Cult of Hockey player grades: Edmonton Oilers' No. 1 picks all shine vs. Calgary – Edmonton Journal
Oilers 5, Flames 2
Coming off four straight losses to start the year, the Edmonton Oilers desperately needed a win. If it come against provincial rival Calgary, that would be even better. And, if it wasn’t too much to ask, it would be great if all the star players could be productive and the power play would finally score.
That’s what the wish list of head coach Todd McLellan might have looked like heading into Saturday’s game. All of the wishes were granted.
Player Grades
The following are the player grades for the Oilers, with 10 being a “perfect” game, 9 extraordinary, 8 great, 7 good, 6 above average, 5 average, 4 below average, 3 poor, 2 terrible and 1 deserving of almost instant demotion. Basic stats via NHL.com, enhanced stats courtesy of naturalstattrick.com. Compiled by Jonathan Willis.
First Line
Edmonton Oilers forward Taylor Hall.
#4 Taylor Hall, 9. The stats line gives a pretty good idea of the night Hall had, with a goal, two assists, a plus-two rating and nine shot attempts all speaking to a productive evening against the Flames. His first big play of the game wasn’t offensive; instead he hammered Kris Russell into the boards to finish a check. His first assist came off a nice cross-ice pass in the lead-up to Nugent-Hopkins’ goal; his second assist later was another cross-ice pass that allowed McDavid to tap the puck into a wide open net. His playmaking game was on full display, as he had two other great passes, one to a streaking Schultz and the other to Lander, both of which tested Jonas Hiller. Taking a page from Hendricks’ book, he went to the net with authority, scoring his own goal (the game-winner) on one such play and then getting stopped a short time later after stealing the puck away from Russell and deking on the resulting partial break. He drew the minor penalty which resulted in the power play that led to McDavid’s 5-2 goal, too. He was spectacular.
#93 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 8. Let’s start by noting Nugent-Hopkins’ struggled in the faceoff circle (two-for-nine) because we don’t want to end on a sour note. Outside of faceoffs, Nugent-Hopkins was great. Two of his shots beat Hiller, but only one of them found the back of the net, with the other one clanging off the iron. He was involved in two other goals on which he didn’t get points, going to the net hard on Hall’s marker and winning a critical one-on-one puck battle with his feet in the lead-up to McDavid’s second goal of the night. He was strong defensively, too, at one point bailing out Reinhart after a bad decision led to an odd-man rush the other way.
#23 Matt Hendricks, 7. Although not the offensive powerhouse his linemates were, Hendricks enjoyed a very fine night, and my early skepticism about his role on this line looks downright foolish with the way he’s played so far. He picked up his lone assist by winning an offensive faceoff prior to Hall’s 3-1 goal, but was involved elsewhere, too. He made the initial zone entry on the Oilers’ 1-0 marker and provided a screen on both that goal and the Nugent-Hopkins shot which went off the post. He was a shot blocking machine, taking one painful blast off the hand and another off the boot. The lone negative here is a minor penalty.
Second Line
#67 Benoit Pouliot, 7. Pouliot’s early work this season has been much criticized, and not without reason, but he put it behind him in a big way against the Flames. His pass on Yakupov’s goal was a thing of beauty; he was in a great shooting position but correctly identified his linemate in a better one and the puck wasn’t on his stick for more than an instant before it was on its way again. He had a couple of other nice passes on the evening, feeding both Yakupov and Purcell for strong chances, and served as a decoy for McDavid on the Oilers’ 2-1 goal.
#97 Connor McDavid, 9. McDavid’s best play of the night wasn’t either of his goals or even his assist. It was a stunning sequence early in the third when he found nothing but Calgary’s third pairing between him and the net and decided to take advantage, knocking a puck off the stick of a flat-footed Brett Kulak, blowing by a sliding Deryk Engelland like he was a pylon and then deking out Jonas Hiller only to be stymied by a desperation paddle save by the Flames’ goalie. It was a breathtaking play. That wasn’t all, of course. His first goal was the kind he’s likely to score a lot of, with his speed forcing back the Flames defender and giving McDavid room to release a wicked wrist shot. He picked up an assist on the Oilers’ fourth goal with some fantastic work on the forecheck, and then went to the net to tap in Edmonton’s fifth marker. He took am minor penalty and was bad in the faceoff circle, but in the grand scheme of things, meh.
EDMONTON, ALTA: ¬†OCTOBER 1, 2015 — Nail Yakupov (10) as the Oilers play the Vancouver Canucks in Edmonton, October 1, 2015.
#10 Nail Yakupov, 8. The Oilers’ occasionally forgotten first overall pick had a memorable evening. He tied for the team lead with four shots, including a lovely chance early off a Pouliot pass. Those two would connect again later in the evening on Yakupov’s first goal of the season. He also had the primary assist on McDavid’s first goal of the night, advancing the puck up the ice and letting the newest No. 1 do his thing.
Third Line
#28 Lauri Korpikoski, 4. This line keeps getting lit up at even-strength, though admittedly it’s being asked to do a lot defensively. Korpikoski had the worst Fenwick number of any forward on the team. He played a contributing role on Calgary’s first goal, failing to get in the lane to block Dennis Wideman’s initial shot.
#51 Anton Lander, 5. The shot metrics don’t much care for Lander, and he did lose a defensive zone draw on Calgary’s 1-1 goal, but by eye he certainly had good moments. He had two shots and both were relaly nice scoring chances, one of them off a pass from Hall and the other later courtesy of Purcell. He drew two minor penalties and won 16 of 22 faceoffs. I’d guess at the very least he’s earned another game on the top power play unit.
#16 Teddy Purcell, 5. Purcell set Lander up for one chance and had a good one himself later in the game. It was a reasonably quiet night overall, though.
Fourth Line
#20 Luke Gazdic, 5. Gazdic had a heavyweight tilt with Deryk Engelland but otherwise made little impression in his less than five minutes of ice time.
#55 Mark Letestu, 5. Why hello there, Boyd Gordon. Letestu started 14 even-strength shifts with a faceoff at one end of the rink or other; 13 of the 14 were in the defensive zone. He had no noticeable offensive impact and (unsurprisingly, given the role) had a tough night by the shot metrics but did win 14 of 22 draws.
#12 Rob Klinkhammer, 5. Klinkhammer played physically and was credited with one takeaway in his seven-odd minutes of play, but had no offensive impact and very little chance to contribute in that area.
First Pairing
#77 Oscar Klefbom, 5. Klefbom has two ugly turnovers on the night, at least according to my notes. The first one was a cross-ice seam pass through the neutral zone which was picked off by Brandon Bollig; fortunately for Klefbom if you’re going to make a lousy neutral zone turnover there are worse players have on the intercepting end. His second turnover that I noted came on a poor clearance attempt and was picked off in the lead-up to Calgary’s 1-1 goal. Things weren’t all bad, though; among other things he made a lovely pass to Hall on the Oilers’ game-winner.
#19 Justin Schultz, 4. Calgary’s first goal of the night was bookended by Schultz plays. A bad icing left a tired unit on the ice to start the shift, and ultimately it was Schultz’s man who deflected the puck in at the front of the net. Two pinches stand out on the night. One of them was very deep and very smart, nearly leading to a goal when Hall managed to feather the puck over to him; Hiller got over just as quickly to stop it. The other was on the power play and went very bad, leading to a three-on-one the other way; Schultz and the Oilers were very lucky to escape without a goal against.
Second Pairing
#2 Andrej Sekera, 6. Sekera had some good moments and some bad moments, but just might be settling in. The bad moments were pretty bad; one a minor penalty after getting trapped by Michael frolic (who does that sort of thing) and the other the primary contributor to a goal against. Sekera lunged forward at the blue line to deny a Calgary entry; instead he ended up flatfooted as David Jones walked in and scored the Flame’s second of the night. As HNIC commentator Mike Johnson put it, it’s risky advancing while playing defence, because “if you miss you miss badly.” Both the Oilers second and fifth goals featured plays by Sekera; he picked up an assist on the latter. The Oilers had 10 unblocked shot attempts to the Flames’ four at evens with Sekera out there; they also out-scored the opposition by three goals.
#5 Mark Fayne, 6. This is exactly the kind of night that Fayne needs to have more of: quietly, unobtrusively competent. Among other items, my notes record some strong one-on-one defence against Mikael Backlund to prevent a chance against, as well as a contributing play on Edmonton’s fourth marker.
Third Pairing
#8 Griffin Reinhart, 3. The one real disappointment on the night was Reinhart. He was part of the problem on an early partial break by Michael Ferland and things got worse from there. Twice he got caught on the wrong side of two-on-one rushes; once he got bailed out by Nugent-Hopkins and the other time he (to his credit) managed to get back in the play. He was dinged for an interference penalty and two giveaways, including one leading to a strong third period opportunity for the Flames.
#62 Eric Gryba, 5. We got to see Gryba’s offensive side, as he hammered one shot on the net which popped out a juicy rebound; said rebound was promptly put away by Nugent-Hopkins, earning Gryba an assist. He had two hits, three blocked shots and although he won’t get a gold star for his defensive work he was clearly the better half of his pairing.
Goaltender
#33 Cam Talbot, 6. Talbot wasn’t brilliant, but he didn’t have to be. He provided the Oilers with the kind of calm, steady netminding that the team hasn’t had in recent years, and Edmonton in turn responded by giving him some goal support for a change. 22 saves on 24 shots for a 0.917 save percentage.
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