Knoblauch explains why he swapped up Oilers' defensive pairs in Game 3
Plenty of things went wrong for the Edmonton Oilers in last night’s loss to the Dallas Stars.
The team had a terrible second period that saw them blow a 2-0 lead, and though they fought back to tie up things going into the third, Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner let in a questionable goal to lose the game.
Yet, many fans took issue with a decision by Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch to swap up the team’s defensive pairs going into the third period. Rather than touch his forward lines, Knoblauch instead reunited defencemen Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci on the second pair and Brett Kulak with Vincent Desharnais on the third pair.
This move was surprising as the Nurse-Ceci pairing has had awful results on the ice together in the postseason. That continued last night as the pair failed to clear the puck out of the zone on the eventual game-winner.
So, why make the change? Daily Hive asked Knoblauch after the game about the logic behind the decision.
“We change the forward lines sometimes and defence also,” Knoblauch explained. “Things haven’t been going well in the second period, we needed some change to the rhythm and flow and I felt maybe that was the best way to do it.”
"We had our start that we needed but we took our foot off the pedal."
Coach Knoblauch speaks with the media at @RogersPlace as the Stars take a 2-1 series lead. @Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/wJ5KUUAaTe
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) May 28, 2024
The ire from the fanbase focused on the decision to reunite Nurse with Ceci. According to Natural Stat Trick, when that pairing plays together at five-on-five, the Oilers have been outscored by a dismal 4-10 margin throughout the playoffs, giving them a horrible 28.57 goals-for-percentage (GF%). The team’s overall GF% bumps to an incredible 64.10 when that pairing steps off the ice.
Not only do they get scored on while on the ice, but the ice tilts toward the Oilers’ end as the pair has been out-chanced at five-on-five by a margin of 55-84. Once again, when they step off the ice, the Oilers outchance the opposition 187-137.
If we compare this to the Oilers’ top defensive pairing of Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard, who have yet to be separated in the playoffs, you can see some vast differences. That top pairing has outscored the opposition 16-7 in the playoffs so far and has been outchancing opponents by a healthy 123-83 margin. That is what a top pairing should look like on a contending team.
The numbers and results that have come out of the Nurse-Ceci pairing would barely be acceptable on the third pairing of a bad team. It’s a duo that has not worked for the Oilers in the playoffs, and reuniting them in the Western Conference Final should be out of the question.
Changes will need to be made if the Oilers want to get past the Stars, but this is not one of them.
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