SPECIAL TEAMS WOES

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So we're 2-1 to start the season this year. If anyone tracks the standings this early on in the season, then you're probably not too happy about it. 


Going in to the Excel Energy Centre in St. Paul Minnesota, we were a perfect 0-13 in our last 13 games. The streak continues. Nik Backstrom the Wild's goalie is now a perfect 12-0 in his last 12 starts against us. This is a pretty impressive record no matter how bad the Oilers have been last couple of years. Personally I thought with all the new changes to the Oilers this past off season, we might be able to break this streak. I wonder if the mindset of the team, knowing the record, gets in the players head a little?


Our special teams play is what killed us last night. The Oilers gave up 4 goals on the power play and only scored 1 goal on the PP. It was curious to me that Pjaarvi only got approximately one minute of PP time out of 7 PP opportunities. I hope that they maybe try putting one less defenseman on the point and try Pjaarvi there instead. The penalty killers have to be better than this. We can't afford to allow 4 PP goals on 6 attempts. That's just not good enough, even for this young group.


It all boiled down to face-off wins. We need to be better in this area. The three best players in the dot were; Colin Fraser (58% 7-12), Dustin Penner (67% 2-3), & Gilbert Brule (80% 4-5). Ales Hemsky was perfect in the dot, but he only took the one face-off. Andrew Cogliano was atrocious in the face off circle again at only 14% going 1-7. Cogliano told us all that his Face-offs was something he worked at over the summer and he was confident he would be improved this year. We haven't seen it yet Andrew.


All-in-all the special teams and the lack of face-off prowess led to the loss. we are definitely going to need to focus on these abilities going forward.


I wanted to give a shout-out to Rod Phillips, Hall of Fame play-by-play voice for the Oilers for the last 37+ years. Rod will be calling his last 10 games this year that have been dubbed "Rod's Classics." his first of these games is Saturday night in Calgary. If you've never listened to Rod or it's been awhile, you should turn the radio up and the TV volume down and hear the master do his thing. I can't tell you how many times Rod has made me feel like I was listening to the most exciting game in history, even though the Oilers were struggling on the ice. No dis-respect to the new guy Jack Michaels, but Mr. Phillips is the best you will hear and his last battle of Alberta will be on my stereo rather than guys at CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. Thanks for the memories Rod!


It sounds like Mackintyre will be back in the line-up against the Flames this weekend, and you can bet that Calgary will be looking for a little redemption from the shut-out loss and the TKO Smack put on Ivanans. See previous post entitled "couldn't have asked for better" Where I included the video of they're fight.


GO Oilers Go!