Greed and aggression needed from Kassian and Yamamoto for Edmonton Oilers to win

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Playoffs Game Day 1: Oilers vs Jets

What the Edmonton Oilers need in the playoffs is more of the same from Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse and Mike Smith but something completely different from Kailer Yamamoto and Zack Kassian.

From their smallest and one of their biggest forwards, the Oilers need the Yamamoto of the second half of the 2019-20 season and the Kassian from the first half of the same.

Edmonton isn’t a particularly big or tough team, but it will be a lot more difficult and abrasive an opponent for the Winnipeg Jets if both Yamamoto and Kassian can play peak or near peak hockey.

You could measure the success of the 2019-20 Yamamoto in how many pucks he greedily won on the forecheck and how often he worked his way into the slot to make good shots and passes under pressure. You could measure that Kassian in his battles won and goalies screened, not to mention his strong passing and shooting while on a line with McDavid and Draisaitl. But you can also measure their relative lack of success by looking at their lack of greed and aggression in all these categories this year.

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Of course, both players were banged and missed times with injury this year. That’s a major difference for both of them. Nonetheless, their performance also dropped in a performance-driven league.

At the Cult of Hockey, we attempt to quantify both the grit and skilled aspects of each player’s game, at least to the extent that such hard and skilled plays lead to Grade A scoring chances and goals.

In 2019-20 (see full results), Yamamato came in first and Kassian second when it came to what we refer to as “hard plays,” the goalie screens, shot tips and jams, hard charges and battles won that make a major contribution to Grade A chances for. But in 2020-21 Kassian had less than half the rate of such hard plays and Yamamoto had about half the rate.

Not good, not for two players who need to play with greed and aggression to succeed.

In 2019-20, Kassian averaged 0.76 hard players on Grade A chances per game,  but he was at 0.39 per game this year. Yamamoto dropped from a team leading 0.89 to 0.48 per game.

This year, taking their place at the top, were Alex Chiasson with 1.11 hard plays per game and Jesse Puljujarvi with 0.85. Leon Draisaitl became far more of a power forward this year, more than doubling his rate of hard plays from 0.28 per game to 0.61 per game.

Drop in skill plays as well

We also see major major drops for Yamamoto and Kassian in skill plays this past season as compared to 2019-20. Both players were on far more successful lines that season but they were key parts of those lines, major contributors. They failed to get into that same grove this year.

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Let’s do a brief year to year comp:

Last year: Kassian had 15 goals and 56 Grade A shots in 59 games, 0.9 Grade A shots per game. He made a major contribution to 2.1 Grade A chances per game.

This year: Kassian had two goals and 12 Grade A shots in 27 games, 0.4 Grade A shots per game. He made a major contribution to 1.1 Grade a chances per game.

Last year: Yamamoto had 11 goals and 38 Grade A shots in 27 games, 1.4 Grade A shots per game. He made a major contribution to 2.9 Grade A chances per game.

This year: Yamamoto had eight goals and 48 Grade A shots in 52 games, 0.9 Grade A shots per game. He made a major contribution to 1.7 Grade A chances per game.

This is a lot of numbers, I know, but lets boil it down to what’s been missing for both players this season: good health, strong chemistry with linemates and both greed for skill plays and aggression for hard plays on the attack.

The good news is that both will have a chance to redeem themselves in the 2021 playoffs, just as their team needs them most.