The 411 on the Bottom-6

Much has been made this offseason of what the Edmonton Oilers’ defensive pairings will look like in 2016-17. Not as much has been said of where we are in terms of offensive depth. Who plays on the bottom-6 this season? Read on for a whole bunch of cool numbers and speculation, and also to ultimately find out that I don’t really know.

But Bob Stauffer might! Radio analyst, prolific Twitter tease, and most notably known as the voice of the Oilers on Edmonton’s talk radio network, 630 CHED. Scratch that: Bob Stauffer has recently been most notably known as the guy who totally called that we’d be trading for Adam Larsson on Oilers Now a full day before it happened.

Bob Stauffer again hinting of a 22 minute right shot Dman that no one is talking about that could be acquired at a decent price #oilers

— Heather Marginet (@margih99) June 28, 2016

Stauffer is today undoubtedly not only one of the most connected hockey insiders in Edmonton, but in the NHL proper. Historically, most of his predictions are spot-on. So what does ol’ Bob have to say about my favourite little prospect centerman Drake Caggiula?

Lots of talk about Drake Caggiula. Don't be surprised if he gets a look at Center at some point this season. Was impressive at Dev. Camp

— Bob Stauffer (@Bob_Stauffer) July 15, 2016

Ooh! Well, that’s promising. Seems like these days, you don’t get a second look in E-town unless you’re 6’3 200+ or your name starts with Connor.

Sorry, excuse me. I’m trying to write about Caggiula right now and what I’m actually doing is watching this just silly goal over and over. Partake in its glory with me for a moment:

Thanks for indulging me. Now, back to mature things like numbers and line combos. Ok, so with this information from Stauffer, and if Dangling Drake (pretend that’s a good nickname) truly is ready for 3rd-line C at some point in 2016, what does the Oilers’ bottom-6 look like?

To me, we have to ask ourselves a couple basic questions right off the bat:

1. Is Leon Draisaitl going to play on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ wing at the start of the season? My gut says yes. They had undeniable chemistry together at the end of last season, and Leon belongs in the top-6 playing with top talent, not trying to carry the bottom-6 into the offensive zone on his back. This leaves McDavid and RNH quarterbacking the top two lines for the foreseeable future.
2. The second and more speculative question is this: is Drake Caggiula a better hockey player than current bottom-6 centermen Mark Letestu or Anton Lander? Again, I think the answer is yes, and I’m going to use a few advanced stats to try to illustrate why I’m cautiously optimistic that we could be a better hockey team with Drake and sans one of Mark/Anton.

I picked iCorsi/60 (the number of shots + shot attempts that missed or were blocked that each individual takes per 60 minutes), G/60 (individual goals per 60 minutes), and A/60 (individual assists per 60 minutes) because I am but a lowly arts graduate and those are the ones that I understand (all of these stats are from the 2015-16 season at even strength). I will use Nuge as a benchmark because he’s the centreman most immediately higher on the Oilers’ depth chart with statistical history than the men we’re discussing.

As expected, the Nuge runs away in every category. That’s why he’s considered one of the premier two-way top-6 forwards in the league. Letestu and Lander both sit around 2.5-3 points off in the iCorsi/60 category. Which maybe doesn’t seem like much, but I am assured it’s statistically significant. They’re nowhere close in goals or assists per 60, with Lander especially coming off looking bad on paper. Another important thing to consider when looking at these guys’ numbers is that Letestu has never cracked 34 points in a complete NHL season, and Lander never more than 18. RNH averages mid-50s in points over a season’s length. Obviously, Drake Caggiula is not Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. No one expects him to be, and people aren’t really projecting him to play the kind of game RNH has become known for over his 5 seasons in the big show. But can he be half as good? Because if he’s even half as good as RNH in assists per hour, he’s miles ahead of Letestu and Lander. If he’s on the ice for two less Corsi events per hour than RNH, he’s miles ahead of Letstu and Lander.

Despite everything I just said, I like Mark Letestu. Good Alberta boy! I think he’s a character guy who shows up, wins faceoffs, and generally isn’t a liability on the ice. He looks good with Hendricks alongside him, and Pakarinen showed last season that he can play with basically anyone on the current Oilers roster and not be out of place. I don’t have anything against Anton Lander, but I don’t think he makes the opening day roster if Caggiula can show he isn’t incompetent in the circle, because that’s really the only thing Anton has going for him as it stands. To me, there isn’t anything in the playing style or statistics (junior or professional) of Letestu or Lander that indicates they’re significantly more effective offensively or defensively than Caggiula projects to be. Drake hasn’t played minute-one of a professional game, though, so I could also prove to be completely wrong. But I really can’t see Lander coming into the fall looking shinier than Caggiula. Can you?

That’s a whole lot of speculation, isn’t it? Here’s some more. To me, here are the Oilers’ likely line combinations in the fall:

Lucic – McDavid – Eberle/Puljujarvi

Maroon – RNH – Draisaitl/Puljujarvi

Pouliot – Caggiula – Kassian/Yakupov

Hendricks – Letestu – Pakarinen/Yakupov

Or to put it another way, I have no idea where the hell Yakupov fits into the lineup next year. We saw that he looks great next to McDavid, but that doesn’t really mean anything because an orange traffic cone looks good next to McDavid. I feel that a small, quick guy like Caggiula probably should have a big goon like Kassian on his right to keep the other teams’ bottom-6 from getting any ideas, and a consistent grinder like Pouliot on his left to make space in front of the net and generally be ready for setups via Drake’s nifty hands. We saw that Pouliot was capable of at least that much last season.

Clearly the only option to make my roster combination chart not look so foolish is for Peter Chiarelli to package up a right-winger who isn’t Finnish with a pick and a prospect for Tyson Barrie. Cool? Cool. Thanks, Chia. Thanks, Sakic. Goodnight sun, goodnight moon. May visions of sugar plums and Stanley Cups dance through your heads, fellow Beer League Heroes.