Oil Spills: Tuesday Links - The Changing of the Guard

About the Oilers

Oilers Place Matt Hendricks On Injured Reserve -- The Copper & Blue
Hendricks on IR after blocking a shot; Andrew Miller gets the call from Bakersfield

Don't Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows -- Lowetide.ca
The Edmonton Oilers are bleeding veterans faster than a four-team expansion draft—and it feels so good. Todd McLellan has arrived with a ton of experience and a lot of currency, meaning he can cut a $4.5M defenseman like Nikita Nikitin confident the boss will sign off. It hasn’t always been this way. Let’s have a look at where some of the money is as we speak.

Oilers Thoughts: McDavid and Yakupov - Alex Thomas -- The Oilers Rig
Connor McDavid and Nail Yakupov have a chemistry that has, for some reason, been undeniable so far this season. When it was brought up this summer, by Matt Henderson, people mentioned that there would be no defensive mind on that line and that McDavid and Yakupov would get chewed up.

Schultz or Fayne, who adds more to the Oilers? (using 14/15 data) -- Woodguy
I was surfing some Oiler Dmen shot attempt data from last year and at first blush I was surprised that Schultz came out looking much better than Fayne. (Even after accounting for QC, QT, and ZS)

Edmonton Oilers sweep, as Connor McDavid has breakout weekend -- Toronto Star
On Thursday, with his famous son still awaiting a breakout performance, Brian McDavid was ushered to an Edmonton Oilers backdrop and encircled by a rush of microphones. He was asked to describe the sensation of being inside a media scrum: "Uh, uncomfortable."

Condors Shuffle - Scott Zerr -- OilersNation
A week away between home games resulted in Bakersfield Condors head coach Gerry Fleming getting out the blender to re-mix line combinations.

Admirals' Log: A Split In Week One -- The Copper & Blue
The Norfolk Admirals turned a 3-0 shutout on Friday night in to a 4-2 win Saturday in the first weekend of their "inaugural" season.

Around the NHL

Nerdy Guy vs. Naked Eye: Bad bounces for Radim Vrbata -- Sportsnet.ca
This week Thomas Drance and Dan Murphy are looking at snake-bitten Canucks forward Radim Vrbata, who has yet to register a point through six games this season.

NHL Weekend: Has Anyone Seen Sidney Crosby? -- Grantland
While the wins are coming, the goals aren’t — as a team, they’ve managed just seven on the year. And nobody’s been a more glaring omission from the scoresheet than Sidney Crosby.

From the editor's desk: Joe Vitale injury a reminder of the NHL's fighting contradiction -- Five For Howling
In a world where the damage caused by repeated brain trauma is undeniable, why does the league continue to tolerate fighting?

The relationship between competition and observed results is real and it’s spectacular -- Hockey Graphs
There has been much work over the years looking at the impact of competition on player performance in the NHL. Prompted by Garret Hohl’s recent look at the topic, I wanted to look at little deeper at the obvious linear relationship between Quality of Competition and observed performance.

NHL’s young guns steal early spotlight with sights set on Calder Trophy -- The Globe and Mail
After some early grumbling in Edmonton over their latest No. 1 pick’s slow start, McDavid exploded for the Oilers on Saturday, scoring twice and adding an assist in their first win of the season. That bumped him up into the top 10 in rookie scoring heading into Sunday’s game in Vancouver, and there’s little doubt he’ll stay there given he is playing more minutes per game (18:13) than every other first-year forward save for Buffalo’s Jack Eichel.