Oilers are out of their depth
Lack of secondary scoring could be an issue in San Jose
So who wins when you put San Jose Sharks Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski up against Edmonton Oilers Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl? Well, the first-line players are a wash, statistically at least, on the season so far.
The Sharks pair has 14 evenstrength goals, same as the Oilers duo. Pavelski’s scoring at a 21.3 per cent clip (13 goals on 61 shots), while Draisaitl has 12 goals in 51 shots, or 23.4 per cent.
If it’s an offensive saw-off in San Jose, with most NHL teams matching fire with fire, then it falls to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on the second line to come through from the Oilers’ perspective when they travel to the SAP Center on Tuesday for the NHL’s lone contest of the night. Nugent-Hopkins is almost a point-per-game player with 19 points in the Oilers’ 20 games, but he has only one goal on 35 shots during his last dozen games. Here are five things to watch for on Tuesday:
1. Get some saves
Mikko Koskinen has taken over as the No. 1 Oilers goalie. The Oilers need Koskinen (. 917 save percentage) to maybe steal a game or two on their western trip with Cam Talbot losing five straight. Koskinen was good in a 3-2 loss against Calgary, but he’ll have to be even better against the Sharks. This test is every bit as stiff as the Finn’s first win in Nashville last month.
2. Help for McDavid and Draisaitl
The Oilers have 57 goals and McDavid has 28 points, so he’s figured in almost half of them. Draisaitl checks in at 40 per cent with his 23 points. The Sharks have Evander Kane on their third line. The Oilers can’t say that in terms of depth. McDavid (12) and Draisaitl (12), Alex Chiasson (eight) and Drake Caggiula (six) have 38 of the 57 goals.
3. Figuring out Couture
First-line Sharks centre Couture has torched the Oilers with 18 goals and 29 points in 32 career games. Over the last four seasons, Couture has eight goals and 16 points in 17 games.
4. Stop being so fragile
The Oilers are, as they were last year, back into the mode that when the slightest thing goes wrong, it begins to snowball. In their 6-3 loss Sunday to Vegas, it was Cody Eakin’s short-handed goal tying it 2-2 that led to a run of five straight for the Golden Knights. In Calgary, it was Derek Ryan’s powerplay goal from the Flames’ second unit late in the middle period that brought Calgary to within a goal and led to three unanswered goals in the third period.
5. Wherefore art thou?
When general manager Peter Chiarelli traded Ryan Strome for Ryan Spooner, he was trying to shake things up, but Strome was popular in the room, even if his stats needed improvement. There may be some unhappiness there. Spooner is minus-4 in his two games playing the wing with Nugent-Hopkins. He got robbed by Marc-Andre Fleury in the Vegas loss, but if the Oilers were looking for a jolt from the trade, it hasn’t come thus far.