It’s never a dull moment in Oil Country with the Edmonton Oilers.

After Saturday night’s loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the spotlight was on Connor McDavid, praising how well-coached the Lightning are, subtly turning attention toward his own coach — this while Leon Draisaitl is in Germany receiving treatment, with Oilers fans crossing their fingers that the dynamic scorer will be back sooner rather than later.

All of this comes while the team is in a heated, or perhaps lukewarm, Pacific Division playoff battle. With that in mind, this Oilers Thoughts covers lineup discussions and silver linings. Enjoy!

Since the Olympic break, Matt Savoie has been the third-most productive Oiler offensively, with 10 points, behind only McDavid (20) and Draisaitl (17).

The St. Albert, Alta. native went on a three-game stretch playing on the top line with Connor McDavid and Zach Hyman from March 13 to March 17, during which that line connected for three goals. Moreover, it was a revelation to see a player like Savoie, who can play the game fast and dynamically, alongside the Oilers’ captain.

The line was broken up for the game against the Florida Panthers on March 19, in which the Oilers went scoreless, with Vasily Podkolzin getting a promotion and Zach Hyman dropped down. After the Oilers were shut out, I wrote that the natural, rather easy decision was to reunite the Savoie–McDavid–Hyman line because of its recent success.

However, my influence in putting words together behind a computer can only stretch so far. Head coach Kris Knoblauch reunited the Ryan Nugent-Hopkins–McDavid–Hyman line against the Tampa Bay Lightning and dropped Savoie to the bottom six with Josh Samanski and Jack Roslovic.

Now, credit to Samanski for his first NHL goal last game on that line, but dropping Savoie to the bottom six, in my opinion, wasn’t the right call — he played 15:27, his lowest ice time in six games.

The Nugent-Hopkins–McDavid–Hyman line combined for one goal against the Lightning and were on for two against, but when the team is without Draisaitl, the best offensive option to play down the middle after McDavid is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. I feel you have to utilize him there to spread out the offence, and I previously mentioned the potential of a Jason Dickinson – Nugent-Hopkins – Roslovic line.

That said, the Savoie–McDavid–Hyman line has produced three goals at five-on-five in three games together, giving up none, with scoring chances 24–14 in their favour. Perhaps the idea was for Savoie to be the driver of a line lower in the lineup, but with how things have played out recently, he’s been most effective playing alongside McDavid.

Right now, with the team fighting for their playoff lives, the play should be to maximize Savoie’s effectiveness, which is skating with the Oilers’ captain, and allow Nugent-Hopkins to drive his own line down the middle, like we’ve seen him do time and time again.

I hopped on Pregaming with Bordzy on March 19, and the wheel was spun for an ‘anytime goal scorer,’ and it landed on Josh Samanski to score.

It wasn’t the sexiest of picks, but I mentioned on the show that, based on Kris Knoblauch’s theory, which says when a player reaches close to five expected goals, they’re bound to score soon. I had checked Samanski’s expected goals up until that point, and he was at 4.79 xGF, meaning, based on Knoblauch’s theory, a goal was in his near future.

Perhaps Knoblauch’s line combinations may not always be spot-on, but his theory of expected goals was nearly perfect, as Samanski scored his first NHL goal last game against the Lightning.

That said, some NHL first goals you can almost hang in the Louvre — like Jordan Eberle’s first one, a toe-drag, then backhander against the Calgary Flames. Then there are ones like Samanski’s goal, where he touched it last before a Lightning defender flicked a hopping puck into his own net, the kind that show up on the “oopsie” reels.

But they don’t ask how; it’s all about how many, and Samanski’s first NHL goal is still a huge milestone. Look out, Draisaitl, with Samanski scoring, there might be a new Deutschland Dangler in town.

After looking flat and emotionless against the Florida Panthers, the Oilers can at least take some pride in their loss to the Lightning, as they went down swinging.

Evan Bouchard got hit from behind by Pontus Holmberg in the second period, and a scrum ensued, which resulted in McDavid getting involved in a spicy scrum for the second time in six games.

From there, the Oilers as a whole responded to the heavy hit on their blueliner.

Connor Murphy fought Holmberg a few minutes later in a spirited affair, and then, after that, Darnell Nurse and Podkolzin delivered a double crunch along the boards, sandwiching Brandon Hagel. The result was Anthony Cirelli finding out that Podkolzin packs a mean punch when he went to challenge the Oilers forward.

This comes after recent games, including the matchup against the Dallas Stars on March 12, when Justin Hryckowian shot a puck at Draisaitl, and McDavid threw punches in the scrum that ensued, with Trent Frederic doing the same to the Stars forward later in the game.

Also, on March 15, when Ozzy Wiesblatt laid a hit that has now sidelined Draisaitl, Kasperi Kapanen jumped in to defend his centreman, and Podkolzin didn’t hesitate for a second to fight the 6-foot-6 behemoth Nicolas Hague.

When things aren’t going right in Oil Country, I like to look at the silver linings, and having each other’s backs is certainly one of them.

‘It can always be worse’ scenarios come to mind, and I think of when the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews suffered a knee-on-knee collision with Radko Gudas recently, with zero response from his Maple Leafs teammates — something Leafsnation’s Jay Rosehill summed up perfectly on what should’ve happened: “You go flying in there, and you f***ing ask questions later.”

At times, we can point fingers at the Oilers for not picking up a man in front of the net or for a bad defensive play, but we can’t say they don’t stick up for each other, because they’ve applied the ‘go flying in there’ approach — jumping in to defend their teammates and ask questions later.

The Oilers have scored only one power-play goal in the three games without Draisaitl in the lineup, and of course, when you take out a player who has amassed 218 power-play points over the last five seasons, the first PP unit is going to suffer a bit.

That said, it looks like McDavid is feeling the pressure without Draisaitl on the man advantage — perhaps trying to do more himself, and rightfully so, when your ride-or-die, who protects the puck so well, isn’t there. Still, if I were running the unit, I’d encourage more plays to run through Nugent-Hopkins and let him take on more of a setup role, because we know he has that ability in him.

As for a personnel change, even though Savoie has been playing well, I’d swap him for Jack Roslovic on the first-unit power play.

Sans Draisaitl, the ‘fancier’ plays aren’t as fluid, so the team will need to keep it simple and adopt more of a shooter’s mentality, and Roslovic certainly likes to shoot.

Roslovic also has a slightly higher shots on goal per hour minutes rate on the power play compared to Savoie, 9.39 per 60 versus Savoie’s 8.94. Plus, he has a harder shot, with NHL Edge clocking his hardest shot this season at 86.91 m.p.h., compared to Savoie’s 81.26 m.p.h. Roslovic could stand on the left side, on his off-wing, ready to fire one-timers.

We’ve talked about silver linings in this piece, and another one might be the solid play of the Darnell Nurse and Connor Murphy pairing.

Last game against the Lightning, Nurse and Murphy played the most minutes against the Nikita Kucherov line, who had four points on the night, but none against the Nurse–Murphy pairing. They defended well all night, with the shots 7–2 in favour of the Oilers at five-on-five. According to Natural Stat Trick, they also posted a 62.89 xGF%, while the high-danger chances were 2-0 also in their favour.

That said, Jason Gregor asked Murphy for his thoughts on what led to their success in defending Kucherov, who might be the hottest player in the NHL. He responded:

Over the last four games, their strong ability to read off each other has been evident, reflected in a 65 per cent HDCF%, with high-danger chances 13–7 in their favour.

I’ve previously mentioned that the Nurse–Murphy pairing was showing signs of potential, saying, “The Nurse–Murphy pairing can continue to build on the chemistry they formed on the road trip, because a shutdown pairing of two big behemoths on the back end — both 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds — who can skate, hit, and transition the puck is exactly what the Oilers need.”

The Nurse–Murphy duo is now starting to deliver on the promise they’ve shown.

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