Well that was a disaster. The Oilers are going to look for a do-over today against the Islanders after throwing up all over themselves in Montreal.
That game was, by far, the worst performance by Justin Schultz all year and perhaps one of the worst in his career. In shot attempts he finished at 32% while 5v5. Nurse was his partner for most of the game and he finished 10% higher than that, which should give you an idea of the effect 19 had on this game. But even worse than shot attempts is the actual shot metrics. The Oilers were
outshot 11-0 with Schultz on the ice and were an even 19-19 with him on the bench.
To make matters worse, he absolutely killed every Power Play he was a part of. Often he would be directly responsible for short-handed chances against. There were at least 3 occasions where he was the last man back and he gave the puck away to the penalty killers. His play was a combination of lazy and ineffective that is normally reserved for when my wife asks me to clean up the living room.
Justin Schultz has been given every chance to succeed by the Oilers in every respect except in their willingness to hold him accountable. That is the greatest failure of the team when it comes to how they have handled Schultz. Perhaps there was a time when his great potential could have been untapped, but instead of making him learn the game and grow as an NHL player the club was happy to take him for what he was and play him 20+ minutes a night no matter the consequences.
Well this is what we get for those decisions. What’s odd is that the club has taken a hard-line approach with Nail Yakupov because of his defensive deficiencies but not the defenseman who came in at the same time with him and had the exact same warts in his game. While Yak has been saddled with 2nd and 3rd tier centermen for all but roughly 20 games of his career and kept to 3rd line minutes for more than half of his games, Schultz got 1st line treatment from day 1.
Over his entire career, the 4 most common skaters Schultz has been on the ice with have been Eberle, Nugent-Hopkins, Hall, and Klefbom. This would be otherwise known as the best 4 possible teammates for any defenseman to play for the Oilers between 2013-2016. He has been given everything he needs to be successful.
That’s why when we look at his raw possession metrics they seem fine, maybe even good considering the fact that the Oilers are terrible. But it doesn’t take long when you start looking into it to see how much he is being propped up by the forward line he’s been blessed to play with for his entire career.
To me, anybody who has been gifted lots of time with Taylor Hall is on the receiving end of a huge favor. Similarly, playing with Nugent-Hopkins is getting a boost of defensive awareness to go with offensive ability. When you look at the With Or Without You metrics for Schultz with and without these two players in particular and you can see just how little Schultz is moving the dial.
SCHULTZ
With Taylor Hall: 51.5% GF, 49.1% CF
Without Taylor Hall: 38.6% GF, 45.1% CF
Hall Without Schultz: 51.1% GF, 48.8% CF
With RNH: 54.3% GF, 47.9 CF
Without RNH: 36.5% GF, 45.5% CF
RNH Without Schultz: 41.7% GF, 47.9% CF
The second you take him away from these premier players his on-ice numbers drop off the face of the Earth. And if you’ve actually watched him play that wouldn’t shock you in the least. He is being propped up with the best available teammates. And that doesn’t even get into the conversation about his ridiculous Power Play time.
The Oilers are going to move Justin Schultz for literally anything that gets offered to them and at this rate there wont be a single offer coming his way. The Oilers can help themselves by retaining 50% of his salary. That would effectively make Schultz a 2 Million dollar player that teams will only have to pay 500k to post-deadline. As a pure rental there might be 1 team out there willing to give him a shot as their 6th defenseman.
Sadly, if the Oilers had forced Schultz to earn his ice time from that 6th defenseman’s position themselves then maybe we’d be having a different discussion about this player. They chose against it. Now we can only guess as to what they could have done differently (everything).
LINEUP
Reinhart was close to coming in the last game and Schultz failed completely. I’m going to list Schultz as a scratch but I’m sure it’s more wishful thinking than anything.
Hall Draisaitl Purcell
Pouliot McDavid Eberle
Kassian Letestu Yakupov
Korpikoski Hendricks Pakarinen
Sekera Fayne
Nurse Gryba
Davidson Reinhart
Talbot
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Caved In. Yesterday against the Habs the 3rd line of Kassian – Letestu – Yakupov were thoroughly destroyed in shot attempts. The trio were all hovering around 24% Corsi For (Yak was a little higher, the other two were a little lower). Letestu was on the ice for 5 shot attempts for and 17 against! The 3rd line played big minutes even though they were particularly ineffective. Both Yak and Letestu were around 18 minutes against the Habs. Both need to be better when they play those minutes. You all know I have a soft spot for Yak, but he wasn’t involved in the play enough for someone getting those minutes.
2) Hall Bounce Back. If you’re wondering how the Oilers could afford to give Yak and Letestu all that ice, it’s because they had Taylor Hall sitting on the bench for long stretches. Even with 3 minutes of PP time, Hall played just shy of 15 minutes against Montreal. Both he and Draisaitl were caught out for two even strength goals against and McLellan sent a message. Today Edmonton needs to have Taylor Hall back doing Taylor Hall things. Namely, they need him playing 19 minutes a night with the puck in the attacking end more often than not.
3) Superstar? As always, the marquee name on the Islanders is John Tavares. He is, however, the poster boy for Eastern bias as he is consistently mentioned among the game’s most elite players despite never really earning that honor. This year in particular has been poor for JT as he has managed to score just 37 points in 47 games. That’s not bad, per se, so much as it just isn’t spectacular. He is 58th in NHL scoring this year and the Islanders are on the outside looking in. They need him to finish this year much stronger than he’s started it if they want to sneak into the post-season. Good news for them, he has 6 points in his last 5 games.
Puck drops today at 12:30PM on Sportsnet West. Game On!
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