Tag: Edmonton Oilers

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Stuart Skinner sets Oilers mark not seen since 1982

NHLPA

The Edmonton Oilers were able to get back on track after their stunning overtime loss to the Los Angeles Kings in Game 1 of their first round Stanley Cup postseason series, rebounding with a 4-2 win to knot things up at 1-1 before the two teams shift to Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles. 

And rookie goaltender Stuart Skinner has once again found himself in the team record books. Not only did he overtake team legend Grant Fuhr’s Edmonton Oilers rookie record for wins during the regular season, but thanks to his win in last night’s Game 2, he also became the 1st Oilers rookie since Fuhr himself to win a postseason contest. 

“Huge props for the guys in front of me, the job they were doing,” said Skinner of his teammates. “They did have time in the zone but to not get shots, the guys were blocking them, battling in the corners, in front. They made my job very easy in the first 18 minutes.”

For Skinner, he knows how to bounce back from a disappointing loss, and he gave a first hand demonstration 

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The Hockey News has terrible prediction for Oilers

CBC

The Edmonton Oilers proved themselves to be perhaps the National Hockey League’s most potent offensive team, becoming the first squad since 1996 to feature not two but three separate players that eclipsed the 100 point mark. 

No surprises whatsoever that the first two players on that list are Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, both of whom continued to assert their dominance over opposing defenses and goaltenders. McDavid had a monster season, scoring 64 goals with 89 assists for a jaw dropping 153 points, a new career high. Draisaitl himself picked up 52 goals with 76 assists for 128 points, while longtime Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins reached the century mark for the 1st time in his career with 37 goals and 67 assists.

For the second straight year, they’ll be taking on the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. As you may remember, it was the Oilers who overcame a 3-2 series deficit to take down the Kings in seven games. But if this prediction from The Hockey News holds true, it will be the exact opposite this year. 

Per Adam Proteau, it will be the Kings prevailing in seven games: 

“The Oilers have an enormous amount of pressure to improve upon last season’s run to the Western Conference final… There’s just something about the Kings that makes us think they can upset Edmonton. It’s one of two hunch picks in this file, but it’s a strong hunch… The Kings are looking for vengeance after the Oilers eliminated them in last season’s first round. L.A. nearly won that series, taking it to seven games before Edmonton won Game 7. The margin for error was razor-thin, and we see the same margin for error in this new matchup. The Kings were 2-2-0 against the Oilers in the regular season, and that’s a harbinger of how close it will be. But this time, we think the Kings will prevail.”

The series gets underway tonight from Rogers Place in downtown Edmonton.

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Oiers have game winning goal called back in OT!

Sportsnet

Tensions are high at Rogers Place in Edmonton right now after the Edmonton Oilers coughed up a 3-2 lead to the Los Angeles Kings with just 16 seconds remaining left in the 3rd period.

Flash forward to overtime and Oilers forward Derek Ryan appeared to end the game with an OT winner but… well… it wasn’t even close. Ryan’s stick was clearly well over the crossbar and was ruled a high stick.

Check it out:

No goal. Easy call.

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Oilers fans litter the ice with trash after Game 1 loss

Sportsnet

In case you missed it last night, the Edmonton Oilers just messed themselves in Game 1.

The Oilers dropped a 4-3 OT decision to the Los Angeles Kings last night in the opening game of their first round Stanley Cup Playoff series by first coughing up the lead with 16 seconds to play, then having a game winner called back in OT, then eventually relinquishing the OT winner to Kings forward Alex Iafallo. That’s a long, looooong way of saying the Oilers absolutely blew it in Game 1.

Here was the scene in Edmonton’s Rogers Place last night when Iafallo popped off:

Yikes… that is one unhappy crowd.

In fact, things turned ugly pretty quickly. The moment after Iafallo scored, Oilers fans started littering the ice surface with trash.

Check it out:

Come on now… have some common decency. I get that you’re upset, but behavior like this is so childish. Seriously, either grow up or give you pricey playoff tickets to someone who can conduct themselves properly in a public setting. 

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Western Conference playoff matchups officially set

GamblingSites.org

First, the National Hockey League’s Eastern Conference postseason matchups were set in stone. And thanks to the victory tonight by the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, we now know the Western Conference postseason matchups. 

Colorado’s victory officially crowned them as the winners of the Central Division, and they’ll be taking on the second year Seattle Kraken in what will be their first ever playoff appearance. Colorado will be facing a few familiar faces, as former Avalanche players Philipp Grubauer and Andre Burakovsky, the latter of whom was part of last year’s Cup winning team, now play for Seattle. 

For the second consecrative season, it will be the Edmonton Oilers facing the Los Angeles Kings in the first round. The Oilers became the first NHL team since 1996 to feature three different players who eclipsed the 100-point mark in Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, while this will be the first postseason for Los Angeles without goaltender Jonathan Quick between the pipes since 2002. 

Speaking of Quick, he and his new Vegas Golden Knights teammates are taking on the Winnipeg Jets, who grabbed the last remaining playoff spot in the Western Conference. This will be their first playoff matchup since the 2018 Western Conference Finals that saw Vegas advance in their inaugural season to within three wins of the Stanley Cup. It also marks the postseason debut of former 2015 No. 2 overall pick Jack Eichel. 

And for the first time since 2016, it will be the Dallas Stars taking on the Minnesota Wild. The Stars took down the Wild in their opening round postseason series that year, the first time that the two had faced one another beyond the regular season. It was especially ironic, given that the original Minnesota North Stars left the State of Hockey to become the Dallas Stars in 1993, while Minnesota regained an NHL expansion franchise in the Wild in 2000. 

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Full schedule announced for Oilers vs. Kings in Round 1.

The Los Angeles Kings and the Edmonton Oilers are about to get very familiar with one another, with the two teams set to clash in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.

As is always the case when it comes to the playoffs, fans are eagerly anticipating this meeting between the two squads and on Saturday we received more details regarding when the teams can be expected to play.

The series will kick off this coming Monday when the Kings travel to Edmonton to face the Oilers who have earned home-ice advantage in this series. The Kings will play in Edmonton again on Wednesday before the Oilers travel out to Los Angeles for the third game of the series on Friday. That will then lead into the second game in Los Angeles on the following Sunday, and following that we get into the theoretical games.

Should the game move beyond the 4 mandatory games, we will see a Game 5 on the following Tuesday, Game 6 on the following Saturday for quite a wide gap between 5 and 6, and a Game 7 on the following Monday should it be needed.

Here is a full breakdown:

Monday, April 1710:00pm EST@ Edmonton 

Wednesday, April 1910:00pm EST@ Edmonton

Friday, April 2110:00pm EST@ LA

Sunday, April 239:00pm EST@ LA

Tuesday, April 25TBD@ Edmonton

Saturday, April 29TBD@ LA

Monday, May 1TBD@ Edmonton

The NHL has listed the start times for these games in ET, so do keep that in mind before tuning in to any of these games.

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Logan Couture praises the Oilers… but dunks on the Coyotes.

Robert Edwards/USA TODAY Sports

The Edmonton Oilers and their staff earned high praise from the captain of an opposing team in the National Hockey League over the weekend, but that praise came at the expense of another NHL franchise.

The Oilers played the San Jose Sharks on Saturday and during the game, Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft pulled off a move that surprised many. Woodcraft made the decision to inject veteran defenseman Jason Demers into the lineup, this in spite of the fact that Demers had not played an NHL game all season.

The move was designed to give Demers his 700th career game in the National Hockey League, and Woodcroft made it happen against one of his former teams in the San Jose Sharks no less so he could celebrate with some former teammates.

Following the game, Sharks captain Logan Couture was asked about the classy gesture from Woodcraft and he sang the praises of the Oilers coach for caring about his players. Couture though also took the opportunity to rip into the team that had put Demers in a position where he could have potentially never had the chance to play his 700th game at all, the Arizona Coyotes.

“Just the name brings a smile to a few guys here that were fortunate to play with JD,” said Couture on Saturday. “Character. Just a great glue guy in the locker room. Great sense of humor. He was a big part of a lot of those teams that we had.”

“Happy to see him get a chance to play 700 games. I talked to him after he was done in Arizona, and he has a little upset about the way that ended. I think they scratched him a few times near the end of the season at 699 when they were out of the playoffs. As a fellow player, that didn’t sit too well with a lot of guys.”

“But good on Edmonton and [Jay Woodcroft] to bring him up and play in this building for 700. I think that speaks about the type of person that Woody is over there behind the bench.”

It seems likely that Couture is far from the only player that took issue with how the Coyotes handled that situation behind the scenes, and that will be just one more knock against the Coyotes when it comes to potentially recruiting from the pool of free agent players in the future.

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Rod Brind’Amour’s son drawing interest from NHL teams.

Chip Alexander/Raleigh News & Observer

There may be a little trouble brewing on the horizon for the Edmonton Oilers.

National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman has revealed that Skyler Brind’Amour. the son of Carolina Hurricanes head coach and former NHL player Rod Brind’Amour, is currently drawing interest from teams around the league. Skyler is fresh off of winning the NCAA’s Frozen Four as a member of the Quinnipiac University Bobcat’s, and no doubt that has played a major role in how he is being viewed by team’s around the league.

“One other thing I wanna mention about Quinnipiac is they’ve got some players.” stated Friedman on the 32 Thoughts Podcast. “Skyler Brind’Amour… Rod’s son.”

Skyler has already been drafted into the NHL and his rights are currently controlled by the Edmonton Oilers who selected him in the 6th round (177th overall) of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, but it sounds like there may be no guarantee he will end up in Edmonton.

“The Oilers have to make a decision,” revealed Friedman. “The thing they like best about him is he’s a Brind’Amour.”

The Oilers aren’t the only ones who have to make a decision however, with Brind’Amour having the option to go to free agency later in the year if he chooses to do so. Although there hasn’t been an indication that he plans to go down this route, Friedman cautions that there may be other teams in the NHL looking to take advantage of that fact.

“Brind’Amour is gonna have to decide if Edmonton is the best path for him, because like I’ve said before the vultures are circling,” said Friedman. “The way he’s played I think there’s gonna be some teams saying ‘If you go to free agency we’re interested.'”

That leaves the Oilers in something of an unenviable position, one where Skyler Brind’Amour will wield significant negotiating power for a player that has yet to play in an NHL game. Only time will tell if his first NHL game will come as a member of the Edmonton Oilers, or some other rival team in the league.

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3 Oilers recognized by the NHL in March.

Richard Ulreich/CSM/Zuma

The Edmonton Oilers had a very strong showing in the month of March and, although the Oilers’ focus will remain on the Stanley Cup playoffs ahead, a number of their players have been recognized for their exceptional performances.

On Saturday, the National Hockey League announced it’s 3 stars for the month of March and two of Edmonton’s top stars made that very short list. Both forward Leon Draisaitl and Oilers captain Connor McDavid were recognized by the league, and they claimed the top two spots on the list on top of it, with the Arizona Coyotes’ Clayton Keller earning the third star in spite of his team’s struggles.

In the case of McDavid, his dominant point production of 11 goals and 18 assists for a whopping 29 points over just 15 games gave him the edge over his teammate, earning him his third “first star” of the 2022-23 regular season so far.

Draisaitl was right behind his teammate in terms of production with 11 goals of his own, albeit only 17 assists, giving him a total of 28 points and falling just 1 shy of his Oilers counterpart.

The pair are the first pair to earn the first and second star in the same month in two consecutive seasons since Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito did it back in the 70s, and that is some legendary company to be keeping.

McDavid and Draisaitl weren’t the only Oilers recognized on Saturday though, with goaltender Stuart Skinner also receiving some love from the league. Skinner appeared in 12 games for the Oilers recording a 2.83 goals against average, a .908 save percentage and earned 10 wins in the process. That was enough to earn him rookie of the month honors from the NHL, edging out forward Matias Maccelli (Coyotes) forward JJ Peterka (Sabres), forward Wyatt Johnson (Stars), forward Luke Evangelista (Predators) and forward Pavel Dorofeyev (Golden Knights) to do so.

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Could Edmonton Oilers target Max Pacioretty?

The Fourth Period

Most hockey fans, especially those of the Detroit Red Wings, know how much that current Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland loves grizzled old veteran players. What are the chances that he could elect to take a wager on a veteran who has suffered two severe injuries in the last calendar year? 

According to NHL Insider Frank Seravalli of The Daily Faceoff, current Carolina Hurricanes forward Max Pacioretty could be an option for Holland this summer on a League minimum contract: 

Take a look what Seravalli had to say: 

“You can sign the player (over 35 years old) to a league minimum deal and add performance bonuses to that contract. That money (the performance bonuses) does not count against your cap that season. You have the option to only show $775k (league minimum) and then whatever bonuses are hit by that player they are applied to next year’s cap.”

“What happens with (Max) Pacioretty and other injured players is something that is not talked about all that often, but applies here. There is a stipulation in the CBA that you do not have to be over 35 to do the same thing with a player who has had a long-term injury and is a free agent. If you have played 400 in the NHL and you missed more than 100 days with a long-term injury you can do the same thing as an over-35 contract.”

Pacioretty is currently on Long Term Injured Reserve after he tore his right Achilles tendon, which happened to be the same one that he had torn four months prior during offseason training. He’s in the final season of the four year, $28 million deal that he signed with the Vegas Golden Knights prior to the 2019-20 NHL Season. 

He certainly could be a low-risk, high-reward style of deal that could prove to be intriguing.