Well? 9 game review

9 games in the books!

We are 6 and 3 with a .667 win percentage putting us near the top of the league no matter how you look at it. Third in points, 6th in win percentage. We’re good. It’s great. We were final 4 last season. Best time to be an Oiler’s fan in a decade.

The Good

Skinner has been outstanding!

Holloway is back from that hit.

McDavid is not from this planet.

Drai is also an extra terrestrial.

Nurse is having a good season.

RNH is flying!!!

Bouch is improving.

McLeod is not currently suffering from a sophomore jinx.

Xavier B is heating up in the AHL.

Kane has been great and very noticeable.

Matej Blumel is ... er... sorry, wrong team.

Hyman has been full value.

Ceci continues his great run and seems legit.

Reid is tearing up Junior!

Bear will hopefully get a chance to play in the NHL again.

We live ‘rent free’ in Markstrom’s head.

The Bad

Campbell has been weak. Many are defending but he’s sub .900. If you prefer, we can declare him the best sub .900 goalie in the NHL but he’s still sub .900 on a winning club. He is .888 and Skinner is .950. It is early. I don’t think it’s a bad signing or goalie but lousy start for sure. Far from a goalie controversy.

Barrie is leaking chances against like, um, Barrie. I like Barrie and think his contract is fair. I just think he’s not what we need when we have Bouch.

Murray is not keeping up.

Niem is not a solution to our problems. I know people like the big hit and it’s fun to see on replays but I’m not sure I’m seeing an NHL Dman just yet. He’s Theo Peckham.

JP still sits at 99 points for his career. 1 point in 9 games. It’s not good enough. I get he does a great Blink 182 (‘all the small things’) but he needs to generate some offence at some point. 14 points since January 1st. Yam has 32 in that same timeframe. Tied with Duncan Keith. He’s also behind Derek Ryan and Warren Foegele who don’t play with Connor or Drai.

Yam is playing with a broken stick. He is not finishing some gorgeous setups.

Kulak is more complimentary than a legit top 4 guy.

The Ugly

We are playing the Tippet game. Start to lose, put together McDrai and play Nurse 25 minutes. This is not a good regular season formula.

We are doing the 1st pair and 2 bottom pair thing again. Also not good.

We are playing guys 6 minutes a night. NO ONE succeeds in the NHL playing under 10 minutes a night. Best case scenario is you don’t get scored on coming out 2 or 3 times a period. Zero chemistry built. Zero confidence instilled.

Broberg is in the AHL. There is a seriously good chance that Blumel has more NHL points than he does when this season is over. One is an elite first rounder and the other was a late round pick that Kenny forgot to sign.

Enjoy your hearing Mr. Nicholson.

Takeaways after 9 games:

We need to balance the minutes. I look at the Wing’s and they play 4 D (Seider, Hronek, Maata and Chariot) about 20 to 22 minutes a night and the other 2 guys around 15. Running our stars into the ground in the first 9 games is not a good plan. We should be reducing Nurse/McDrai minutes. Save those minutes for playoff games.

Barrie getting more minutes than Bouch is criminal at this point.

We clearly need a different kind of Dman as our D is our Achilles heel. Trade Barrie for a legit NHL shutdown guy. It’s amazing but a guy like Adam Larsson is exactly what we need on the Right side. My preference is Chychrum (trade Bro, our 1st and Foegele) and I don’t mind the Soucy idea. I’m not saying go out and get Hedman here.

We are a legit cup contender. We are probably one clever trade(for a D, not Toews, Kane or any other shiny forward) away from cementing that.

Good health is great. Watching the team gel after Connor ate a post was amazing.