skinner was pulled — again, where the Oilers took seven minor penalties, the solutions aren’t hard to pinpoint with a must-win Game 6 set for Mother’s Day in Edmonton.

Even the opposition could sense that the Oilers weren’t going to be the better team in Game 5.

“They didn’t have the same jump they had in Game 4 … and I think our players sensed it,” Vegas head coach Bruce Cassidy said after the game. “They just didn't have the same drive and intensity they had up there. The physicality that they showed in Game 4 wasn't quite as evident.

“That's how our feeling was on the bench, that we can grab hold of this because they weren't dominating or pushing us out of the game.”

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Below are the game highlights.

from David Staples of the Edmonton Journal,

Which team will survive it best? Both the Vegas Golden Knights and the Edmonton Oilers are without their No. 1 d-men for Game 5 of their NHL playoffs series.

Both Alex Pietrangelo and Darnell Nurse have been suspended for a game.

Which team can best cover off the massive hole left in their line-up?

Here’s the deal with Vegas:

Pietrangelo has the most time-on-ice in the playoffs of any Vegas d-man for all situations, even strength, short-handed and power play. He leads the team in time-on-ice per game played at 24:37, more than four minutes more than the next player. That’s a huge hole.

Vegas has used both veteran d-men Ben Hutton, 30, who shoots left, and rookie Brayden Pachal, 21, who shoots right like Pietrangelo.

read on

NEW YORK (May 11, 2023) – Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse has been suspended for one game for instigating a fight during the final five minutes of Game 4 of the team’s Second Round series against the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday, May 10, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.

In addition, Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft has been fined $10,000.

Nurse was assessed a minor penalty for instigating, a major penalty for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct for instigating at 19:10 of the third period.

Both the suspension to the player and the fine of the coach are automatic for a violation of Rule 46.21.

from Gerry Moddejonge at the NHL's website,

Stuart Skinner made 25 saves for the Edmonton Oilers in a 4-1 win against the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 4 of the Western Conference Second Round at Rogers Place on Wednesday.

Skinner's performance came two days after he was pulled in the second period of a 5-1 loss in Game 3.

"He bounced back. That's what he does," Oilers captain Connor McDavid said. "I am sure he wanted to play a better game in Game 3, like we all did, and I thought he played really, really well tonight."

The best-of-7 series is tied 2-2. Game 5 will be in Las Vegas on Friday.

"It felt good. It was a huge win by the group and that is the most important thing," Skinner said. "Just the way the guys battled tonight was impressive. You always have to show up the next day and keep on working.

"I am going to keep on growing and learn from my mistakes from tonight as well and just move forward and get better tomorrow."

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catch the game highlights below.

If you missed the last 1 1/2 minutes of the Edmonton/Vegas game, here is what you missed.

Videos below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The Edmonton Oilers have chased these Stanley Cup Playoffs for some time now, losing seven consecutive series-opening games.

But in three of the last four series — not counting this bit of unfinished business against the Vegas Golden Knights — Edmonton has charged back to win and move on in the playoffs. Not good at having a consistent killer instinct, but excellent at finding their game in desperate situations, what exactly does this all say about a supposed Stanley Cup contender?

Today, after a soft, sloppy 5-1 loss in Game 3 — the Oilers were “red rotten,” as former coach Todd McLellan used to say — we wonder what to think of a team that seems to lose its game almost as often as it finds it.

“We've bounced back before,” stated Connor McDavid. “It's a big game for us (Game 4), I understand that. And I expect that sense of urgency to go up. I'd expect our best game for sure.”

“We have experience now, going through situations similar to this,” added Darnell Nurse. “It's a test for us to come out and work the right way in Game 4.

“We’ll break it all down, hold ourselves accountable and give ourselves a standard that we need to play to.”

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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

How much better were the Oilers than their medieval-themed opponents in a 5-1 win Saturday?

Listen to Vegas head coach Bruce Cassidy after the game:

“They had the puck the whole time,” he said. “That’s how they limited possession. They were hard on the puck … we weren’t. We didn’t have the puck enough.

“If you want to beat a high-powered team, you need the puck. It’s a tough way to play. We needed the puck more.”

'They had the puck the whole time': Knights' Cassidy on how Oilers dominated them in Game 2Play VideoPlayMuteCurrent Time 0:00/Duration 1:03Loaded: 15.59% Fullscreen

To summarize:

It was Edmonton’s puck in Game 2, and as Wayne Gretzky said so many years ago, it was up to Vegas to “go find their own.”

“We played a lot faster. I thought we were more connected. We were a little bit more aggressive,” listed off Oilers captain Connor McDavid, after a two-goal, three-point night. “You know, all the things that we've been building towards.”

Change the momentum?

In the world’s best fight town, this was The Flip Off the Strip.

Edmonton turned this series on its ear, walking into T-Mobile Arena wearing a barrel and suspenders, and strutting out in a Dean Martin tux.

read on

Below watch the game highlights.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

They spent three days on a Santa Monica beach after winning Round 1, and when Round 2 began the Edmonton Oilers looked exactly like you’d think they would.

Like a bunch of guys coming off of a beach vacation.

Attention to detail, execution of the game plan, knowing when to make the safe, easy play… All of those things got left behind at their swanky boutique hotel like a broken pair of sandals, or those sunglasses you can never seem to find when you get on the plane home.

Oilers' Draisaitl does it all himself with four-goal night vs. Golden KnightsPlay VideoPlayMuteCurrent Time 0:00/Duration 3:13Loaded: 5.13% Fullscreen

Leon Drasiaitl scored four times, but even that Herculean effort was enough to carry the Edmonton Oilers past the quick and decisive Vegas Golden Knights, as the Oilers dropped Game 1 of their Rd. 2 series by a 6-4 score.

“I didn't think we gave them a whole lot of trouble tonight. I thought we made it too easy on them — and that can't happen,” said Mattias Ekholm, after a two-assist, plus-2 night. “To be honest, I didn't enjoy the game tonight too much. I thought we gave them our ‘B’ or ‘C’ game.

“Towards the end it's a winnable game still. So there's some kind of strength in that too, but I think we can be a lot better.”

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from Jesse Granger of The Athletic,

from Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail,

There are a lot of less-than-fun ways to express the east-west divide in this country. One useful way to do it is the Edmonton Oilers versus the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Leafs are new money, and as such, totally self-absorbed. It’s not really their fault – it’s the city’s. The last time the Leafs were good, Toronto was Rochester with free hospitals. Now it wants to think it’s in the same league as Paris. Anything that isn’t happening here isn’t happening. Which is why everyone acts like hockey stops as soon as the Leafs head out on their annual May vacation.

But when things go right just once, Toronto switches shamelessly from pretend apathy to pretend confidence. Hence, switching locally from Worst Franchise in Sport™ to talking like Stanley Cup favourites within the space of 24 hours.

The Oilers carry themselves like old money. There are still people in that organization who were there the last time Edmonton ran hockey. Their modern failures are harder to laugh off. Especially after you’ve lucked into another generational player.

At their lowest, the Oilers give off the feel of bankrupt aristocrats: We used to consort with Mark Messier, Wayne Gretzky and that whole crowd, and now this.

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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

Somewhere along the way, Leon Draisaitl went from being a lanky German kid playing junior hockey in Prince Albert, Sask., to any or all of the following:

A cover boy for worldwide sports designer Puma. An international hockey superstar. An impossibly handsome man. The player with the most team-friendly contract ($8.5 million AAV) in the entire National Hockey League.

And of course, the NHL’s most clutch playoff performer, tied for the league lead in points with Connor McDavid, going back to the start of the 2022 post-season.

If they made a movie about him, the title would be: The Delivery Man.

Draisaitl doesn’t play humble or feign surprise when asked how this all came to be.

“I always knew my potential. I think I always knew what I was all about,” he says.

What do they say? It ain’t bragging if you can do it.

“You know,” began the son of Peter Draisaitl, a long-time German national teamer in the ‘80s and ‘90s, “having a Dad who has been in these situations, has won championships — whether that's in a lower league or not — he taught me early on that big time players step up in big games and big moments. And it really matters the most when the playoffs are on the line, so I pride myself on that.

“It's really, really important to me. Now, hopefully I can continue that.”

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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The rookie goalie had never had it happen to him before, while the 750-game defenceman could only rub his prodigious beard and mutter, “Never seen anything like it.”

Oilers fans will recall the Miracle on Manchester back in 1982? That was when the Boys on the Bus squandered that 5-0 lead and lost a playoff game to the Kings, 6-5 in overtime.

Well, Mattias Ekholm watched in amazement from the bench as a new chapter in this Kings-Oilers rivalry played out, a broken goalie stick that nearly forced a Game 7 in a series the Oilers had in the palm of their collective hand.

It was the Fluke on Figeuroa, and it darned near sent us all home for an edgy Game 7 at Rogers Place.

“It's okay that there's some drama in the story,” said head coach Jay Woodcroft, whose team is penning a new chapter in Oilers lore once again this spring.

With Edmonton leading this series-clinching game 4-3 and set to put it away on a powerplay with 12 minutes to play — goalie Stuart Skinner gathered a puck at the top of his crease as defenceman Evan Bouchard peeled away to the corner awaiting the puck.

He was, Skinner said, “just trying to hit Boosh with a nice, crisp pass.”

Then, his goal stick buckled. It had been cracked earlier by an Adrian Kempe whack, but that damned CCM waited for the least opportune moment to crater.

Skinner fanned on his pass, Phillip Danault cashed the easiest shorthanded goal of his career, and the game was suddenly in the balance.

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Watch the goal below.

Edmonton defeated the LA Kings 5-4 to advance to round 2.

Below watch the game winning goal, handshakes and highlights.

from Helene Elliott of the LA Times,

If the Kings have any resilience left in their bruised and weary bodies, if they can figure out how to repair the gaping holes the Edmonton Oilers ripped open in their defense during the last two games of their Stanley Cup first-round playoff series, if they want to prolong a promising season, they have three days to find that resilience, those solutions, that fight.

For the second straight game, the Oilers revved up their offense to a level the Kings couldn’t match. The particulars are less important than the undeniable trend: Nick Bjugstad scored twice as the Oilers chased Kings goaltender Joonas Korpisalo to the bench in favor of Pheonix Copley in the second period and roared to a 6-3 victory Tuesday night at Rogers Place.

The Kings have until Saturday, when Game 6 will be played at Crypto.com Arena, to reflect, repair and regroup and try to extend their season to a seventh game Monday in Edmonton.

“That’s obviously not good enough. It wasn’t close to good enough,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said of his team’s defensive effort. “It probably doesn’t get you a win in Game 2 of the regular season, so move on.”

Or move out.

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Watch the game highlights below.

from ESPN News Service,

Zach Hyman scored at 10:39 of overtime as the Edmonton Oilers rallied from three goals down, authoring a potentially season-saving victory in a 5-4 decision over the Los Angeles Kings Sunday night.

Hyman's snap shot from the left faceoff circle was his first goal of the playoffs, ending a dramatic, rollercoaster ride of a Game 4 as the Oilers evened this first-round playoff series at 2-2.

"It was a great breakout pass," Hyman said about his first playoff game-winning goal. "I looking for a pass and it turned into a Grade A scoring chance. I was able to get it up and over and that was the game. It is probably the most important goal in my career."

Leon Draisaitl had two goals and an assist for the Oilers, Evan Bouchard had a goal and two assists while Evander Kane forced OT with his third-period goal. Connor McDavid had three assists.

"I think all playoff games are big tests, but this one was massive for our group. I thought we responded well," said Draisaitl, who leads the league in playoff scoring with nine points. "It is not an easy team to come back against. We came back in waves in the second period and put ourselves back into it."

Jack Campbell, who came in after Stuart Skinner was pulled after one period, made 27 saves against his former team.

"I've constantly touted that we have a good goaltending tandem. We have belief in both of our goaltenders," Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. "That's not assigning any blame on Stuart for how the first period went. But I felt that our team needed a little bit of a change in momentum, give us a different kind of look. The only debate I had was when I was going to do it."

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Game highlights are below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

You can distrust the Situation Room all you want if you think there is some grand conspiracy through which the National Hockey League wants its best player and most explosive offensive team eliminated as soon as possible.

You can say the referees graded out somewhere between poor and brutal here in Game 3 on Friday — because that would be accurate.

The officials are not biased, just well below an acceptable level of competent. And if you judged that their unpredictability likely hurt the Edmonton Oilers a call or two more than it did the Los Angeles Kings in Game 3, I wouldn’t give you an argument.

It's time for the Edmonton Oilers to play like the highest-scoring team in hockeyPlay VideoPlayMuteCurrent Time 0:00/Duration 2:23Loaded: 6.90% Fullscreen

Whine about the calls all you want, Oiler fans, in a game where the power plays were 5-4 in favour of the Kings.

But here’s why the Oilers are down 2-1 in this series, after a 3-2 overtime loss, the second time the Oilers have coughed up a power-play goal in OT in this series.

They are down because an Oilers team that averaged four goals per game all season can’t solve the Kings often enough at five-on-five to win these games. The Kings are hanging around, hanging around, and for the second time in three games, the Oilers left themselves at the mercy of the refs — and paid for it.

Edmonton trails this series because it has blown a lead in every game. Because, tied 2-2 after 40 minutes, the Oilers couldn’t find a hero from amongst their stable of scorers, while the Kings found theirs.

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Game highlights are below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The Los Angeles Kings did not lead Game 1 for even a single second. But they’ll lead their Round 1 series with the Edmonton Oilers for at least two days — and maybe more — after a 4-3 overtime win that left a Canadian hockey city in a province of shock.

Hang around? Oh boy, did these Kings hang around.

The Oilers took a 2-0 first period lead into Period 3, and still had their two-goal lead with just eight minutes to play in what — to that point — was a near perfect playoff performance by the home side.

Then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

“Got to be more mature than that,” said two-goal man Leon Draisaitl. “It’s a 3-1 game with eight minutes left or whatever. We’ve got to lock that down.

“We have to be more mature.”...

The Kings scored on the final two — at 19:43 of the third period with the goalie pulled to send the game to overtime, and then Alex Iafallo in OT with big Vincent Desharnais in the box.

“We had the game in our hands. We just let it slip away,” Desharnais said. “We took too many penalties, and they just bury you at some point.”

read on

Watch the game highlights below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

“It takes a lot of heartbreak,” Nurse explains. “This is my eighth year here, so I’ve gone through seven seasons where you haven’t reached the goal that you want to reach. There’s a lot of heartbreak, a lot of work that goes into it.

“I read Nick Lidstrom’s book [Nicklas Lidstrom: The Pursuit of Perfection, written with Gunnar Nordstrom and Bob Duff], and the amount of times that [Detroit] had to actually go and play in the playoffs, and get through the ups and downs of the playoffs before they were actually successful? I mean, it’s time and time again.

“You look at the teams that win — the amount of work, the amount of attempts that they had to take at it to get to that Stanley Cup. It’s not an easy task.”

“There’s a hunger in the room that there’s still another level that we need to get to.”

Welcome to Edmonton in 2023, where a rebuild that began back in 2010 with the first-overall selection of Taylor Hall has finally produced a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. The sun may have dawned a handful of seasons ago, finally bringing an end to The Decade of Darkness, but the trip back into the light has been like a walk from the banks of the North Saskatchewan River to 101st and Jasper Ave.

All uphill.

more

from Adam Vingan of Sportsnet,

The 2022-23 Edmonton Oilers have the greatest power play in NHL history.

That is not hyperbole. The Oilers have scored on an incredible 32.4 per cent of their power-play opportunities this season. That would stand as the highest single-season rate since the NHL began tracking power-play percentage in 1977-78, when the Montreal Canadiens finished at 31.9 per cent. As long as the Oilers do not go 0-for-4 against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday in their regular-season finale, the record will be theirs. (The Oilers have gone 0-for-4 or worse only four times this season.)

Of course, it helps to have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who have combined for 52 goals on the power play, which ranks ahead of 15 teams. Draisaitl’s 31 power-play goals are tied for third most in a season in league history (Tim Kerr's 34 in 1985-86 is the record).

The four forwards on the Oilers’ top unit — McDavid, Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman — have remained constant. Tyson Barrie ran the point until the Oilers traded him to the Nashville Predators on Feb. 28 and Evan Bouchard has since replaced Barrie. The No. 1 unit has not missed a beat since Bouchard took over for Barrie, scoring 17 power-play goals in 18 games. (Hyman missed two games in mid-March.)

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