More than enough blame to go around for Oilers' chronic, costly slow starts

EDMONTON — This is a story about a team that is crying uncle. That can’t figure out what has become a prominent character defect. 

The Oilers want to start work on time. They prepare. They try. They talk about it, and game-plan for it. 

But let’s be honest: They can’t figure this one out. 

“You got any ideas?” Tyson Barrie asks his questioner, clearly out of answers for a question we’ve been asking he and his teammates about for some 14 months now. “We’re trying to figure it out, and obviously we can’t. Maybe we’ve got to switch up the pre-game tunes, or the walk-out song. 

“(Wednesday) night we tried to focus on it. It was a big factor for us,” Barrie said. “Then, I don't know, I think we were probably outshot quite badly and outplayed a little bit.” 

Since the beginning of last season, the Edmonton Oilers' opponents have opened the scoring 59.6 per cent of the time. At home, that number gets slightly higher (60.8%). 

And you should know this: teams that score first have a .711 points percentage over that period of time. 

It’s everyone’s fault, but at the same time it’s no one’s fault. 

So, let’s point some fingers, shall we? 

This ugly pattern is Darnell Nurse’s fault. 

Nurse is a charter member of the Oilers leadership group, and that group can’t figure out how to alter what has become a worrisome trend over a large sample of games: A failure to show to work on time. 

“I'd like to lie to you and say we weren't looking at it, but we're trying,” Barrie said. “(Wednesday) night there was a big focus of ours and again, I think we were down 1-0 and getting outshot pretty badly.” 

Since the start of the 2021-22 season, the Oilers have been outscored 30-20 in the opening five minutes of games.

It’s Kailer Yamamoto’s fault. 

He falls into that subset of top-six Oilers who stand around far too often waiting for a certain two superstars to get the job done, instead of digging in and getting it done themselves. When’s the last time Yamamoto gave his team an early goal, to get things going in the right direction? 

“Sometimes just simplifying things early. We say it, but … we just don't go out and do it,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who bears his share of the blame. “Or maybe we don't do it long enough. Maybe we don't do it consistently enough. But putting the puck on the net, getting it down low and just letting our work ethic take over early. 

“That's what teams do against us. So, it's no surprise that that could be an answer.”

Including last season and this one, the Oilers, are tied as the fourth-worst “opening 10 minutes” team in the NHL, having allowed 52 goals in the first 10 minutes of a game.

It’s general manager Ken Holland’s fault. 

Holland has built a vanilla set of bottom-six forwards. They’re just a bunch of guys with no singular redeeming features. No personality, no discernible style of play. 

Where is the energy guy who opens the game with a big hit? The tough guy who finds an early fight to spark his team? 

It’s been clear for two years now that Holland’s team needs a spark plug like Austin Watson, Pat Maroon, a Ryan Reaves or a Radko Gudas on defence. Today’s version of a Jordan Tootoo or Matt Cooke. 

Well, the GM hasn’t delivered, and as such, Edmonton is one of the NHL’s easiest teams to play against. And they start about as promptly as that rusty ol’ Mastercraft lawn mower out at the lake. 

Again, teams that score first, since the start of last season, have a .711 points percentage. The fact Edmonton has been a .616 team over that time — while scoring first only 40 per cent of the time — tells of one of the best “last 50 minutes” teams in the NHL. 

We used to blame this solely on former goalie Mikko Koskinen. Turns out, there’s more to it. 

The Oilers have allowed 30 goals in the opening 10 minutes of games since the start of last season. That’s Jesse Puljujarvi’s fault. 

Glen Sather once said, “A fire hydrant could score 40 goals playing with Wayne Gretzky.” Well, Jesse Puljujarvi has spent seven games on Connor McDavid’s right wing this season, and he has one lousy assist on an empty-net goal. 

Don’t trot out that analytics hocus pocus about Puljujarvi’s value in getting pucks for McDavid. McDavid is the hottest scorer in hockey. If Puljujarvi was getting him meaningful pucks he’d have actual points — not just a useless whack of expected ones. 

Use it or lose it, Jesse. That’s prime real estate you’re taking up, and the slumberous starts would be aided by a winger who takes the game into his own hands, rather than hanging on the perimeter waiting for opportunity to fall into his lap. 

Here are some stats from the last three games: 

• The shots on goal were 11-1 for Tampa in the opening 10 minutes. 

• The shots were 11-0 for Florida through nine minutes. 

• The shots were 12-2 favouring Los Angeles through 13:00 in Wednesday’s loss. 

That’s Evan Bouchard’s fault, as a young player trundles along, passing when he should be shooting, and shooting into shin pads when getting a puck past the first defender is required. 

Bouchard leads all Oilers defencemen with 39 shots on goal, has the hardest slapper on the team, but has zero goals. And he also has the worst plus/minus (minus-7) of the group. 

You’ll notice we’re not blaming the coaching staff that furnishes this team with a game plan good enough to be a .616 team, despite this disturbing pattern. 

Nor do we blame McDavid, nor Leon Draisaitl. 

Because, well, they can’t do everything around here, can they?