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Game Notes Oilers @ Flyers: Opportunities For Depth Forwards

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Photo credit:Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports
Jason Gregor
2 years ago
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jesse Puljujarvi, Kailer Yamamoto, and Zack Kassian are injured. Yamamoto will be a game-time decision. Those are four of the Oilers’ top-nine forwards in TOI/game not playing. The forwards ranked 10th-15th on the depth won’t have better opportunity to impress head coach Jay Woodcroft. Will someone step up tonight?
— @Derek Ryan has filled the offensive void with four goals in his last two-games including his first-career hat-trick in Florida on Saturday. He became the 61st Oiler to score a hat-trick and also the oldest at 35 years young. But Ryan has played mainly without Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl. He is producing on the third line.
— Woodcroft is hoping @Warren Foegele, who is playing on McDavid’s wing, and Colton Sceviour, Tyler Benson or another winger who gets a look with Draisaitl, can chip in. Sceviour and Benson each played six minutes at 5×5 with Draisaitl in Carolina. They registered one shot each, and both shots occurred two seconds apart when they were Draisaitl’s wingers. Neither generated much offensively, but if they can in the coming games until the injured forwards return, then their odds of staying in the lineup increase.
— Depth forwards need to grab the coach’s attention. Foegele is likely the third line winger when everyone is healthy, but why not make Woodcroft think about it more by chipping in while skating with McDavid? Puljujarvi is likely out a couple more weeks, so Foegele’s stay in the top-six could be longer. He does have two goals in nine games with Woodcroft on the bench, and the next few weeks present a glorious opportunity for Foegele to produce more.
— As mentioned above, Ryan is the 61st player to score a hat-trick with the Oilers. His hatty was the 195th in the regular season . Wayne Gretzky had the most with 43, Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson tallied 20, Mark Messier scored 13 while McDavid sits fifth with 10.
— Blair MacDonald had the Oilers’ first trick on October 19th, 1979, against the Quebec Nordiques. He actually scored the first three in Oilers history before Gretzky got his first on February 1, 1980 v. the Jets. Here’s is the rest of the players in order of scoring their first hat trick and how many in parentheses.
1. Blair MacDonald (4), Oct 19th, 1979
2. Wayne Gretzky (43), Feb 1, 1980
3. Don Ashby (1), Mar 29th, 1980
4. Dave Semenko (1), Oct 19th, 1980
5. Jari Kurri (20), Nov 26th, 1980
6. Glenn Anderson (20), Feb 21st, 1981
7. Mark Messier (13), Mar 16th, 1981
8. Risto Siltanen (1), Apr 04th, 1981
9. Dave Lumley (2), Dec 19th, 1981
10. Paul Coffey (4), Dec 11th, 1982
11. Ken Linseman (1), Feb 19th, 1983
12. Willy Lindstrom (1), Nov 19th, 1983
13. Pat Hughes (1), Feb 03rd, 1984
14. Gord Sherven (1), Oct 14th, 1984
15. Mike Krushelnyski (1), Feb 02nd, 1985
16. Craig MacTavish (2), Dec 1st, 1985
17. Esa Tikkanen (5), Oct 15th, 1986
18. Craig Simpson (2),  Dec 02nd, 1987
19. Dave Hannan (1), Jan 25th, 1988
20. Geoff Courtnall (1), Mar 18th, 1988
21. Jimmy Carson (1), Dec 04, 1988
22. Normand Lacombe (1), Nov 25th, 1989
23. Adam Graves (1), Dec 17, 1989
24. Martin Gelinas (1), Mar 04, 1990
25. Petr Klima (3), Jan 30th, 1991
26. Vincent Damphousse (1), Dec 14th, 1991
27. Joe Murphy (1), Jan 13th, 1992
28. Kelly Buchberger (1), Jan 31st, 1992
29. Shayne Corson (1), Nov 15th, 1993
30. Brent Grieve (1), Feb 25th, 1994
31. Jason Arnott (2), Mar 20th, 1995
32. David Oliver (1), Mar 22nd, 1995
33. Doug Weight (1), Nov 20th, 1995
34. Ryan Smyth (5), Oct 08th, 1996
35. Rem Murray (1), Oct 24th, 1996
36. Mariuz Czerkawski (2), Nov 07th, 1996
37. Alexander Selivanov (2), Feb 17th, 1999
38. Mike Grier (1), Mar 20th, 1999
39. Georges Laraque (1), Feb 21st, 2000
40. Boyd Devereaux (1), Mar 17th, 2000
**41. Bill Guerin (1), Apr 18th, 2000 (His only hatty was in playoffs)
42. Fernando Pisani (1), Mar 22, 2003
43.Shawn Horcoff (1), Jan 10th, 2006
44. Marc-Andre Bergeron (1), Jan 14th, 2006
45. Eric Cole (1), Jan 13th, 2009
46. Ethan Moreau (1), Jan 18th, 2009
47 Sam Gagner (2), Mar 19th, 2009
48. Taylor Hall (4), Feb 19th, 2011
49. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (3), October 15th, 2011
50. Ryan Jones  (1),Dec 2nd, 2011
51. Ales Hemsky (1), March 20th, 2012
52. Nail Yakupov (1), April 27th, 2013
53. David Perron (1), January 27th, 2014
54. Lauri Korpikoski (1), December 11th, 2015
55. Jordan Eberle (2), February 11th, 2016
56. Connor McDavid (10), November 11th, 2016
57. Pat Maroon (1), January 5th, 2017
58. Milan Lucic (1), April 6th, 2017
59. Leon Draisaitl (4), March 26th, 2019
60. James Neal (2), October 8th, 2019
61. Derek Ryan (1), February 26th, 2022
— Kurri and Gretzky lead with seven playoff hat-tricks while Messier and Tikkanen have three, Anderson two and Draisaitl, Guerin, Klima, McDavid, Murphy and Weight scored one.
— Hat tricks broken down by month: October (20), November (31), December (38), January (28), February (33), March (37) and April (8). Playoff hatties have occurred 18 times in April, nine in May and one in August (McDavid, 2020).
— No Oilers player has scored a hat trick on March 1st. Edmonton has registered six regular season hat tricks against the Flyers, but only one occurred in Philly when Gretzky scored four goals on March 7th, 1981.
The other five happened in Edmonton. Gretzky had three goals on January 31st, 1982, and December 31st, 1985. Anderson tallied four on March 4th, 1988, Messier had four on March 3rd, 1990 and Gretzky had five on December 30th, 1981. That was the night he scored his 50th goal in his 39th game.
— Of the six hat tricks against Philly four of them have been 4+ goal games and three occurred in March. Could a fourth happen tonight?
— Edmonton has never registered a hat trick against the Minnesota Wild, Vegas Golden Knights or Seattle Kraken. They’ve had 18 against Vancouver and 15 v. Toronto and LA.
— In nine games with Woodcroft on the bench Edmonton has 23 goals at 5×5. Ryan leads with five, Zach Hyman has four, McDavid three, Draisaitl, Foegele and Yamamoto have two while Nugent-Hopkins, Puljujarvi, Benson, Cody Ceci and Darnell Nurse have one. The only forwards without a point are Sceviour and Perlini, but they’ve only played two games and played 12 and nine minutes respectively at 5×5.
— The Flyers are 3-14-5 in their last 22 games and have been outscored 83-51. They did defeat Washington 2-1 on Saturday, but they have not played well for the past two months, and most of the season. After playing three solid games against top teams, the Oilers need to bring a similar effort tonight. This is a very winnable game.
— Edmonton has only won once in seven games in Philly since Nugent-Hopkins (longest serving Oilers) was drafted in 2011. Their only victory occurred March 3rd, 2016 when Cam Talbot posted a 35-save shutout and Nail Yakupov, Taylor Hall, Patrick Maroon and Lauri Korpikoski scored. Edmonton has a measly 12 wins in 40 visits to Philadelphia all-time.

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