Monday Mailbag – Is it time to reshuffle the Oilers’ defensive pairings?

Happy Monday, friendly Internet amigos, and welcome to a fresh edition of the Mailbag to help get your week started and keep you updated on all things Edmonton Oilers. This week, we’re talking about Jay Woodcroft, line combinations, being ready to play, and much more. If you’ve got a question you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk , and I’ll get to you as soon as we can.

If players need to be yelled at in game five of the season to perform the issue within the room is much larger. Players ultimately win games. They played quite well for much of Saturday’s game v. Winnipeg, but lost in OT. Another major bad decision, Skinner, led to the tying goal. Yes, Woodcroft would yell if needed, but I’m not sure it would do much longterm. The team’s effort and execution comes from within and the players need to play with more consistent energy and emotion.

What you describe is a page out of a 1990’s coaching playbook. You don’t get a favorable response by ranting and raving and getting “up in the face” of players. It has to come from the core group of players. Demand? If you demand anything and somebody like McDavid or Draisaitl says, “FU,” then what? What are you going to do?

I’ve always said that it’s not an NHL Head Coaches job to motivate his players for 82 games. There are times when it’s needed, but he can’t go in a tear a strip off the team everytime something goes mildly wrong. With that being said, it’s concerning that this team always seems to come out flat. I don’t think it’s purely a coaching issue. I think the locker room needs to dig deep right now.

We don’t know what happens behind closed doors but I am confident that Jay Woodcroft can yell at the team if he needs too.

This question has been asked so many times over the years that the only answer I can give is that it has to be up to the players to motivate themselves. They’re professional athletes and if they can’t get themselves ready to play then we have a whole other list of issues to discuss.

I wouldn’t for most of the game, but we have seen them together at times late in periods or in the game.

I’d consider anything, but we won’t need to worry about McDavid or a week or two because of his injury. That aside, I don’t see a connection with which way they shoot. Different players and different positions.

That’s a very interesting idea. I like the duo of Nurse/Ekholm, but I hate the idea of Ceci/Bouchard, so I think I’d prefer if Jay Woodcroft and Dave Manson steer clear of it. They need two solid pairings, that’s why they went out and got Ekholm in the first place.

I don’t think they want to do that often. Since Ekholm arrived, Nurse and he have only played 25:14 together at 5 on 5. Nurse has only played with three other defenceman less and thats Markus Niemelainen, Ryan Murray, and Jason Demers. The team is better when those two are separated much like when Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl aren’t together continuously.

I don’t think playing Ekholm and Nurse makes the team better because it leaves less on the other two pairings. Like it or not, those two are our best defencemen and they should be anchoring their own pairings.

No third period goals in five games. It is brutal.

Same about no production in the third period. I’ve also been surprised by how ineffective Evander Kane and Connor Brown have been. I recognize the injury circumstances, but I thought they’d be better than this.

Last year, it felt like they were never truly out of a game and this year, they’ve looked remarkably flat in the final frame of each game. They look like a team that’s somehow lost their identity and I’m not sure how they’re going to find it.

The lack of consistent effort. The performance against Philadelphia was laughable and not a symbol of what Oilers hockey is supposed to be. The effort in the defensive zone against Vancouver in the home opener was awful too. The good news is that the Winnipeg game was better, which people might not want to accept since the lost.

Everyone is giving good answers here so I’ll go with how the players look like they’ve never played together before. Passes are too long or too short, they’re lost in the offensive zone, and the power play has been a mess over the last two games. It’s weird.

I don’t doubt that is their focus, but saying and doing are much different. It is difficult to do it consistently, and that is the Oilers issue right now.

Talk is talk. Too many Grade A mistakes.

*shrugs* I’m not sure. I don’t think the changes to the defensive zone structure and the whole zone defence thing are what’s been screwing them early on here. I think it’s a lack of effort and attention to detail. The Oilers will always be the most skilled team on the ice, but lately they haven’t been the team who’s looked like they wanted it more.

Who knows! Again, it was better versus Winnipeg but previous it was poor. We are only a handful of games into the season so there’s still plenty of time to improve.

I don’t have an answer for this. After five games, the lack of execution all over the ice has been a major issue.

Woodcroft entered the season having the 2^nd most wins in the NHL since being hired. Wanting to fire a coach after five games won’t help. It is a bad start. It will be fixed from the players, a new coach would only be a bandaid solution and not fix that the players ultimately decide outcomes of games.

You’d think so, no? I’m surprised at how this team has kept repeating mistakes they should have learned from long ago. No answers here.

I hinted at this earlier. At some point, it can’t always be on the coach or the GM or whoever else. At some point, this group needs to look inward.

Things are happening to this team that are unusual. For example, they don’t score goals in the third period anymore. The errors leading for goals are blatant. These things cannot happen all season and eventually things will turn in favour of the Oilers.

Things will turn around, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling pretty dejected right about now. Needless to say, this is not the start to the year that any of us would have expected.

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