Jason Gregor floated it out there that the Oilers won't be signing their 2010 4th round pick Jeremie Blain (#24 in the Oilers top 25 under 25).

This to me is a curious decision given the fact that he has put together a couple of impressive seasons in the Q. There have been questions about his health and there was the incident with the racial slur, but I can't see these being enough to warrant not signing him.

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There are two primary forms of in-zone defence typically employed in most possession style sports (hockey, basketball, lacrosse, etc). The first is zone defence, which general involves covering areas in the defensive zone, only covering opposing players as they enter their area. The second is man to man, which involves marking an opposing player and following them around the defensive zone (or at least the prime scoring area).

This week I’ll be focusing on zone defence, looking at not only the formation but the pros and cons as well.

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I’ve touched on this subject before but the more I watch the game at the NHL level, the more convinced I am that the next big coaching innovation will be getting out of the block every shot mentality.

The shot block, when done properly, is a useful defensive tool to help keep the puck to the outside of the zone and away from the goaltender. Conversely, when it`s done poorly it can result in pucks going into the back of your net that otherwise wouldn`t have.

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In the game versus the Predators on Tuesday, the Oilers made several coverage errors that lead to goals by David Legwand.

On the first goal, The Oilers were in good defensive position before completely falling apart with just a few seconds left in the period. In the final few seconds of any period, it’s important to remember that the puck needs to get to the front of the net, and there is no sense chasing someone who doesn’t have the puck outside the prime scoring area.

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"Have you even played?" is a famous line that gets thrown out there a lot in the sporting world, especially in disagreements, followed only by "You wouldn’t get it if you didn’t play at a high enough level". For the most part, I think that line of thinking is a pretty poor way to argue a point, especially considering TV is full of people who played or were involved in the game at a high level who don’t have a clue about what they’re watching.

One of the few exceptions to this line of thinking is when dealing with referees. Unless you’ve refereed at some point, it’s very hard to understand not just the thought process, but also what they are capable of seeing from where they are on the ice.

This isn’t about defending referees for every single wrong call they make, I do my fair share about complaining to the referees, but there are things that are in their control and things that aren’t.

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As sort of an unofficial part 2 of the piece earlier this week, I thought I’d address line changes and the responsibilities of players going off and coming onto the ice. At first I wasn’t sure if this was actually necessary, I mean it’s a line change, everyone knows how to do that right? Apparently not.

After listening to the in game commentary and intermission panels talking about how 4 veteran players made a mistake on the power play goal by the Ducks, it was pretty evident that individual responsibilities on a line change are string theory to those who get paid by Sportsnet to talk about hockey.

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As fans of the Oilers, it’s become a running joke at how bad this club has been at line changes. The fact that this isn’t a new problem is both hilarious and somewhat disturbing to many. It even seems as if the Oilers have managed to go from taking too many men on the ice penalties to not bothering to have enough players on the ice, which seems odd given the fact that they are a terrible team when they do manage to ice enough players.

With that being said, I think the issue is a bit over blown. While it doesn’t seem like it, the Oilers really don’t take an abnormal amount of too many men penalties. In fact they’ve taken just 6 this year, and their opposition has taken 10. Even when the Oilers do take a too many men penalty, a lot of them aren’t coaching mishaps by sending too many guys over the boards, but simply player miscues where the player leaving the ice touches the puck after his replacement comes on, or the player coming on the ice touches the puck before the player he is replacing gets off.

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When the Oilers managed to come to terms with Ales Hemsky on a two-year contract extension, it was a sign that maybe the Oilers had made a decision that they were going to stop selling off NHL players for assets and turn this rebuild into a legitimate NHL team.

Unfortunately, this attempt at a legitimate team is brought to you by the same guys who gave Cam Barker and Nikolai Khabibulin a home in Edmonton. The trade that sees Tom Gilbert go from Edmonton to Minnesota for Nick Schultz is a trade that once again shows the Oilers complete lack of understanding in terms of what it takes to make a quality hockey team.

Don’t misunderstand me. I think Nick Schultz is a solid defenceman and that he would have been a great addition to the Oilers blueline. But the cost to acquire him was far too high, especially when you consider the current state of the Oilers defensive group.

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Drama? You Bet. It wasn't quite down to the wire, but it feels close enough. The Oilers and Ales Hemsky have agreed to a 2 year deal worth $5.0 mil/season, keeping the talented winger in Edmonton for the foreseeable future.

This signing represents what’s hopefully a switch from collecting assets to collecting quality hockey players. It’s not just that Hemsky is a very good player (he is), it’s the fact that the Oilers could have easily traded him for futures of some kind. It would have been easy to justify it to a lot of the fan base, especially with Hemsky’s struggles to produce this year.

Hemsky has had his problems the last few years. He’s had 2 major shoulder injuries, costing him a large part of 2 different years where he was producing very well. He came back this year, hurt himself again and found it tough to find the score sheet.

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There are about 4 times a year where TSN just goes completely insane and way overboard with their coverage. You have the NHL entry draft, The July 1st free agency bonanza, the WJHC and trade deadline day.

For this glorious day, TSN typically fills in the internet with all kinds of content like individual team needs, trade trackers, pages to promote their regular apps, pages to promote their deadline specific apps, pages that contain all the previous information in a condensed form, etc… Not to be out done, there is the marquee players (or as TSN likes to call it, Trade Bait). These are the guys who are most rumoured to be on the move and it contains a quick little summary of the player as well as cap hit and contract years remaining.

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A common theme when analyzing what happens on the ice is that the Oilers, as a team, seem to be pretty terrible at a couple of aspects of hockey that are very easily correctable. With a couple of exceptions, the Oilers are pretty lousy at on ice communication. When talking about communication, I don’t just mean talking to each other (which is tough to gauge without being on the ice), but also physical clues, which are just as important. When the arena is loud, it can be hard to hear your defenceman when he says to switch off, or to pick up the man on the right, so you need to also use physical clues like hand and stick gestures. We’re not talking about complex signs like we're landing an aircraft, but rather simple gestures like pointing.

Another skill that seems to be missing on this team is awareness of their surroundings (aka vision). Too often the players have on horse blinders and don’t bother to look around and see who is around. Offensively speaking, the difference between being okay and being good is often the ability to sneak in a look here and there at what is happening around you. When you see Ryan Nugent-Hopkins make a seemingly blind backhand pass through traffic to a wide open player, you can rewind the play and see that a couple of seconds earlier he glanced up to see the player heading to that area. Defensively speaking, it’s an absolutely critical skill to have just to be an adequate player. The ability to take your eyes off the puck and look for the other outlets is often the difference in keeping the puck out of the net.

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In an organization that wasn’t shaved to the wood bare in defensive depth, Jeff Petry would probably be a depth defenceman, working his way into the lineup in sheltered circumstances. The Oilers, not being such an organization, have used Petry consistently in a top 4 role all year, especially when Tom Gilbert was out due to injury.

Petry’s path to the NHL has been full of ups and downs. He struggled to improve his counting numbers from his freshman season in Michigan (though he was the highest scoring defenceman on his team all 3 years there). His first foray into the AHL saw him get creamed in an 8 game sample, but he was able to follow it up with a strong half season in 2010-11. This pattern continued in the NHL where he struggled initially but has since played his way past several veterans.

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Corey Potter has had an up and down season with the Oilers. He stepped in at the beginning of the year and did a remarkable job not just as a regular part of the defensive rotation, but also on the PP.

Lately though, things have been a bit rough for him. He missed significant time due to an injury, he Frankenstein’d Taylor Hall during a freak accident in warm up, and his on-ice play has tailed off.

One of the most significant problems he’s had is his defensive play on the rush. It isn’t that he’s getting beat by skaters, he’s just constantly finding himself in bad situations and having to react to a play instead of seeing it develop.

Coach Nielsen does a pretty good job breaking down the defenseman’s responsibilities on the 2 on 1. The Key points are as follows:

• The D’s Initial Positioning is between the attackers.
• The D should have one hand on his stick and the stick extended from the body.
• The D must keep their head on a swivel to check the positioning off the puck.
• The stick can be used to push the puck carrier wider or lure him into making a pass before he’s ready.
• As play progresses below the tops of the circles, the stick should be pointed a bit more toward the puck carrier than directly in front of the body to cut down on the space between stick and skates that attacker could use to pass the puck.

I'll use a recent example against the Chicago Blackhawks to demonstrate some of Potter's deficiencies in this situation.

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After watching both Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins suffer moderate injuries in their 18 year old season, I couldn't help but think of players like David Perron and Victor Hedman who also suffered some pretty serious injuries in their teenage years while playing in the NHL.

This lead me to question whether players who come into the NHL at 18 or 19 tend to get hurt more than players who are kept out of the NHL until they are 20 and older. I went from the 2005 draft until this season for my data and only looked at players who were picked in the first 2 rounds.

I only went to 04-05 because the lockout in 04-05 prevented some players from playing as 18 or 19 year olds who might otherwise have. I also only focused on the first 2 rounds because there were no 3rd round picks to play as 18 year olds, but there were several 2nd round picks who did. The other criteria that I used was that a season had to consist of more 10 or more NHL games to count as a first season.

In order for an injury to count, it had to be documented by TSN in the player’s bio. Illness (such as Kessel’s cancer), or injuries that occurred outside of the NHL (i.e. an AHL injury or Erik Johnson’s golf injury) are not factored in.

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Olivier Roy is probably more famous so far for his meltdowns than he is for his actual ability to play goal. He got shelled in the 2011 Tournament of small sample sizes and he was obliterated in his pair of playoff starts in the QMJHL later on that spring. As a player, you can sort of escape from a couple of bad games without too much flak. As a goaltender, that label is going to hang on you for a while, especially when you do it on the stage that Roy did it.

As with all prospects, you want to see improvement year after year. Olivier Roy, despite his blow-ups, has managed to keep improving his save percentage, including in a season where he moved up to a higher calibre league. His save percentage has made a slow but steady climb each season before making a big jump this year:

• 2007-08 QMJHL .896
• 2008-09 QMJHL .905
• 2009-10 QMJHL .908
• 2010-11 QMJHL .911
• 2011-12 ECHL .919

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Alex Plante took a bit of a beating in the summer version of the Top 25 Under 25. At that point it seemed like everyone capable of skating backwards in the organization had passed him on the blueline depth chart.

Four years out and the first-rounder is still a work in progress. Given the Oilers' defensive bent in the 2011 NHL Draft, Neal's assessment about one more season is probably accurate, as is our combined ranking. With Blain, Davidson, Gernat, Klefbom, Marincin, Simpson, and Teubert all breathing down his neck, it's time for Plante to finally get the professional game and end the building phase of his game.

-Derek Zona, in July

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Much has already been made of the rumours that Steve Tambellini is in talks with the Oilers for a contract extension. The architect of the current Oilers, according to some, should be able to see his rebuild through to the very end.

I disagree. I disagree so strongly that if such a move were to be made, I’d give up on the team that I’ve loved as long as I can remember. It’s a team that’s been as big a part of my life as anything outside of school, work or family. A team so much a part of me that one of my earliest childhood memories is looking through the sports sections for the Oilers score when I could barely read.

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The final minute of a close hockey game often sees the trailing team pull their goalie for an extra attacker. As the defending team, you have to make sure that you make full use of every advantage you have.

The first advantage is the clock. They only have a limited amount of time left to score and every second they spend not scoring benefits the defending team.

The second advantage is desperation. The opposition is going to send players after the puck to prevent it from leaving the zone. Often times this is going to create areas in the zone that are going to be open, which will allow an opportunity to clear the puck.

The 3rd advantage is that even though you have 1 less player than the opposition, you still have 5. You now have an extra player to do the same things you’d normally do on the PK.

Now featuring diagram-y goodness!

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Several weeks ago, I looked at the basic premise behind cycling the puck, which focused mostly on how to support the puck positionally. Holding the puck in the other teams end helps prevent them from scoring, but that’s only part of the game.

Generating offense from the cycle has many of the same philosophies as generating offense on the PP or on the rush: It’s all about creating shooting and passing lanes.

Generally speaking there are 2 ways you go about creating a scoring chance on the cycle. The first is having the puck carrier attack the net while the support players fan out and provide an outlet or attack if their man focuses on the puck carrier. The second is through transitions where the offensive players transition between high and low or across the zone to create a shooting lane.

When you attack the net with the puck, it’s usually because you’ve managed to get a step on the guy covering you or there’s enough space where you aren’t in much danger of having the opposition double team you.

As you drive to the net, your teammates want to keep the players covering them away from you. If one of the defensive players tries to provide help, your winger then wants to find a soft spot in the coverage for either a pass or to come in and attack the net while the other team is facing the wrong way.

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Every NHL season, the discussion inevitably heads towards how the NHL handles and awards points for games tied after regulation. Currently, the NHL awards each team a single point if they are tied after regulation. The NHL also awards a bonus point to the team that is able to score in OT, or win the shootout.

There have been 2 major rule changes in the past 15 years. Prior to the 1999-2000 season, teams were awarded 2 points for a win or a single point for a game tied after 60 minutes of regulation and a 5 minute OT. Starting in 1999-2000, a single point was awarded for a regulation tie, which is when 2 teams tied after 60 minutes. An additional point was awarded to a team if they were able to score in the 5 minute OT.

The reason this rule was implemented was because of the changes to the way coaches coached the game in the infamous "Dead Puck Era". The NHL went from 21 teams in 1992 to 27 teams in 1999, which meant that instead of 76% of teams making the playoffs it was 59%. Points became even more valuable and coaches were coaching to keep guaranteed points and not push for more. What ended up happening was games became basically unwatchable in the last 10 minutes of the 3rd period in tie games. Further to that, OT often involved 2 teams playing dump and chase with no pressure in order to preserve their single point.

In an attempt to open up the game more (especially in OT), the NHL decided to award the tie after 60 minutes. That rule stayed in place until the 2005-2006 season when the NHL also adopted the shootout and got rid of tie games completely.

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For those wondering, part 2 of cycling the puck is still in progress. Basement (insert your favourite blogger joke), renovations have managed to eat away most of my free time over the past month and sap what little free time I have that didn’t involve watching the Oilers (not even my wife’s dirtiest look will convince me to stop watching them).

In order to help break up the posts about the WJHC and how badly the Wild may or may not suck, I want to take a quick look at the Oilers ability (or lack thereof) to win face-offs on the power play. As it stands right now, Shawn Horcoff is currently sitting at a 47.5% success rate while the Oilers are on the PP, and that’s well below what the 55% you’d expect.

Part of winning a face-off is the ability of the centre which includes strength, speed, savvy and other "s" words that sound endearing. The other part of winning a face-off is the ability of your teammates to win puck battles. One of the reasons you expect your face-off percentage to increase while on the PP is that you out number your opposition and therefore have more players to engage and win a puck battle.

Due to the fact TV producers have decided that face-offs are less important than random shots of the crowd while they try and promote tickets versus a team no one wants to watch, I hadn’t really noticed what was happening on the Oilers PP face-offs (specifically the ones with the 1st PP unit).

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The cycle is an integral part of hockey, especially at the NHL level. The purpose behind it is to allow you to maintain control of the puck while you attempt to break down your opposition’s defence in order to generate a scoring chance.

This week will be a bit of a primer on the cycle, focusing primarily on positioning for support as well as where to look for outlets. Next week will be more in depth, focusing on how break down the opposition by using the cycle.

Much like the 1-2-2 forecheck from last week, the triangle is an integral part of the cycle. Not only does it provide outlets, but it ensures that help in the form of a second man is close by as well as proper defensive coverage in case of a turn over.

If you are into diagrams, this is your day. There might be more diagrams than words.

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For a bit of a change of pace, instead of looking at what happened in over the past week in Oiler games I’m going to switch focus and talk about the forecheck in general.

The primary goal of the forecheck isn’t to necessarily force a turnover, but rather disrupt the opposition’s breakout. Aside from various formation types (1-2-2, 2-1-2, 1-3-1, etc...), the other main aspect of the forecheck are your pressure points. Simply put, these refer to the areas of the ice where you want to apply pressure on the puck carrier.

The important thing to consider when deciding on your formation and pressure points is that the further into the zone that you designate your pressure points and the more forecheckers you send, the more potential open there is behind your forecheckers.

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Hitting has always found a high place in hockey lore. It's been said that big punishing hits can change the momentum of games, intimidate opponents and even win playoff series. When a team is in a slump, physical play is often cited as the reason why a team is losing and a method for them to turn the ship around. The problem is, sometimes you try and increase your physical play at the expense of playing hockey. Physical play has a role in hockey but it's important to always play to the strengths of your team, no matter what kind of game the other team is playing. The same Edmonton Oilers team that scored 15 goals in 2 games is the same team that was badly out played in a 4-1 loss to Dallas, yet the narrative after seemed to be that the Oilers weren't physical enough in the loss to Dallas. The Oilers were credited with 33 hits in the Dallas loss, which is more hits than the Nashville and Chicago games combined (beware scorers bias).

This Oilers hockey team is not a team that will wear you down with body contact. Their best bet to win every night is to out skate the opposition (which is a combination of actual skating as well as faster puck movement). This team has a lot of players who can make plays at top speed and it's important for them to play at that speed and not get involved in a hitting contest.

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Shortly before the start of last nights game, Andy Sutton was forced out of the lineup with a sore groin. Earlier on the in the day, the Oilers announced that Cam Barker will be gone approximately 3 months due to ankle Surgery.

With Ryan Whitney already out of the lineup with an injured right knee, the Oilers had no choice but to call up a pair of defencemen in Taylor Chorney and Colton Teubert.

For Chorney, you have to think this will be his last chance with this club. They already put him on waivers ealier this year (when St. Louis claimed him only to put him back on waivers), and if he doesn't show something here it's unlikely he's back again next year unless it's an AHL only deal.

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