Special teams especially off the mark
Oilers penalty killers rate as worst in the league, while the power play isn’t far off
The rule of thumb in the NHL is you want your power play and penalty kill percentage to add up to at least 100 and last year the Edmonton Oilers were 103.6.
This season, they’re 84.1, well below the bar in terms of respectability, never mind dominance.
As of Thursday, that was the worst in the league, folks.
They were 31st on the penalty kill and 26th on the power play.
They’re a woeful 70.3 per cent on the penalty kill.
Last year, they were fifth on the power play and tied for 17th on the penalty kill.
And they had 103 points. Only the New York Islanders are close as October winds down, but they’re still better at 86.7 per cent with an abysmal power play, which is currently operating at 6.1 per cent efficiency (2-for-33).
“When you’re in the top 10 in both categories you love adding up the percentage, but when you’re in the bottom 10 you don’t want to do it,” said Oilers coach Todd McLellan.
“The penalty kill and power play are important parts of the game and not just from a statistical basis, but from a confidence perspective. Your team gains a lot of energy from a goal for and loses a lot from a goal against and we’ve been on the short end of that for a long while. We’ve ended up on the positive side of the special teams just once this year.”
McLellan attributes the losses of last year’s penalty killers Matt Hendricks and Benoit Pouliot to the slow start this season.
“It takes a bit of time to fix that with new guys,” he said, “but we’ve already used up a month and a half. We should be getting things figured out by now.”
The Oilers are 4-for-29 on the power play, unbelievably weak considering they’ve got Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, when healthy, running things.
“Our belief is the power play will come eventually, but the penalty kill has to sharpen up,” McLellan said. “(Thursday) night Patty Maroon had a tap-in on the backside on the power play, Milan Lucic had one around the net. Those have to go in. There’s creativity on the power play and structure on the penalty kill and we have to get better in both areas.”
On Thursday, Dallas toyed with the Oilers on the power play, tossing the puck through the penalty kill box with impunity. They got three goals on five tries and had 14 shots on Cam Talbot. The Oilers’ penalty killers are particularly odious at home where they’ve killed off 11 penalties in 20 tries, which adds up to 55 per cent.
The normally strong Kris Russell, who was on for the three Dallas power play goals, didn’t mince words when asked what has to get better.
“We have to execute,” he said. Better sticks as pucks go across the seams, says Russell. Nobody was going to stop Alex Radulov’s rocket one-timer in the second period once he had the puck on his stick, but the key was that it got to him.
“We’re giving the guy too much time and space and too many lanes (for passes),” said Russell.
The Washington Capitals are here Saturday with the ninthbest power play and it’s not just Alex Ovechkin they have to worry about.
“Actually (T.J.) Oshie has more power-play goals (four) than Ovie. But between the two they have seven and they’ve been living on their power play for a long time and they’re extremely dangerous,” said McLellan. “We’re looking at our reads, but also the faceoffs on the penalty kill. We’ve won numerous faceoffs and ended up playing in our end and scooping the puck out of our net. The clearing attempts and execution has to improve.”
Obviously, if the Oilers are to climb back to .500 or higher, their not-so-special teams had better improve. There’s a direct correlation between teams at the top of the standings and those bottom feeders when it comes to that.
One positive for the Oilers: Washington’s penalty kill is almost as bad (73.3 per cent). They’ve had to kill 45 power plays, fourth most in the league before Friday’s games. So if the Oilers could ever get their power play going ...