If you had a way to solve the problems that the Oilers are having early in hockey games, they would hire you on the spot.
They struggled to start games on time under Todd McLellan, they struggled to start games on time under Dave Tippett, and not surprisingly they’ve struggled to start games under Jay Woodcroft.
This isn’t something that has just started to become a problem over the last few months. This also isn’t something that you can just point to and say “it’s the middle of the season, they’ll find a different level when the games matter more”.
They started poorly consistently in the playoffs. With Rogers Place rocking, with the stakes high, they rarely dominated the opening frame. In 16 playoff games, there were only two instances where they both outscored and outshot the opposition. Brutal.
So what’s the issue?
I’ve long believed that it is not a head coach’s job to motivate players before every game at the NHL level. These guys are professionals and they should not need a coach to give them a big pep talk before all 82 games. Furthermore, if a Head Coach did do that, it would be easy to imagine that he’d lose the room pretty quickly. His message would lose meaning.
It’s on the players in the room to find ways to be better from the jump and honestly, I think it’s on the leaders in the room as well. Why can’t this team generate any sort of energy early in games? They need to find a way to be ready to go right from the initial puck drop. It’s absolutely killing them right now and it’s been a problem all year.
Ryan Rishaug had a tweet with some tremendous numbers from Sport Logiq:
Courtesy our friends at @Sportlogiq here are some period by period break downs on key metrics for the Oilers. I thought the first period picture would be a bit worse. – #’s are all strengths. pic.twitter.com/hzn3X4PzCb
— Ryan Rishaug (@TSNRyanRishaug) December 6, 2022
I have very little confidence that this team will magically become a powerhouse in the first period because this group has shown us time and time again that they can’t, but they should be able to at least not be towards the bottom of the league in almost every stat category. Just don’t be terrible, that’s all you need to do. Baby steps.
There are three things I’d like to see from them in the next few games:
Oilers line rushes ahead of tonight’s matchup vs. ARI:
Draisaitl – McDavid – Hyman
Janmark – RNH – Yamamoto
Holloway – Hamblin – Puljujarvi
Kostin – Shore – RyanNurse – Ceci
Kulak – Barrie
Broberg – BouchardSkinner#Oilers
— Tony Brar (@TonyBrarOTV) December 7, 2022
More must-reads:
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