Monday Mailbag – Solving the Secondary Scoring Problem

 

The weekend is over, you’re back at work, and you need a way to kill some time. I get it, and I’m here to help. As always, I present you with another edition of the Monday Mailbag to help guide you through those workplace lulls. The mailbag only works because of you guys, and if you have a question you can email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk. Enjoy the break from productivity, friends.

I’m not sold it is that big of an issue overall. Lately the team has struggled to score, that is true, but let’s compare them to San Jose and Anaheim, the other top teams in the divisions.

Edmonton’s top three goal scorers, McDavid, Draisaitl and Maroon have scored 56 goals. The next four forwards have scored 43.

San Jose’s top three goal scoring forwards have 56 goals. The next four forwards have 26. Now, Brent Burns changes a lot for them since he leads the team in goals with 22.

So if I include him then their top-three goal scorers have 60 goals and the next four have 38. Their top-seven goals scorers have 98 goals while the Oilers have 99.

 

Anaheim’s top three goal scorers also have 56 goals (this was after Thursday’s games) and their next four have a total of 44. So they have 100 between their top-seven.

 

Prior to Thursday’s games Edmonton had 152 goals, San Jose 149 and Anaheim 145. I don’t see the concern about depth scoring on the Oilers.

Sure it could always be better and you’d like a few more from Eberle, RNH and Lucic, but the Oilers are ahead of the other teams in their division.

I am skeptical that the Oilers can afford to keep Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the same line over the long haul. I’d like to see an experienced right wing brought in — nothing fancy, someone like Radim Vrbata would probably do — to play with McDavid and I’d like to see Draisaitl with Milan Lucic on the second line. Lucic’s 5-on-5 struggles are distinctly out of character and it’s imperative to get him back to his production of previous years; playing with Draisaitl is probably the best chance of doing that. As a bonus, it opens up the possibility of a Pouliot – RNH – Eberle third line. I’d be tempted to run those three lines into the ground, basically turning the fourth line into specialists: Lander/Letestu as special teams/faceoff guys and with Kassian/Slepyshev splitting time on Line 2 or subbing in elsewhere as desired.

I think you have to keep betting on men like Nuge and Eberle. Todd McLellan has tried to shake up the lines, but has to go back to the McDavid—Nuge combination. Suspect Peter Chiarelli addresses it at the deadline, as well.

Secondary scoring is a problem, but the lack of production from the top-six is the real issue. They’ve all been in the tank at once over the last five games (in some individual cases longer) and that has to change. We’ll see if the tweaks Todd McLellan made to his lines at practice Sunday do the trick.

I mean, they didn’t ALWAYS have secondary scoring problems, and they just ran into it from a couple injuries and running into a rough schedule. I would almost just wait it out until they get back into the groove of an NHL schedule and I believe it will come back.

The Oilers are in the middle of the pack in terms of goals scored overall, but with that said there’s always room for more. The second line has struggled for stretches throughout the year but I think that requires a line shuffling more so than new personnel. The Oilers have guys that can score that aren’t right now. Let’s hope the tides turn rather than hope to lose another trade.

Points are one aspect of the game. He is playing well and getting more confidence. If he keeps improving, and looks like he could help at the NHL level, then possibly, but scoring in the AHL is very different than scoring in the NHL. No need to rush him, especially because I don’t see him as a difference maker just yet.

The important thing in my view is that he plays. Given Todd McLellan’s established practice over the first half of this season, that suggests trading for a veteran RW and leaving Puljujarvi in the minors is probably the best road forward from a development perspective.

I think it is in the range, but you want to see something resembling a point per game. Mikko Rantanen, a Colorado pick, scored 60 points in 52 AHL games in 2015-16, but he was 19. I think JP needs to get up to 1/1 and have no problem with him staying down for the rest of the year.

I don’t think a segment as short as the one you mentioned tells any definitive story — good or bad — especially when it comes to a rookie player. Puljujarvi is fine where he is. I expect we’ll see him recalled at the end of the AHL season.

Back to the first question, if the secondary scoring still struggles running late into the season, then I could potentially see a Puljujarvi call up.

Leave. Him. Alone. DON’T TOUCH HIM OR EVEN LOOK AT HIM! Seriously, though, there’s nothing wrong with Puljujarvi growing up in the AHL a little bit. The kid struggled to produce offence when he was with the Oilers and there’s no need to rush him back into that situation.

Islanders will move first, but not out of the NY market. The NHL won’t let them leave the biggest market in the USA.

It’s somewhat astounding to me the lengths that the NHL has gone to in order to keep the Coyotes in Arizona, but given their arena uncertainty right now I’d regard them as the team with the greatest chance of relocating. Having said that, I would have made the same prediction at several points over the last few years, so I’m not holding my breath.

Bah. I think the NHL has some kind of fixation with the desert, so will say NY Islanders.

I expect we’ll see the Islanders relocate first, assuming you consider a move to another part of the greater New York area a relocation. We’re hearing talk of a proposed arena in Queens. It appears the Coyotes, and the 17 fans watching them, will remain in Arizona until the end of time.

I have no confidence at all with anything that’s going on in Arizona right now. They will be next. TO CANADA!

I assume the Arizona Coyotes have some kind of Trump-like file about the NHL or something. They will never move. They are the stars in the sky. Immovable objects.

The offside rule is the dumbest rule in pro sports. I hope the NHL keeps having errors surrounding it so they just eliminate it.

I’m a fan of killing the offside review.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I do not have a solution but am tired of these crazy delays, and then reaching what looks like the wrong decision.

You answered your own question.

You’re exactly right. When you’re going to implement something like a coach’s challenge, you have to be objective 100% of the time, even if it ends up taking back more goals than it allows. Poor strategy imo.

I hate coach’s challenges. They do nothing but call goals back from a league that is starved for offence and also slow the pace of the game down. Scrap the rule, it’s stupid. Period. We’ll all pretend like it never really happened.

Not one thing. I played a lot of road hockey as a kid and that combined with playing on the ice built a strong love for the game.

I always loved it, but the turning point for me was probably the 1993 playoffs. My mom was a Gretzky fan and pushing for L.A.; I was too young to appreciate him properly but I thought Kelly Hrudey was cool and for reasons I can’t remember I liked Luc Robitaille, too. I was pretty disappointed when they got smoked by Montreal in the final.

I watched the game as a small child with my family around. Saturday nights were cards, cigarette smoke, beer and Hockey Night in Canada on the television. Frank Mahovlich, Dave Keon, Tim Horton, tape-to-tape passes, take your man, beat the Habs. It probably began with a beautiful pass or a brilliant goal, but I have loved the game since I can remember.

Not really one thing, in terms of playing the game. Started really young, like, four years old. Played inside, outside. When I wasn’t ankling my way around the ice we were playing road hockey on our cul-de-sac. In terms of covering the game as a sports writer, the real boost for me came in 1982, when the Vancouver Canucks made it to the Stanley Cup final and got waxed by the Islanders. It was an exciting time out there.

I always loved playing hockey from the very beginning (four-years old?), but it took me a while to really get passionate about watching hockey for some reason. Honestly, I want to say around the ’06 cup run year is when I really fell in love with it. I think the break from the lockout was kind of a ‘don’t know what you have until it’s gone’ kind of thing.

Saturday night. What else needs to be said?

 

 

 

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