I don\u2019t know why the Gords chose to give us this sneaky gift, but I certainly appreciate having them come through in a time of need. Of course, some of you will think I\u2019m crazy. Losing my mind. But let me ask you this\u2026 if the boys suddenly remember how to play clean, connected hockey every time they pop these babies on, are we really going to pretend it\u2019s just some coincidence? Are we really going to ignore what our eyeballs watched over these last two days? Two games in a row? Both blowouts? Because I\u2019m not saying the jerseys are blessed, but I\u2019m also not saying they aren\u2019t. All I know is that the moment those thirds hit the ice, the turnovers dry up, the depth scoring appears, and everyone skates around like they\u2019ve just unlocked a hidden stat boost. You tell me what that means.<\/p>\n
THE MATT SAVOIE FLOODGATES ARE OPENINGWatching Matt Savoie<\/a> start to produce offensively has been one of the best parts of this recent Oilers turnaround. With his goal against Winnipeg on Saturday and the two he scored against Seattle on Thursday, he\u2019s picked up four goals and five points in his last six games. For a rookie who spent the early part of the season finding his footing at the NHL level, that\u2019s meaningful progress. He\u2019s always been getting to good spots, but now he\u2019s shooting with confidence, manufacturing scoring chances, and he looks far more in his top-six role than he did even a couple of weeks ago. The 17-goal pace as of this morning is a strong landing zone for a 21-year-old rookie, but more than the number, it\u2019s the growth in his game that stands out. He\u2019s starting to play like someone who knows he belongs.<\/p>\n And the more I watch him, the more I think he has room to push this run even further. The reads off Draisaitl are getting sharper. He\u2019s attacking the middle of the ice almost every shift he gets. He\u2019s winning battles in the tough areas where he wasn\u2019t necessarily winning them earlier in the year. If he keeps stacking games like this, I don\u2019t see why twenty goals is out of the question as he continues to get more comfortable. The tools and the instincts have always been there. What we\u2019re seeing now is the confidence catching up with each additional at-bat. These aren\u2019t one-off flashes either. They\u2019re repeatable habits starting to form, and those are the small details that matter most for a young player. If this is the beginning of Savoie finding his scoring touch, then we\u2019re watching the early steps of a very promising back half of his season.<\/p>\n I LOVE DEPTH GOALS SO VERY MUCHIn these last two jersey-blessed wins, the Oilers have gotten from Curtis Lazar, David Tomasek, and Mattias Janmark, and I cannot even begin to express how exciting it is to have consecutive games with bottom-six goals on the board. The Oilers are going to be top-heavy with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the roster<\/a>, but those guys can\u2019t play all 60 minutes, and Edmonton needs contributions throughout the lineup if they\u2019re going to climb out of the hole they dug for themselves. Easing the pressure on the big dogs is not only a luxury, but it\u2019s also crucial to the team\u2019s goals and success. And to this point in the season, the team has been getting demolished when these guys are out there, so seeing some success down there has been a wonderful surprise.And if we\u2019re being honest with ourselves, the timing couldn\u2019t be better. The Oilers desperately needed something to spark the bottom six<\/a>, and apparently, all it took was throwing on the magical alternate jerseys and letting the Hockey Gords do their thing. I\u2019m not saying the thirds are directly responsible for this recent surge in depth production, but I\u2019m also not ruling it out. As I stated above, no one has been able to prove that these jerseys aren\u2019t carrying some kind of pro-Oilers voodoo. What matters is that the weight isn\u2019t falling entirely on Connor and Leon right now. The supporting cast is finally giving them a breather, and if these depth goals keep showing up even half as often as they have in these jersey-powered wins, the Oilers are going to be in a much better spot than they were over the first two months of the year.PRESENTED BY VIVID SEATS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Savoie scores again, depth goals, and Oilers\u2019 third jerseys might be blessed by the Hockey Gods The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-330683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}