It’s not often that Kris Knoblauch voices his displeasure about things.
When he’s in front of a microphone, he’s calm, cool, collected and almost always goes out of his way to defend his players. And while that was the case for most of his press conference after Thursday night’s 5-4 win over the Florida Panthers, the Edmonton Oilers bench boss had one interesting comment.
He wasn’t happy about the Oilers’ early penalty troubles.
It reared its ugly head again in Game 4, as Evander Kane — for the third game in a row — took a first-period high-sticking penalty, followed by Darnell Nurse tripping Aleksander Barkov and Mattias Ekholm high-sticking Brad Marchand. It cost the Oilers, as they were put on a 5-on-3 in which the Panthers opened the scoring, adding another power play goal with Ekholm in the box.
“It’s unfortunate for Stu to be pulled there. Our team was flat,” said Knoblauch about the Oilers’ first period, and pulling Stuart Skinner in favour of Calvin Pickard after Thursday’s game..
“We didn’t get many opportunities, and again to take three penalties in the first period — two high-stickings, which I’m hating — but unfortunately, we needed to change things up, and the change was great the way he played.”
As our own Jason Gregor highlighted on X last night, the Oilers have been shorthanded 13 times in the first period through four games — compare that to five in the first periods against the Dallas Stars and eight against the Vegas Golden Knights, and it’s been a significant increase.
It’s a significant issue for the team, and undoubtedly something the team needs to clean up, as it’s resulted in the Panthers racking up five power play goals in the first period alone, outscoring Edmonton 9-4 in all situations in the first.
While the Oilers were able to make Stanley Cup Final history by being the first team to erase a three-goal deficit after the first period, it’s not something they can bank on.
“We’ve just got to control our sticks,” Knoblauch said Friday. “The amount of high-sticking penalties we’ve had, I think that’s a big part of it. If we can control our sticks, then we’re not in the box as much as we are.
“We would like to never take a penalty, and we don’t want to put them on the power play. We feel like we’re better when we can get everybody involved and not having those long stretches of killing penalties, because then we pretty much ice certain guys if they’re not out there regularly. Going forward, taking three or four penalties in the first period, very rarely are we going to survive that and win. Last night was fortunate that we were able to survive that, but it’s something we can’t do again.”
With Kane’s parade to the box in recent games, Knoblauch wasn’t shy about stapling him to the bench. He took his high-sticking call on his fifth shift, 10:38 into the first, and didn’t take another shift until he played the final 45 seconds of that period.
Come the second, his ice-time continued to be limited, playing just 12:37 at five-on-five, his second straight game with under 12 and a half minutes of ice-time. And when he was on the ice in the second and third, he was taking shifts with either Adam Henrique and Trent Frederic, or Mattias Janmark and Kasperi Kapanen.
Penalty issues for Kane aren’t limited to just the Stanley Cup Final, as his 32 PIM throughout the playoffs leads all Oilers players.
It begs the question: could the Oilers consider sitting Kane for Game 5?
It would undoubtedly be a move that carries some risk. Kane’s goal in Game 2 helped get the Oilers back into the series, and he’s always a threat to score when he’s on the ice — racking up six goals and as many assists in 19 playoff games — he’s been a wrecking ball, too, laying 22 hits in the final alone. He’s been the Oilers’ fourth most physical player in terms of hits per hour in the playoffs, trailing only Frederic, Vasily Podkolzin and Zach Hyman.
And while Jeff Skinner, who has laid 13.9 hits per hour at five-on-five in his three playoff games, 10x’ing his regular season rate, it’s still not near the level of Kane. Could Skinner up his physicality if Kane was out of the lineup? Sure, but he didn’t lay a hit at five-on-five Thursday night, so could the Oilers really bank on it?
The on-ice results for the Oilers when Kane is on the ice haven’t been anything to write home about, with the team controlling 42.2 percent of the shot attempt share, 48.7 percent of the expected goal share and getting outscored 4-3. Individually per hour, his shots on goal rate, individual expected goal rate and scoring chance rate are the lowest against the Panthers as they have in any other series in the playoffs.
The physicality alone that Kane brings to the lineup leads me to believe that the Oilers won’t look to pull him from the lineup, especially against a Panthers team that loves to lay the body, but there’s no denying that Kane needs to clean up the penalty trouble he’s found himself in and find ways to be a positive contributor on the ice.
