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<p>The game-winning goal in Thursday&rsquo;s game was scored by the Colorado Avalanche, while the Edmonton Oilers were on the power play. That&rsquo;s bad. That it&rsquo;s just the way Oilers power plays tend to go these days is worse.  </p>
<h1>The Goal!</h1>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" src="http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/embed?playlist=2013020532-515-h" frameborder="0" width="640" height="395"></iframe></p>
<p>Stop me if you&rsquo;ve heard this before: Justin Schultz coughs up the puck at the opposition blue line.</p>
<p>This one isn&rsquo;t especially complex; that&rsquo;s the crux of it. The initial pass is inexplicable; Schultz had time and space but decided to force a pass to a covered Taylor Hall rather than hang on to it himself or pass it to the open man on the far boards.</p>
<p>That started a two-on-one. Hall did his level best to get back in the play and gained some ground but wasn&rsquo;t able to get there in time. The Oilers would have been okay if Schultz had played the pass, like every defenceman defending a two-on-one ever is supposed to, but he didn&rsquo;t and that left Devan Dubnyk hanging out to dry.</p>
<h1>The Trend!</h1>
<div><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://publish.oilersnation.com/wp-content/uploads/Image/19-Schultz-1.png" width="600" height="276" alt="" /></div>
<p>Here&rsquo;s a statistic: In the last 13 games, the Oilers have surrendered 14 shorthanded chances. They have only managed to generate 11 themselves all season.</p>
<p>Here&rsquo;s another one: in the last six games, Edmonton&rsquo;s power play has been out-chanced 8-7.</p>
<p>Superficially, the power play ranks 16th in the NHL in overall effectiveness, with 23 goals on 130 chances (17.7%). However, after eight shorthanded goals are taken into account it slips to 25th overall in goal differential/opportunities. It&rsquo;s a ludicrous number given the talent the team has at its disposal.</p>
<p>Edmonton plays games on Saturday and Monday, but then has a long-ish break before playing Calgary on Friday (Update: as Jason Gregor reminds me, there&#8217;s a little-known holiday called &quot;Christmas&quot; in that stretch, which makes it somewhat less than ideal as a time for practicing things). That break might be a good time to completely reimagine the power play.</p>
<h1>Recently by Jonathan Willis</h1>
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<p>The game-winning goal in Thursday&rsquo;s game was scored by the Colorado Avalanche, while the Edmonton Oilers were on the power play. That&rsquo;s bad. That it&rsquo;s just the way Oilers power plays tend to go these days is worse.  </p>
<h1>The Goal!</h1>
<p><iframe src="http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/embed?playlist=2013020532-515-h" frameborder="0" width="640" height="395"></iframe></p>
<p>Stop me if you&rsquo;ve heard this before: Justin Schultz coughs up the puck at the opposition blue line.</p>
<p>This one isn&rsquo;t especially complex; that&rsquo;s the crux of it. The initial pass is inexplicable; Schultz had time and space but decided to force a pass to a covered Taylor Hall rather than hang on to it himself or pass it to the open man on the far boards.</p>
<p>That started a two-on-one. Hall did his level best to get back in the play and gained some ground but wasn&rsquo;t able to get there in time. The Oilers would have been okay if Schultz had played the pass, like every defenceman defending a two-on-one ever is supposed to, but he didn&rsquo;t and that left Devan Dubnyk hanging out to dry.</p>
<h1>The Trend!</h1>
<div><img src="https://publish.oilersnation.com/wp-content/uploads/Image/19-Schultz-1.png" width="600" height="276" alt="" /></div>
<p>Here&rsquo;s a statistic: In the last 13 games, the Oilers have surrendered 14 shorthanded chances. They have only managed to generate 11 themselves all season.</p>
<p>Here&rsquo;s another one: in the last six games, Edmonton&rsquo;s power play has been out-chanced 8-7.</p>
<p>Superficially, the power play ranks 16th in the NHL in overall effectiveness, with 23 goals on 130 chances (17.7%). However, after eight shorthanded goals are taken into account it slips to 25th overall in goal differential/opportunities. It&rsquo;s a ludicrous number given the talent the team has at its disposal.</p>
<p>Edmonton plays games on Saturday and Monday, but then has a long-ish break before playing Calgary on Friday (Update: as Jason Gregor reminds me, there's a little-known holiday called &quot;Christmas&quot; in that stretch, which makes it somewhat less than ideal as a time for practicing things). That break might be a good time to completely reimagine the power play.</p>
<h1>Recently by Jonathan Willis</h1>
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    <li><span><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2013/12/17/the-face-of-the-franchise-2">Is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins the most important player on the team?</a></span></li>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2013/12/15/moral-victory-actual-loss-edmonton-falls-3-2-to-anaheim">Moral victory, actual loss: Oilers fall to Anaheim</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2013/12/14/so-long-jason-labarbera">So long, Jason LaBarbera, we hardly knew you</a></li>
    <li><span><span><span><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2013/12/13/zack-kassian-edmonton-oilers-embarrass-selves">Zack Kassian, Edmonton Oilers embarrass themselves</a></span></span></span></li>
    <li><span><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2013/12/12/david-perron-a-scoring-chance-machine-vs-boston">David Perron a scoring chance machine vs. Boston</a></span></li>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2013/12/12/where-does-devan-dubnyk-belong-in-the-oilers-pantheon-of-goalies">Where does Devan Dubnyk rank all-time among Oilers goalies?</a></li>
    <li><span><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2013/12/10/taylor-hall-opportunity-and-the-2014-olympics">Taylor Hall, opportunity and the 2014 Olympics</a></span></li>
    <li><a href="https://twitter.com/JonathanWillis"><strong>Follow Jonathan Willis on Twitter!</strong></a></li>
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Now Eventually You Do Plan To Have Power, On Your Powerplay, Right? Hello?

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