Winnipeg Jets iced a much superior squad to the Oiler's tonight and to the shock of no one defeated the Oiler's. Wheeler and Schieffle put on a show in a similar fashion to what Connor McDavid did on Thursday. Feels a bit weird to watch the two clubs play two games against each other where both games featured vastly lopsided rosters in opposite directions.
It wasn't all doom and gloom for the Oiler's as they still put up a very respectable fight and in no way shape or form did they embarrass themselves. A few players rose above the pack to stand out, in particular Kailer Yamamoto. I thought the Oiler's were doing a huge disservice to Yamamoto by playing him on a line much weaker than what Winnipeg was going to field. But Yamamoto stepped up to the plate and was on the ice for all three of the Oiler's goal and was the man who put two of those pucks into the back of the net. Yamamoto is one of my favorite Oiler prospects and I'm really rooting for him to make the club this season. If Yamamoto continues this high level of play, he just might force the coaches to keep him in the lineup.
The Oiler's had pretty much every defenseman who is fighting for a roster spot dressed and playing tonight. Not many of the defenders stood out from the rest. Darnell Nurse had some solid play, he got an assist on Yamamoto's second goal and was probably the Oiler's best defender. Ethan Bear showed he can be lethal on the powerplay, scoring the Oiler's second goal but looked a bit shaky in his own zone at times. Jason Garrison was probably the worst defender on the ice for either team. I'm interested to see if there are any cuts made from this group tomorrow.
In goal, Koskinen played the entire game, let in five goals, had a abysmal 0.762 save percentage and yet somehow played an alright game. The goals he let in were all great plays by the Jets. I'd like to be able to place the blame of at least one of them on Koskinen but looking back at the hightlights, I just can't. You'd like your goalie to stop a few more of the grade A chance your opponent gets but it's very hard to fault him if they do go in. I feel a bit bad for Koskinen because statistically his night was dreadful and it could hurt his chances of winning the backup job to start the season.
The Oiler's have three more preseason games this week, all in Edmonton, before they head to Europe to start the season. The club has a lot of questions they need to answer this week so I'm optimistic the coaching staff won't waste any more opportunites to try and find some solutions. Right now I would say that only the top forward and defensive groups are set and everything else has question marks. I really want to see some focus be brought the the second and third lines, Draisaitl is going to center the second line but who his wingers will be is anyones guess. Right now Tobias Rieder and Milan Lucic are the frontrunners but neither has really done anything to show they deserve the chance. Meanwhile two youngsters, Kailer Yamamoto and Jesse Puljujarvi have looked great this preseason and probably deserve an audition alongside Leon Draisaitl.
Should be an interesting week as we work our way towards the regular season.
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