ARROWS GOOD AND BAD

Peter Chiarelli delivered his first Oilers roster to Todd McLellan and the two men are through the Penticton tournament and into pre-season on the way to the final 23-man list. No real signs from management and their leanings either way but it’s early days. How’s it going so far? 

All we really have this time of year is anecdotal evidence. Save for attendees at last night’s games, most of us watched one or both games online and sweeping statements are ill-advised under those circumstances. Is there anything out there?

Pretty straight up here, Oilers ran all three pairings in both cities and the last man on the list sat for five and that impacted his total. Let’s have a look at their possession and zone-start numbers.

This is the @Calgary game. Klefbom and Schultz received the tough zone starts and everyone else got a push. Based on what I’ve read Griffin Reinhart played well and aside from the fight there wasn’t much available on Nurse. The numbers suggest the Nurse-Laleggia pair had the better run in this game and that Reinhart was a bit of an island—but early days and this is one (pre-season) game of many. A small arrow, no one is going to be demoted because of it.

One player in this group we should pay attention to? Joey Laleggia. He’s coming from a long way back—no one was talking about him as one of the 12 most likely defensemen to play last night and he stepped in front of a few pro’s—and for me Laleggia (and Laurent Brossoit) are the early early good arrows in camp. It’s interesting that the numbers above were compiled against Calgary’s “A” team last night. Looking forward to tomorrow night’s game and hope we see Reinhart.