Eberle believes the NHL's hottest new trend is a bogus one.

While your first reaction to these comments from Jordan Eberle may be to assume that he's just making excuses for poor play on a bad team, try to keep in mind how much he's improved as of late. Eberle recently made some very interesting comments regarding advanced analytics and their use in the NHL. Analytics has become a very hot trend in the league, and multiple teams have started to bring in experts in the field to help them better evaluate talent. Eberle however feels they were a detriment to his play, and perhaps to the play of others on his team, and he said as much when speaking to Derek Van Diest of the Edmonton Sun.

"I think maybe on the start of the year we were really focused on shooting the puck and Corsi numbers,when that starts creeping into your head, you're just shooting the puck just to shoot it and you're not trying to create the best opportunity you can."

What Eberle is referring to there is the intense focus on analytics that was a part of the short lived Dallas Eakins era in Edmonton, but if it had that much of a negative impact on the Oilers, could it be a league wide issue? It's worth noting however that Eberle has had a few major changes since the departure of Eakins. For one he's no longer playing with Taylor Hall, and surprisingly has put up better numbers since his absence. Perhaps most important of all however is the simple lack of pressure, the Oilers are already out of the post season, the players can play as loose as they want they've got very little to lose.