It was a nice defense we had once.
Wait a minute, no it wasn't.
Earlier today, I tweeted out a snapshot of the ice time of the defensemen the Oilers have used so far. If you, like millions of others who don't follow me, haven't seen that picture, here it is:
That's right. Management signed Mark Fayne in the off season, presumably to be a top four defender, and the coaching staff has seen fit to play him the least per game of any other defender so far. Righty-O!
One might say there's a disconnect between the coach and GM when it comes to the deployment of the D, but then you see Justin Schultz way up there at the top of the list with 24:19 per game, including 20 minutes(!) at even strength. Considering that MacTavish thinks that Schultz has "Norris potential", but the coach is theoretically aware of his *ahem* defensive deficiencies, one can only assume that the boys upstairs are pushing Schultz up the rotation.
So which is it?
They left Nurse in the NHL and kept Marincin out, for some reason. They played Nurse over Petry. They played Hunt more than 20 minutes per game while he was here, almost 17 of those minutes at even strength. Petry is just ahead of Nurse and Fayne in average ice time.
It's just pure incompetence from top to bottom, from the players to coaches to management.
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