EDMONTON — The most important datum about the penalty kill shows otherwise, but Edmonton Oilers winger Mattias Janmark doesn’t think it’s an accurate assessment of what’s actually happening on the ice.
“Just the details aren’t there,” he said. “Overall, it’s not as bad as it looks on paper.”
The Oilers rank at the bottom of the NHL on the PK, allowing a league-high nine goals. The rate at which opponents are scoring in that situation is startling considering the PK was one of the hallmarks of their playoff run. They allowed teams to score just four times over 25 games.
To have already surrendered more than double the number of goals in less than a quarter of the amount of time is downright awful. Janmark, the veteran winger and a PK regular, isn’t reading too much into the large statistical variance.
“In the playoffs, it works both ways,” he said. “You play a good game … and then you go up against the same lineup the next game, and they’re maybe not as confident. Here, you can play a perfect game and then a brand-new team comes into town, and they have their own answers for it.
“It’s hard to compare. We’re working towards something, and we’re certainly not there.”
The Oilers’ effectiveness on the penalty kill is worse than it was when coaches Jay Woodcroft and Dave Manson were fired through 13 games last season. It was shutting down opponents at a 70 percent clip back then. The sample is halved now, but the Oilers have been effective just 55 percent of the time through six games.
They’ve been short-handed 20 times this season and surrendered nine goals. They’ve allowed an opposition power-play goal in all but one contest.
“We’ve got some new people,” Janmark said. “And even for the ones coming back, it’s a fairly new system — a lot of details.
“We got going towards the end of the year. We had stretches where we were going really good. We also had stretches where we were leaking. Sometimes, funny enough, that’s how the PK goes. You can play pretty good, but the pucks just find a way to get in. Sometimes, when you’re hot, the goalie just makes a save or they miss a wide-open chance. It’s usually not as bad as it looks and never as good as it seems.”
As Janmark suggests, some of what has ailed the Oilers this season is bad luck.
They took one penalty against the Dallas Stars on Saturday afternoon, a Troy Stecher tripping call in the final minute of the second period. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who won 13 of his 15 faceoffs in the game, cleanly lost a defensive-zone draw to Roope Hintz. The puck went right to Matt Duchene, and he beat goalie Stuart Skinner from the slot. There isn’t a whole lot the four skaters on the ice can do there.
Matt Duchene’s power play goal at the end of the second period.
Looks like Darnell Nurse cheats into the circle on the draw and that hesitation keeps him from getting into Duchene’s shooting lane. pic.twitter.com/nC8fdfhehI
— Owen Newkirk (@OwenNewkirk) October 19, 2024
It’s almost as if the Oilers are in Murphy’s Law territory. You know, how anything that can go wrong, will.
“That’s how it goes sometimes,” Janmark said, “and that’s how it’s going right now. We were playing Philly (last Tuesday), and they got two on us early on off of bad bounces (both by Matvei Michkov). We killed off the next five after that.
“It’s just the details aren’t there.”
Janmark was dealing with an injury that sidelined him for 10 games amid the early struggles last season. So was Connor Brown, another PK forward. Getting those two back and healthy helped get things turned around. Of course, it took a coaching change and incumbent assistant coach Mark Stuart being given the short-handed duties for major improvement to follow.
One of the key adjustments was Stuart whittling down the number of players receiving PK time. Almost every forward got some opportunity on the PK at this time last year. Stuart established pairs up front and in terms of the defencemen — Janmark and Brown, Nugent-Hopkins and Derek Ryan, Ryan McLeod and Warren Foegele, Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci, and Mattias Ekholm and Vincent Desharnais.
The Oilers are still trying to find the right mix after four of those players departed in the offseason. That’s a considerable amount of turnover.
“We’re working to get there,” Janmark said. “There’s just a trust factor with everyone from the goalie to the D and so forth.”
Adam Henrique has emerged as the most-used forward on the PK so far and he’s received most of his ice time with Nugent-Hopkins. Nurse and Ekholm are now partners with the latter playing the right side; they’ve been on the ice for six of the nine goals.
Brett Kulak has become the third defence option and has already played almost 11 minutes while short-handed after he was used in 73 minutes in that situation last season. Effectively, his usage has doubled. Not only that, but he hasn’t had a steady partner with either Stecher or Ty Emberson getting shifts beside him.
Only Janmark and Brown remain as a mostly regular duo. Janmark has been on the ice for four goals at four-on-five, whereas Brown has been on for two.
“We have somewhere (up) to go, but it’s still there,” Janmark said. “It’s not like it just disappears. But it’s not like it’s just me and him killing. It’s the whole unit. It’s the goalie. It’s the D. It’s the team game we’ve got to get to.”
Lots to fine-tune, indeed, which also goes for the normally high-octane power play — operating at a third-to-last 6.7 percent rate.
The Oilers figured out their short-handed issues last season after the slow start. They were successful on 81.7 percent of their penalty kills from the coaching change through the regular season’s end — good for seventh in the league during that span — before being nearly flawless in the playoffs.
It’ll take some time, but the Oilers believe they’ll eventually get back to that level.
“It’s nothing we haven’t been through before,” Janmark said. “We’re missing a little detail.
“We’re in a better spot than we were last year for sure, but it’s got to get better. Just some details and maybe some saves here and there, and then you get rolling. It’s not as bad as it looks on paper. It might not have been as good (in the postseason). There’s lots of things to improve on. It’s all about work.”
(Photo of Connor Brown and Mattias Janmark: Elsa / Getty Images)
