GDB 29.0 Wrap Up: It’s Definitely Not Always Sunny in Philadelphia

7 years ago

Ring the gong, that one’s done. Final Score: 6-5 Flyers

Coming into tonight’s game against the Flyers, the Oilers were riding a point streak with two wins and two OT losses in their last four games. While it’s good that the Oil have been able to secure points from games they’ve lost, they’re also losing games that they should be winning. That kind of effort wasn’t going to be good enough against Philadelphia who was 7-3-0 in their last 10 games played. If the Oilers wanted to beat Philly, or even keep their point streak going, they were going to have to come up with a better effort than what we saw against Buffalo and Minnesota. While they did get a better effort, this game wasn’t without its sense of adventure. This game was different. This game was like a rollercoaster that both gave you a thrilling sense of joy and also the threat of having your genitals attacked at the same time.

With the Oilers playing back-to-back games tonight and tomorrow it was imperative that they set themselves up with points going into the weekend. The Pacific Division is getting tighter and teams with fewer games played are catching up to the Oilers and that makes every point important already. To make sure that they didn’t leave Philly empty handed the Oilers needed to get a good start, find some offense from people not named Connor McDavid, and get solid goaltending from Jonas Gustavsson. Fortunately, they started checking things off the list rather quickly. Leon Draisaitl scored a quick first-period goal, and Gustavsson was holding the fort despite the Oilers being outshot early on. Normally that’s good news, but then the turn happened. After Connor McDavid scored his first power play goal of the season to give the Oilers a two-goal lead, Edmonton evacuated their bowels all over themselves and left turd stains streaking up and down the ice, halls, and dressing room. Within the span of 72 seconds, the Oilers allowed three straight goals to give Philadelphia their first lead of the game. Strangely, that wasn’t even where the ride ended.

The third period was just as ridiculous as the second period, and once again it didn’t come out in the Oilers’ favour. Frankly, the end of this game was stressful to watch. Despite scoring two quick goals to start the period, the game had a feel like the Oilers were going to find a way to punch their own face. Gustavsson wasn’t as sharp as he has been lately, and the Oilers were finding new and creative ways to make mistakes in their own end. The result? Sadness. As the Flyers poured the pressure on in waves, the tent that was the Edmonton Oilers folded up and blew away in the wind. Rather than hunkering down to weather storm, the Oilers tried to fly their kite full of defensive ineptitude right into a lightning storm and boy did they get fried in the end. That game ~~could~~ should’ve resulted in two points on the board ended up with the Oilers walking away with nothing but their junk in hand.

The Oilers don’t know how to close out their opponents in the third period and it’s costing them points in the standings, and that’s a problem. A problem that needs to be solved sooner than later, because I don’t care about draft prospects anymore.

Wrap it up.

THE BRIGHT SIDE

Leon Draisaitl has been a warlord on the ice lately. The guy has been lights out cash money on the offensive side of the puck and he scored another big goal tonight (his 12th). Jesse Puljujarvi made a nice play off the boards to get the puck to Draisaitl on the rush and Leon made no mistake of burying his chance. Big Sexy 2.0 wasn’t done, though, as he went on to add two more beautiful assists to give himself a three-point night. This guy’s next contract could get scary.

The wheels were falling off and Andrej Sekera sent a clapper past Mason to tie the game (his fourth) and settle things down. Normally, Sekera would find a way to hit a shin pad but this time he had a clear path to the net and he made no mistake.

Benoit Pouliot hasn’t been the most popular ?? around these parts lately, but he scored a big goal (his fifth) tonight on a nice feed from Leon Draisaitl in the slot.

Oscar Klefbom scored his fourth goal of the season on the power play after he fired a seeing-eye shot on net that beat Mason.

Drake Caggiula quietly got himself on a four-game point streak. The rookie put up another assist on Klefbom’s goal and he’s got himself a nice little run going.

Jordan Eberle got another assist tonight, and had one of the better games he’s had in a while.

Shout out to Dillon Simpson for making his NHL debut. Who knows how long the kid will stick around for but good on him for getting the chance to play in his first big league game. That’s a cool day for Dillon Simpson and his family. Great hairline on the kid too.

The penalty kill was solid tonight, killing off 4/5.

There is nothing sexier than seeing the Oilers score power play goals and they did it again tonight. The PP has been heating up lately and we can only hope that the progress continues. Oilers finished the night at 2/4 on the PP.

THE FACE PALMERS

Two penalties for Jesse Puljujarvi in the first period. They weren’t the worst of offences, and the Flyers couldn’t capitalize on either man advantage chance, but you’d have to think that McLellan will be talking to Puljujarvi about that one if he can find a translator.
The Oilers allowed three goals AND coughed up a two-goal lead in the span of 72 seconds.
They coughed up another two-goal lead in the third period. It may have been exciting to watch, but it was brutal defensively.
The Oilers allowed the Flyers to score three straight goals on two separate occasions. That’s bad news no matter how you analyze it.
Not a good game for Nuge. He was up against Giroux and didn’t have much of an answer for him. In fact, Giroux ran his show for pretty much the entire game. RNH is better than that defensively and I’d expect him to be better tomorrow. Forget it and move on kind of night for Nuge. Not good.
If Nuge had a tough night then Klefbom was the king for defensive miscues on this evening. Klefbom still wins the green jacket with a -4.
Jonas Gustavsson has been getting more playing time lately and he had been making the most of it. Sure, he can be an adventure in net, but he was doing his job stopping pucks and giving his team a chance to win. That wasn’t the case tonight. Neither Gus nor Mason was particularly good for their team, but the Oilers needed a win tonight and didn’t get good enough goaltending. Gustavsson was solid in the first period but fell apart in the final 40 minutes, allowing six goals on 21 shots. The Monster was scary alright, finishing the night with 25 saves an a .806 save%.
Oilers got murdered on the dot, winning only 40% of the faceoffs.
It’s weird watching guys when you “know” their time is winding down with the team. I get that feeling about Matt Hendricks and it sucks because I love the guy. Unfortunately, he’s in the last year of his contract and I can see him being a guy that the Oilers would move at the deadline depending on where they themselves are at in the standings. Either way, I feel like we’re seeing the final days of the wagon himself and that’s the tough part about pro sports.
I know he didn’t play tonight but do you guys remember Nick Schultz as an Oiler? Tonight’s game reminded me of the Schultz x2 era of a few years ago. Sometimes it’s hard to remember all of the players that have been Oilers over the course of this rebuild, and Nick Schultz was one of those guys that I had forgotten about. Was supposed to be a calming influence, he was. *sigh*

SCORING SUMMARY

1st Period Summary

Time	Goal	Assists	Flyers	Oilers
4:39	Leon Draisaitl	Jesse Puljujarvi	0	1

2nd Period Summary

Time	Goal	Assists	Flyers	Oilers
4:35	Connor McDavid (Power-Play)	Leon Draisaitl, Milan Lucic	0	2
12:31	Mark Streit	Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov	1	2
13:24	Pierre-Edouard Bellemare	Andrew MacDonald, Chris VandeVelde	2	2
13:43	Claude Giroux	Jakub Voracek	3	2
16:15	Andrej Sekera (Short-Handed)	Mark Letestu, Connor McDavid	3	3

3rd Period Summary

Time	Goal	Assists	Flyers
3:07	Benoit Pouliot	Leon Draisaitl, Adam Larsson	3
5:12	Oscar Klefbom (Power-Play)	Jordan Eberle, Drake Caggiula	3
6:31	Jakub Voracek (Power-Play)	Shayne Gostisbehere, Claude Giroux	4
12:11	Claude Giroux	Radko Gudas, Jakub Voracek	5
18:31	Michael Raffl	Jakub Voracek, Mark Streit	6

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A GOOD OL’ HOCKEY GAME

When: Friday, December 9th with doors opening at 2pm (the game starts at 6pm).
Where: West Edmonton Mall at the Mayfield Toyota Ice Palace
Who: Edmonton takes on Minnesota
Why: Because we love to party
What else: We’re going to have prize giveaways all night long
How much to get in: FREE!

Huge thank you to everyone at West Edmonton Mall, The Brick, Vimy Hockey, Donnan, 1st RND, TSN 1260, Eddie Bauer, The Bear and everyone else that worked so hard to help us get this event off the ground. Your hard work is appreciated, and I can’t wait for December 9th to get here. It’s going to be a fantastic night.