This is VERY Good news for the Oilers...

The Edmonton Oilers dropped a tough one to the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night, but they finally got some good news on the injury front as two key players are expected to be back in the lineup before this homestand is over. Welcome back to Oilers Digest. I'm your host, Joseph Greco, and in today's video, we're going to be looking at an update from Bob Stauffer during the second period intermission of last night's game, which indicated all signs pointing towards a return for Devin Levi and Zach Hyman. on this Oilers homestand. Now before I get into all the details regarding their potential return I very very very briefly want to go over last night's loss to the Anaheim Ducks. Now I do want to say I don't want to spend too much time on this loss or look too much into it because at the end of the day it was a hard-fought game between the Ducks and the Oilers and let's face it the Edmonton Oilers Didn't really have their full strength in net as Tristan Jari was out with an illness. And so they turned to Matt Tompkins. So I don't want to really spend too much time. You know, looking at a game against a offensive team in which the Oilers had their AHL goalie in net and their EBUG backing them up. So very quickly want to spotlight the good and kind of touch on maybe some of the bad. Some of the good, obviously, Connor McDavid, a four-point night. Evan Bouchard, Leon Draisaitl, both of them two-point nights. Some of the bad, obviously, you take a look at the deployment of Jake Wallman, someone who I highlighted in my most recent video as a concern as someone who's making $7 million. year for the next seven seasons. He played less than 13 minutes last night. Again, something to monitor as the season progresses. Under head coach Mike Babcock, clearly there seems to be a lack of trust in Jake Walman and a lot of trust in guys like Shakir Mukhamadulin, Ryan Shay, Connor Murphy, Evan Bouchard, and Matthias Ekholm. So Jake Walman continues to be the odd man out and it's not good considering Ty Emerson has been playing very well and he cannot just stay on the sidelines while we try and wait for Jake Walman to figure things out. The other bad things, Alex Formington and Owen Michaels, in my opinion, continue to be extremely underwhelming for the Edmonton Oilers, adding essentially nothing to the lineup. So with the returns of Zach Hyman, I expect to see some change in that regard. But as I mentioned, don't want to spend too much time on last night's loss. Obviously, as I mentioned, heading into the game, the Ducks were a team that had seemingly been finding their stride offensively in the last few games, especially guys like Cutter Gauthier, Leo Carlson, Jackson Lacombe. Bennett, Seneca, who have been really finding their offensive spark on the power play. You take a look at the goaltending situation last night for the Oilers. Matt Tompkins started due to an illness for Tristan Jarry and then emergency backup. Brett Epp was dressed as the backup. So just want to briefly skim past this game. Obviously, Matt Tompkins was in net after a impressive game against the New York Rangers. Just about a week ago, and he follows that up with a game against the Anaheim Ducks that he just wasn't, you saw the fact that Tompkins is not an NHL starter. In my opinion, if you have a different goalie in that net, I do believe the Oilers walk away with a win. The Oilers did a much better job killing off penalties, including Long penalties due to the situation we put goals in being ejected from the game, which we will get into in just a moment here. But Tompkins not good enough. Some weak goals let in on his behalf. I'm sure a few of them he would want back, but he's definitely not an NHL starter. And it's unfortunate that the Oilers, who have three starting goaltenders in Frederick Anderson, Tristan Jarry, and Devin Levi, needed to turn to their fourth string goalie. So let's hope Tristan Jari can recover. Cover before Saturday and Devin Levi could potentially at least be an option to back up if that is the case. Now, obviously, I'm sure if you watch yesterday's game, you saw a lot of the action in the first 10 to 15 minutes of the game in that first period. And it's a little bit of a scary collision for Connor McDavid, which saw him get hit hard into the post with his knee sort of wrapping around the post at a place where we've seen Connor McDavid get hurt. In his past, it was a little bit of a scary collision. McDavid stayed down for a couple seconds before standing up, circling around and kind of chirping at the Ducks, almost really upset with the play. Immediately after that, Pukolzin dropped the gloves and laid down some hammers on the Ducks. So obviously, if you did not see the play here, this is the collision. McDavid hit hard into the post after he was already done with the puck. The puck was no longer on his stick. So a little bit of a blindside hit from behind as McDavid was already going in with speed to the crease and his knee, as you can see on the inside of that post there, hard, tough collision. As I mentioned, Pukolzin did not really like it. I will say that there was no instant, immediate response to the sense of jumping in and just diving on a player, but Pukolzin clearly saw McDavid was hurt, checked on his teammate, saw the frustration from Connor McDavid, and he just, Vasily Pukolzin is not someone to be messed with. He is not someone who... I would want to be standing across from when he is upset. He threw some serious, serious right hands. And he was given an ejection from the game. 27 penalty minutes last night. He was given five for fighting, an instigator, and a 10-minute game misconduct for eight. One-man fight, I believe, was the call from the official, something I have never seen in my years of watching hockey. I've never seen that call being made. Obviously, the team wasn't a fan of it, but it's nice to see a player rally behind your best player and come into the support and defense of him. McDavid was very happy to see. He appreciated the response from Putter Coles, and he indicated that to the press. And Mike Babcock was not a fan of the hit, and he certainly was not a fan of the penalty call. He believed that the whole instigator penalty call On Putter Coles was a little bit of nonsense. He thought that the instigation of the entire thing was the fact that Connor McDavid got ran into the other team's net. And it was a dirty play, especially considering that the puck had kind of been off McDavid's stick. And I understand that the game goes by extremely fast, so I can understand the play. But all in all, I don't know if I necessarily agree with the Instigator call here on Putter Coles and at the end of the day you're standing up for a teammate I don't really understand why the league punishes the need to stand up for star players and Credit where credit is due for Putter Coles and not only answered the bell, but he rang some bells with his right hands and He sat out the rest of the game. At the end of the day, that's a penalty that you take. Unfortunately, the Oilers did give up a goal when they were trying to kill off that five-minute power play, but that's a penalty you take all day long when you see your player like Putter Coles stand up for your captain and the best player in the National Hockey League in Connor McDavid. Obviously, it was very encouraging. You saw McDavid kind of grab that knee, stood back up, briefly left the bench, but then he came back and did some Connor McDavid things. Four-point night for Connor McDavid. He contributed on all four points that the Oilers scored. And, you know, they made a late push in the third period. I thought for a second that they would tie the game, but it just didn't go their way. So, again, don't want to spend too much time on that. The Oilers will have a few games left on this homestand here. They'll take on the Canucks on Saturday. Then they take on the Rangers and the Flyers before heading out to Toronto. On Saturday, November 14th, in a game where they're trying to get some get back after the Leafs kind of spanked them at home. As mentioned by Bob Stauffer in the second period intermission, there is seemingly all signs pointing toward a return for Devin Levi and Zach Hyman at some point in this homestand. Devin Levi has been on the ice, and I will say before I get into any of this stuff about the injuries, it has been a very, very frustrating thing to see the lack of updates and consistent messaging from these injuries. Devin Levi was on the ice practicing a couple days ago. And Mike Babcock didn't even know he was going to be on the ice. The head coach of the team was like, oh, well, I didn't even know Devin was going to be on the ice. So that's good. You're the head coach. How do you not know the fact that your starting goaltender is not nearing a return from injury? And this is something that the Oilers all season long, it's been really frustrating. Frederick Anderson and Matt Savoy and Matthias Janmark, the timelines for those three guys between Stan Bowman and Mike Babcock was two separate messages. There clearly is some sort of disconnect from what the coach is aware of when it comes to the player's health and injuries. We saw Ike Howard go down with a knee injury and all we've heard was, yeah, you know, it's not as bad as we thought. How about you tell us how long he's going to be gone for? How about you tell us what's happening with a young player who got a clearly bad knee collision? It's positive to know it's not going to be as long as we expected. And this whole week-to-week thing is really starting to get on my nerves because what does week-to-week mean? Does it mean two weeks or does it mean eight weeks? Because the new day-to-day means two weeks. So week-to-week means like what, a month? Just say he's out for a month. Anyway, I digress. Devin Levi expected to be back. sometime soon within the next two to three games. Incredible news for the Oilers as he's been really steady for the Oilers. Six wins. Good numbers, both goals against and save percentage, especially right before he went down with the injury. He really started to play with a lot of confidence. He was kind of nailing a lot more of his rebound control, which is a little bit of a flaw of his, but it looked like he had been developing that more and more. And it's no secret that the Oilers were playing better with Devin Levi in net. 8-1-1 record when he's in net, 3-2-2 when he is not in net. And having said that, with the way that Tristan Jari had been playing before he was out with an illness last night. You're starting to look at a very strong tandem if both those guys can kind of keep that competitiveness between the two of them and just continue doing what they're doing, which other than a few bad games here and there has been three goals a game against. So that's what you want from your goaltenders. And additionally, you're looking at a potential return from Zach Hyman, who, despite the fact that in six games only put up one goal, he had clearly been battling an injury in those games. If he can kind of... Bringing his health up to speed, you're looking at a lot more winger depth than you expected heading into the season. This is my mock lineup for when everyone is expected to be back within the end of this homestand. Obviously, that top line remains the same. I have Hyman with Colton Dawk and Nugent Hopkins. Having said that, that Kapanen has done very well on that line, so I wonder if that is a line that stays together. I have Joseph with Dickinson and Kapanen because I cannot see Owen Michaels receive any... Third line minutes any longer. Hollander with Frederick and Formington. So obviously when everyone's healthy, I do have Owen Michaels as the odd man out. I don't like what I've seen from him and I don't think it's a bad thing to have one of your younger players kind of sit out a little while or maybe even just send him to the AHL to try and find his game. He just hasn't played well. And I think Trent Frederick's best games have come when he's played center this year. And at the end of the day, you paid him. So he needs to start kind of playing. And Formington, I also think just when we get fully healthy, I don't want to see him playing regular minutes in an Oilers uniform. Speaking of getting fully healthy, we are awaiting news from one player and one player in particular, and that is Matt Savoy and a potential return timeline for him. So I mentioned a couple minutes ago being a little frustrated with the lack of communication regarding injuries. On the Oilers this season, and Matt Savoy is one of them. He was listed as out pretty much a couple days before training camp started. No firm timeline for his return has been reported. We heard November. Actually, never mind. It's going to start in November. Actually, it's going to be middle of November. It's going to be end of November. Well, it's November 6th as I'm recording this video in the afternoon, and we have received no formal update on Matt Savoy and how he's feeling. If he's on the ice on his own, if he's skating to any capacity, what the exact situation is with Matt Savoy. Same thing with Frederick Anderson and same thing with Matthias Janmark. So a little bit of frustration in that regard regarding the lack of communication and clear timelines for return. Having said that, it is positive news to see Zach Hyman and Devon Levi will be back in the lineup within the next three games. Obviously, we'll add a boost to the Oilers both in net and offensively. Two key players for the Oilers and very nice to see that they're starting to maybe get One step closer to being 100% healthy. But that's all I have for you guys in today's video. I hope you enjoyed. Make sure you give the video a thumbs up if you did. Subscribe if you're new and I'll catch you in the next video. Toodles.