By Edmonton Journal columnist David Staples who is a regular contributor to the Cult of Hockey analytics blog
The first job of any coach is get the right players on the ice, so in grading Edmonton Oilers head coach Dallas Eakins for his work in 2013-14, let’s first look at how Eakins did there.
Did he give the most ice time to his best players?
Generally, yes, but with a few glaring missteps.
At centre, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins led the team when it came to individual scoring chances plus-minus, a number that compares a player’s contributions to scoring chances for at even strength to his mistakes on scoring chances against.
Nugent-Hopkins was +1.21 scoring chances per 15 even strength minutes in 2013-14. He also got the most ice-time of any centre, so Eakins got that right. That said, the coach’s handling of Mark Arcobello wasn’t based on the player’s merit.
The unheralded Arcobello did well on the Oil’s second line, but he lost that job as soon as Sam Gagner came back to the lineup from injury. Arcobello’s scoring chances plus-minus on the year was +0.80 per 15.
Gagner had a rough start and a weak season when it came to his two-way play, just +0.41 per 15. Based on these results, Arcobello should be ahead of Gagner on the depth chart heading into the coming season, no matter how big Gagner’s contract is.
On the wing, Eakins gave his top two-way performers, Taylor Hall at +2.03 per 15 and Jordan Eberle at +2.04 per 15, the most ice time, then slotted in his next best, David Perron, Ales Hemsky and Nail Yakupov, with the next most ice time.
The only issue here is having enforcer Luke Gazdic, -0.27 per 15, on the team. Obviously, Eakins felt he needed a player to fight the enforcers on other teams, but Gazdic’s two-way play sunk his line.
Eakins generally had it right allotting ice time on defence as well, though one might wonder why players such as Philip Larsen, -0.34 per 15, and Mark Fraser, -1.06 per 15, were in the lineup as much as they were, given their weak performance.
Overall, though, Eakins correctly identified Justin Schultz, +0.07 per 15, Andrew Ference, -0.19, and Jeff Petry, +0.03, as his three best defencemen and gave them the most ice time (Ference’s plus-minus isn’t great but must be balanced against him playing tougher competition).
On the power play, Eakins correctly identified Hall, Eberle, Nugent-Hokins, Schultz and Perron as the players most likely to create scoring chances and gave them the most ice time.
It’s worth noting that while the Edmonton power play’s overall ranking dropped this year, Eakins’ power play did generate the same rate of scoring chances as Ralph Krueger’s power play in 2012-13. Krueger’s power play simply had better puck luck.
When it comes to the Oilers goalies, Eakins was in tough, starting the year with Devan Dubnyk and Jason LaBarbera, two players who were overmatched in the NHL this year. Eakins suddenly looked like a much better coach after Oilers GM Craig MacTavish acquired Ben Scrivens and Viktor Fasth. They gave the team solid goaltending, so much so that Edmonton won 14 out of its final 30 games, even as it started to get out-chanced much more often and by a much wider margin than it had earlier in the year.
Overall under Krueger, when the Oilers played only tougher Western Conference teams during the 2012-13 lockout season, they averaged 15.7 scoring chances for and 18.8 scoring chances against per game, a -3.1 differential.
In 50 games against Western conference teams this year, the Oilers won just 15 games, averaging 13.0 scoring chances for and 17.8 scoring chances against per game, a -4.8 differential.
One other disturbing thing is that most of the team’s best players, save for Petry and Schultz, played weaker — and sometimes significantly weaker — two-way hockey under Eakins than they did under Krueger. If Eakins can’t reverse this trend, the Oilers will never win and he’ll be out of a job.
The Oilers’ weak 28th place ranking this year is a bit of a mirage, in that Edmonton would have won more often if it had been in the weak Eastern Conference. That said, Edmonton was clearly the worst team in the West. The team deserves a grade of ‘D’ for the year. So does Eakins.
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