Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli discussed how hot Jay Woodcroft’s seat is in Edmonton on the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Edmonton Oilers just had another miserable loss against the Nashville Predators. There were questions about Jay Woodcroft’s future behind the bench in Edmonton. Like I said, I’m in Vancouver tonight for the Oilers/Canucks matchup, Jay Woodcroft expecting to be coaching in that game Frank, but how short is this leash getting?
Frank Seravalli: I think it’s getting shorter by the day. I think you see an effort like Saturday against the Preds, that really raises some red flags. There were a few other ones that raised some red flags earlier this season. And it’s really tough because we just talked briefly off the top about how atrocious the Oilers’ goaltending has been to this point. And you say well Jay Woodcroft wouldn’t be the first coach to pay a significant price for a goaltending tandem that has hit a rut.
When I look at this team, it feels like a lot more to me than just the goaltending. There’s been a few nights where I think they’ve been unlucky, a few stats that you can point to especially their five-on-five play and maybe some expected goals. That’s where you say this is a team that probably should have better results right now than they do.
But the longer that this drags on, they’re at 10 games played and I know Connor McDavid referenced the idea that they started 7-3 last year and after 20 games we’re still just 10-1, can they get to that point where they’re 10-10? Yeah, I think they could and they’d find themselves squarely back in the mix but to borrow a phrase from Yogi Berra, it’s getting late early here. The Oilers have exactly 10 games to figure this out, no more than that before it becomes a mathematical equation that they won’t be able to solve for in the final 62 games of the year.
It’s crunch time, it’s go time, and it begins with some teams that they’re looking up at in the standings in the Pacific and chasing. When you’ve got Vancouver, Seattle, San Jose other teams that they need to pile up wins against because all of a sudden you look up and it’s 14 or 16 points down from the Canucks and that’s a team that a lot of people saw as a wild-card team to start. So there’s a lot of work to do and I think that seat is only getting hotter and hotter.
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