Dallas Eakins Specious Reasoning

Ryan complained that Dallas Eakins was being mealy-mouthed about his ridiculous deployment of Nail Yakupov thus far this season:

My only thought going into the game is to win the hockey game. This is about our team. I know there's a lot of chatter out there about individuals ice time, this is about our team. The team. The team. The team every time. You guys can talk about guys ice times. We've got guys that are improved this year and playing less, we've got guys that are improved and playing more. There are situational things that happen on the ice, you guys can read whatever you want into it. I'm not talking about a guys individual ice time, I'll talk to you about our team.

Ryan's take:

If you were looking for specifics as to why Yakupov is second last among the Oilers regular forwards in ice time per game you can keep looking, Eakins isn't giving us specifics quite yet.

Perhaps Eakins is being mealy-mouthed when he explains Yakupov's deployment because when he does try and provide an explanation for his player selection, his reasoning is completely non-sensical:

"Huntsy's done a great job but we do have to weigh five-on-five play.  We feel Nikitin's coming up to speed now.  He got hurt in camp and that held him back a little bit but we feel he can take the minutes on that second power play right now"

Nikita Nikitin wasn't "up to speed" enough to take on second power play minutes, but he could take the big minutes on the first power play with no problem:

Jeff Petry 's scratch and Nail Yakupov's playing time make it highly doubtful that Dallas Eakins is concerned about the team.  The team.  The team.

Draw your own conclusions.