By way of review:
IN: OUT:
Ryan O’Rielly Rasmus Sandin
Noel Accurai Pierre Engvall
Jake McCabe Joey Anderson
Sam Lafferty First Round pick
Erik Guvstason
Luke Schenn
First round pick WAY TO GO KYLE !
WOW, I don’t know what we’re all going to do after 3 pm on Friday ! Add to the above, from today: Jonathan Quick + 1 First and 1 Second to Columbus for Goaltender Korpeselo and D-man Gustenov and then Jacob Chykren to Ottawa for 1 First and 2 seconds. I actually do feel bad for James Duthie and the TSN panel. How in the hell are they going to provide 8 hours of content with the scraps that have been left on the table ?!?
As for tonight, we do have an NHL Hockey game between two the of league’s top teams. Luke Schenn and Erik Guvstasen were not available to the Leafs and Mathias Ekholm did make his debit for the Oil.
When you come in to Rogers Arena in Edmonton, who else do you expect to see a lot of other than SUPERSTAR Connor McDavid. He’s only scored 8 goals in his last 4 games (incl. his 50th), won the Moson Cup as the month’s top player and continues to lead his team to the playoff promise land. So why should we expect anything different when the Leafs visit ? Auston Mathews who took the Richard, Art Ross and Lester B away from him last year added a little more incentive. Sure enough, #97 scored two on his own (51 and 52) and assisted on Zach Hyman’s 29th to help the Oilers take a 3-1 lead in to the second period.
The big knock on the Edmonton Oilers has been that while they can fill their opponents net, they can’t seem to keep it out of their own. My observations from the second period was that the Oilers ground Toronto in to the ground, no matter what offensive tools they have. Scrambly play turned in to downright boring play except for the goals from Tyler Yamamoto and Kostin in the back half of the period to extend Edmonton’s lead to 5 to 1. SOG were 25-18 for the Oilers. I choose to put this down as the Maple Leafs failure to recover from a late night at the rock show and familiarizing the new guys to their systems and approach. Flimsy, but I’m OK with that.
Nothing much changed in terms of flow and tenacious Oiler checking in the third. Mitchell did pop in a PPG from Reilly and AM34 early but it didn’t really. Toronto was beaten by a better team (5-2) on this night.
HOPPER NOTES: Big question, is Kyle Dubas done ? I believe he needs to try and re-stock the draft pick cupboard a little by maybe thinning out that 9 d-man scenario (Holl as an example ?)…Mathais Ekholm got his first point as an Oiler and looked pretty good doing it…the “Core 4” (except for Marner) was a big zero on this night…I can’t remember TJ Brodie being quite so aggressive on offence as he was tonight…my first chance to see Sam Lafferty and Jake McCabe in Leafs colours was quite pleasant…Lafferty is a strong skater, likes to hit opponents and has a strong PK game…Jake McCabe came as advertised, solid, nothing fancy, strong on the puck and like I used to tell my 5 year old Timbits, he guards his goalie…CHEERS !