OT: Oilers Unravel, Woodcroft Tossed

[PuckinUgly57]

This is just gold, McRef, Draisaitl and Woodcroft completely unhinged and Woodcroft got thrown out of the game. Vancouver ran circles around them.laat night 6-2, and it was awesome seeing JT Miller put a shoulder into McJesus and not let him waltz right to the front of the net.

Vancouver now has more wins against Edmonton than Edmonton has wins. Been epic seeing the "Cup or bust" Oilers doing the latter, they are completely a mess in every aspect of the game.

Still expecting Woodcroft to get fired by the weekend.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

And it begins, old buddy Campbell waived. He will no doubt clear, Calvin Pickard is being recalled from Bakersfield. No one is taking Campbell with that deal, at least Blake didn't sign Petersen to 5 years.

Net result will be $387,000 or so in cap relief and Skinner and Pickard as the two goalies. Their issues go far deeper than just Campbell.

It's hard to believe Ken Holland built those Detroit power houses considering what he's done in Edmonton.

 

[LAKINGSFAN]

Not sure why, but this brings me so much joy. LOL

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Campbell cleared, not that there was any doubt.

Oilers’ Jack Campbell, Flames’ Dryden Hunt clear waivers

www.sportsnet.ca

It's pretty crazy to think he looked like a legitimate starter for a minute when he was with the Kings, Dusty Emoo - now ostracized from the league becauee he is pro Trump - did wonders with him. It's hard to understand how the second before LA and after LA he pretty much just reverted to being a sieve.

You have to believe a former 1st round pick (2010?) who just cannot put it together, perform up to contract (TO and Edmonton), is continually beat up in the media and gets demoted a few times has to take a toll on a person. By all accounts he was a solid teammate and great person, I hope he somehow comes out of this in a good spot.

 

[LAKINGSFAN]

Campbell cleared, not that there was any doubt.

Oilers’ Jack Campbell, Flames’ Dryden Hunt clear waivers

www.sportsnet.ca

It's pretty crazy to think he looked like a legitimate starter for a minute when he was with the Kings, Dusty Emoo - now ostracized from the league becauee he is pro Trump - did wonders with him. It's hard to understand how the second before LA and after LA he pretty much just reverted to being a sieve.

You have to believe a former 1st round pick (2010?) who just cannot put it together, perform up to contract (TO and Edmonton), is continually beat up in the media and gets demoted a few times has to take a toll on a person. By all accounts he was a solid teammate and great person, I hope he somehow comes out of this in a good spot.Too bad he cant come to he Kings and dr

Too bad he couldnt come back to the Kings and get his mojo back. The did well for him in the past but not with that contract.

 

[Stunner_At_Staples_Kings]

He played lights out against LA in relief Game 4 last year. Helped erase that 3-0 lead and turned the series. Brutal timing for that.

He's been real hit or miss though. High draft pick of Dallas. Lost all his confidence. I remember Kings acquired him and immediately just had him watch videos of his past and of him being good. Got his confidence up and rehabbed him. But Kings backed Petersen over Campbell, due in large part to age. Did okay in Toronto and got paid for sure by Edmonton. Considering where he was in Dallas, dude got a big contract and is pretty setup. I wish nothing but the worst for Edmonton and their trolling fans, but I like Campbell.

Kings were on a heater with goalies for like a decade + and have just hit a massive rut lately.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

I'm worried about that. Portillo looks OK, but I'm not sensing starter material.

After Petersen too, I'm concerned about another Buffalo pick not wanting to be there. Blew up in their face, hoping Portillo isn't another Cal.

 

[Stunner_At_Staples_Kings]

It was crazy how good goaltending was. Quick obviously. Bernier was solid and ended playing a ton across the league for awhile. Martin Jones was amazing for stretches. Trading him made sense, but he didn't even get on the plane to Boston before they traded him to San Jose. He beat LA in playoffs and then the Sharks even went to the cup finals with him. Darcy Keumper. Jack Campbell was great for LA. Ben Scrivens "The Professor". All these dudes were great and then moved for draft picks. Kings development was amazing. I don't know if it was Bill Ranford or what. Could also maybe be Quick in there to some degree.

Just weird to see Kings have so many struggles with goaltending, when that was basically just a given for so long. Life comes at you fast.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

BQ and AQ, Before Quick and After Quick - goaltending has been an issue. This franchise just cannot seem to develop their own apart from Quick.

 

[histkng23]

It was crazy how good goaltending was. Quick obviously. Bernier was solid and ended playing a ton across the league for awhile. Martin Jones was amazing for stretches. Trading him made sense, but he didn't even get on the plane to Boston before they traded him to San Jose. He beat LA in playoffs and then the Sharks even went to the cup finals with him. Darcy Keumper. Jack Campbell was great for LA. Ben Scrivens "The Professor". All these dudes were great and then moved for draft picks. Kings development was amazing. I don't know if it was Bill Ranford or what. Could also maybe be Quick in there to some degree.

Just weird to see Kings have so many struggles with goaltending, when that was basically just a given for so long. Life comes at you fast.

I wouldn't take anything away from the ability of the goalies that the Kings had circa 2006-2018. But the Kings defense/system in front of the goalies mentioned played a major role as well. When Quick got hurt in 2013 early in the season, they rode Scrivens for a stretch, before handing the reigns over to Jones before Quick was healthy. While Quick was out, the structure the Kings were playing during that stretch really protected Scrivens & Jones. It worked, so made the goalies look even better. Same thing happened in the 2016-17 season, when Quick was out for an extended period again, and the Kings rode Peter Budaj, before acquiring Bishop. That season also saw the Kings (Sutter) toss Jeff Zatkoff (who interestingly was drafted in Deano's first draft in the 3rd round, after they had taken Bernier in the 1st round) off the team barely 2 months into the season, as he'd seen enough.

But while Ranford was pivotal in Quick's development, along with Emoo, the defense during that stretch wasn't allowing many opposing teams near the goalies. Greene, Mitchell, Regehr, Muzzin, McNabb (1 season), weren't pushovers on the blue line.

**Deano's trade of Lubomir Visnovsky for Stoll & Greene, was probably the most significant trade of his tenure as GM.

 

[Stunner_At_Staples_Kings]

This is fair with the system. My only counter is all these guys went on the also have success elsewhere (Jones leading the Sharks to the finals. Kuemper went on some runs with Colorado. Scrivens was even good.). I think the development was top notch, but I'll agree the Kings defensive system was very well structured too. Even the defensive forwards and PK. I get flashbacks of that Vegas sweep in 2018. Was painful in that LA allowed like 7 total goals in 4 games, including OTs. But, as we got used to, they only scored 3. Haha

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Absolutely, the Kings defense was lights out during that time. Not only was the system designed for severe shot suppression and low percentage opportunities but they had the personnel to do it - Mitchell, Greene, Regehr, Doughty, you name them they shut you down. Made the goalies jobs much easier, but Quick was also lights out most nights which was an added bonus.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

**Deano's trade of Lubomir Visnovsky for Stoll & Greene, was probably the most significant trade of his tenure as GM.

He caught a lot of flack for that trade, Visnovsky was so well liked and popular, plus he had signed him to that 5 year/$28 million extension in July 2007 that was set to start July 1 2008 and got traded 3 days before that. That is ice cold to do, I'm sure Visnovsky figured his long term future was safe in LA.

But that was a culture changing trade, Stoll and Greene were very high character guys who wouldn't let anyone slide. They were both huge in that 2006 Edmonton run, I remember seeing Greene being dominant in front of his crease abusing people and letting Roloson do his job and wishing LA had someone like that. Norstrom was still here and solid himself but not in that physical way Greene was.

I think another significant one was the Carter trade because it slotted everyone where they needed to be, moved a defensive liability in Johnson and made room for Voynov. That also created one RH/LH defenseman on each pair with one SAH and one puck mover.

I think Dumbo may have been let go that summer if things didn't work out, this one saved his ass.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Called it, shwarmy salesman fired. So awesome seeing them implode.

Oilers fire head coach Jay Woodcroft, hire Hartford's Kris Knoblauch

The Edmonton Oilers have fired head coach Jay Woodcroft after a disappointing start to a season that had Stanley Cup aspirations.

www.sportsnet.ca

 

[histkng23]

He caught a lot of flack for that trade, Visnovsky was so well liked and popular, plus he had signed him to that 5 year/$28 million extension in July 2007 that was set to start July 1 2008 and got traded 3 days before that. That is ice cold to do, I'm sure Visnovsky figured his long term future was safe in LA.

But that was a culture changing trade, Stoll and Greene were very high character guys who wouldn't let anyone slide. They were both huge in that 2006 Edmonton run, I remember seeing Greene being dominant in front of his crease abusing people and letting Roloson do his job and wishing LA had someone like that. Norstrom was still here and solid himself but not in that physical way Greene was.

I think another significant one was the Carter trade because it slotted everyone where they needed to be, moved a defensive liability in Johnson and made room for Voynov. That also created one RH/LH defenseman on each pair with one SAH and one puck mover.

I think Dumbo may have been let go that summer if things didn't work out, this one saved his ass.

Absolutely, the trade for Carter was the final piece to the puzzle. I enjoy rewatching the Stanley Cup Moments videos that the organization produced after both cup years. For relevancy, episode 5 "The Trade Deadline" is quite a special one, as it covers the rumors of Brown possibly being traded, but ends with the trade for Carter. Tim Lieweke, despite years of us bashing him, finished the video telling a story of Deano explaining to him when he was hired, that there will come a day when Dean would say this is the final piece (Carter), and Tim said he was right.

I'm more leaning that I don't feel Dean would have been fired after 2012 if the Kings didn't do well. Had they not made the playoffs, I can agree with you. But they had made the playoffs in 2010 & 2011, and were still fairly young collectively. 2011 unfortunately was the year Kopy broke his ankle roughly 2 weeks before the playoffs were set to begin, and that team could have fared better against the Sharks in the first round, which could have taken any heat off Deano for 2012. (Coincidently, my brother was at the game that Kopy got hurt, and then was at a game in Dec 2013 against Dallas - Kings were ROLLING at 25-8-4 coming in - get slapped 5-2, which triggered a 5 game skid, and a spell that saw them go 5-14-2, so my friend and I have always given him a good jab about him staying away from Kings games - fortunately he lives outside of Dallas now).

***Kings have needed a "Greene" type of player for years, maybe Englund can grow into it a little, but it would do them wonders if they would locate one in the draft, imo.

 

[Stunner_At_Staples_Kings]

This pretty much puts me on the spectrum, but in offseason when there are no sports, I'll watch the whole Kings cup runs from 2012 and 2014 in their entirety. Start with Vancouver 2012 and watch all the games (No commercials on youtube except for the 30 second ones a few times) so whole run-time is like 2.5 hours (More for OT games). Just run them in the background while working or working out.

But yeah, so much had to go right for Kings to get going. Terry Murray fired brought in Sutter, but Terry Murray built a really solid defensive team, so I don't think he gets any credit for that. Especially his work with Kopitar as such a defensive stud. But he wasn't that guy to take them where they needed to go. I feel like that with McLellan a lot. Like maybe he was guy to take LA from the "3-2" era to where this team could actually score. But I am not sure if he's the guy long-term.

So Sutter comes in and he immediately goes and scoops Dwight King and Jordan Nolan off the minor league team to beef up the Kings lineup. Interviews with him he said he also wanted the players to tap into their skillsets a little more, so he opened up the style a little. Which is ironic because you think of Sutter as the defensive guy. Still wasn't going amazingly so the big trade you guys are alluding to with Carter. Jack Johnson was really popular but he made the most sense moving because Voynov was waiting in the wings to slot in seamlessly. JMFJ and a 1st got Carter. And Columbus fans were not thrilled with Carter's effort. Team even did a huge alteration night where if you brought in your Carter jersey, they'd convert it into a Johnson jersey for free. I think it was number 77 Carter to 7 Johnson, so easy enough.

I will say, if you re-watch the cup run for 2014, it's amazing how much Sutter shuffles lines. Wasn't working so he just mixes it up constantly. Chicago same thing in that 2014 series. 2012 was a different animal though. Almost no changes needed when they started every series up 3-0. EXCEPT for two that stick out to me every single time I rewatch. Coming home up 2-0 against New Jersey they throw in Simon Gagne who basically didn't play all year. Now, if that was them doing Gagne a solid to make sure he got a ring, then that's cool I guess, but just throw Colin Frasier to streetclothes after all those games felt really gross. And why mess with winning lineup like that? Anyway it all worked out. The second was after losing Games 4 and 5 to NJ, Kings Power Play went nuts on the 5 minute major with 3 goals. They interview Dustin Brown after the 1st period and ask him what they changed, and he just said they simplified everything. No more "PP unit". Whole PP is just straight line combos heading into that game. Their whole gameplan was to just treat the PP like a normal shift because getting too cute wasn't working.

Kind of feel like a documentary on the Kings of those years would be crazy. Rise and fall of that period. Richards contract termination sneaking pills across the Canadian boarder. Stoll caught with the drugs in Vegas with all the Kings at some pool party (Which I still suspect Stoll was the fall guy for everyone there, including Doughty). And then Voynov with the domestic abuse fiasco. That whole saga was its own crazy story with all of it going through interpreters. Voynov ended up marrying that girl if I am not mistaken. Wild times.

 

[Kings4OT]

I think they should name McJesus the coach and GM instead of the figureheads they get. He can get evrrything he wants quicker that way

 

[Kings4OT]

Someone in s league im in gound a tweet or something:

"The Edmonton Oilers have relieved team chef Gaston Smithson.

He has been replaced with Connor McDavid’s mom because she can make the grilled cheeses just the way he wants.

Oilers are really pulling out of all of the stops to keep the NHL’s 106th best scorer happy"