What Went Wrong… The Real Story.
So what went wrong this season with the Edmonton Oilers that seen them out of the playoffs for the 3rd consecutive season? Were they too small? Not physical enough? Not enough grit? Not hard to play against? No, those are the bullshit excuses the media experts throw around but there is nothing to back that up. I watched every Oilers game this season and I can tell you that there were a lot of games where the Oilers beat bigger and grittier teams with skill and speed. There were two things that stood out for me during the season that I blame for the Oilers being out of the playoffs. One has been taken care of when Steve Tambelini fired Craig Mactavish and hopefully he will hire a true NHL coach who can bring the team to the next level.
The other theory I have for the Oilers mediocrity is one that I can use some stats to support. The Oilers scored a total of 171 goals during 5 on 5 play and allowed 164 5 on 5, while this isn’t great it does show that the Oilers were a little better than the competition while playing 5 on 5 which is where size and grit is going to have a greater effect and is the reason I don’t buy the too small excuses being thrown around. On the other hand the Oilers scored 60 power play goals and 3 short handed goals while they gave up 76 power play goals and 8 short handed goals giving them a special teams plus minus of -21.
So lets just consider for a moment that the Oilers had finished the regular season with an even plus/minus rating for special teams…. imagine if they scored 21 more goals. It is easy to see the Oilers with 5 more wins if they were able to score 21 more goals throughout the season which would have given them 95 points and put them in 6th place in the conference and into the playoffs.
So…. how does size and grit help a team score on the PP?
The Voice