Good morning, everyone, and a happy Monday to all of you. I’ve got a fresh mailbag ready to go after taking your questions and sending them to the crew for their take on whatever is on your mind. This week, we’re discussing the home-ice advantage vs. getting healthy, the goaltending depth, defensive mistakes, and more. If you’ve got a question you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk, and I’ll get to you as soon as I can.

I think it matters. Last year in the first round home teams won seven of eight series. In the past three seasons home teams have won 19 of 24 first round series. Edmonton will play LA, and if the Oilers are healthy, whether they play on the road or at home, I still see them as the favourite.

They both matter, I’ll start with that. Starting a series in Edmonton and getting home-ice for a potential game seven is huge, especially when you look at the Kings record when they’re on the road vs when they’re at home. I won’t say it’s more important than getting everyone up to 100%. That should be the priority. Without Connor and Leon humming at full health, they won’t beat the Kings, regardless of where the series starts.

Health is the most important part of the equation. However, the LA Kings at home versus on the road are two completely different teams. The Kings have a 26-4-4 record at home and a 14-19-5 record on the road.

The Oilers are comfortable, though they really shouldn’t, with not having home-ice in the playoffs. It was a slog for them they managed to get through last year. That being said: getting healthy is the most important thing right now.

I don’t think it’s an either/or situation. I think the Oilers need to do what they can to get healthy, but the guys who are playing need to make sure they still win. We saw how that can work on both sides of the coin this past week, and the Oilers have fallen out of a home-ice playoff position. Why does that matter? Remember Game 7 against the Kings a few years ago? I was lucky enough to be in the building and you can’t tell me the home crowd didn’t help give the Oilers an edge.

There was no upgrade available that made sense at the deadline. Improving the team in front of the goalie, makes the goalie better, and we’ve seen that across the NHL. Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy rank 1^st and 2^nd in Sv% among starters and they also rank 1^st and 2^nd among starters in lowest expected goals against. Meaning the team in front of them limits the quality chances.

Yeah, going and grabbing a veteran to stash in the minors probably would have been a decent idea, but they must have some amount of belief in Olivier Rodrigue. Maybe they would just rather have their young goalie get some runway instead of a career third-stringer. If you’re getting to your third goalie in a playoff series, you’re probably already hooped.

No, because goaltenders weren’t available at the deadline.

The only explanation I can think of for them not doing so is they feel Olivier Rodrigue is better than any of the other options that were out there.

The only thing I can think of is that the Oilers think Rodrigue is ready for some primetime minutes. Otherwise, that’s a big miss imo.

Good question. Hard to pinpoint. Some players haven’t been as consistent. Coaches don’t coach for glaring errors, and it is more on the players who keep making them. They are capable of reducing them, and if they do the Oilers can go far. If not, they won’t be back in the Cup final.

They allow the 11th fewest shots against/60 at 5v5, 4th fewest shot attempts against/60 at 5v5, and they’re 17th in expected goals against/60 at 5v5. They give up a lot of goals and make a lot of big mistakes, but it’s not a system problem. It’s a goaltending and decision-making problem.

There was a portion of the season for about 30 games that the defence was rock solid. Right now, it lacks in games but I don’t think it’s as drastic as it’s been made out to seem. Individual errors aren’t always due to a bad system but more of a brain fart by the player.

Here’s the Oilers defensive metrics vs. the rest of the league at five-on-five this year:

How do you quantify bonehead/60? Sometimes, you’ve got the system, but you’ve still got guys making errors within that space.

Draisaitl got hurt on a freak knee-to-knee hit. Don’t see the connection to the playoffs. Skinner took a knee to the head, not related to playoffs. Frederic wasn’t here last year. McDavid has had nagging issue, and that one might be connected, but it is hard to say. If a player is healthy for the first 50 games, and then gets hit in knee, shoulder, etc I’m not sure it is connected to the Cup final eight months earlier.

I think it’s a bit of a coincidence. Playing a lot of hockey over the last 10 months doesn’t help, obviously, but it is worth noting that the Oilers have been very healthy over the last few seasons, and that’s just not always going to be the case.

I believe the roster was constructed poorly by Jeff Jackson and they moved on from too many players this summer.

The long run has something to do with it, I think, and it didn’t help that some of these guys had been dealing with injuries during that run, too. Could it be that some of them never healed up properly last summer?

I think it’s more of a confidence problem with a bunch of guys who have lofty expectations placed upon them. Look at Ryan Nugent-Hopkins over the last few weeks. My man is feeling good about his game, and it’s no surprise that he’s also starting to put up points the way we expect.

Searching for Stanley.

It is the Oilers main focus, and while that is a war movie, the title fits.

The Pursuit of Happyness (I used ChatGPT for this answer because I famously don’t watch a lot of movies. I don’t even know if it makes sense. Never seen the movie)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Idiocracy.

Thank You for Smoking. Not because the Oilers’ season has anything to do with the topic of that movie, but rather because it reminds me of the Ben Affleck stressed out smoking meme.

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