Monthly Archives: November 2017

Armchair GM, Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Rumors, Trades

McKenzie Says Oilers Still Working On Another Trade

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Now for the life of me, I can’t find the radio hit and Chris Nichols hasn’t posted anything over at Fanrag Sports yet. So we’re going to have to run with the word of the honorable Moe Jaber! He’s good people, so no worries there folks!

Disclaimer: This is just me messing about playing basement blogger GM. I think there are lots of teams the Oilers could do a deal with but today I’m just looking at one possibility. I’m just speculating but feel free to flame away. I’m @beerleagueheroe on Twitter 🙂

But it got me thinking about who the Oilers could possibly be talking to and I remember seeing prized defensive prospect Gabriel Carlsson (CLB) lining up on the 4th line in Columbus recently. I thought that was odd given Sonny Milano was available, right? And according to Pierre LeBrun, the Blue Jackets have been looking for a top-two center all season long and just lost out on the Matt Duchene sweepstakes.

The Athletic: The Columbus Blue Jackets hope to land a top-six center before the Feb. 26 trade deadline. Alex Galcheyuk of the Montreal Canadiens and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of the Edmonton Oilers as two potential options. Galchenyuk’s slow start this season sparked suggestions he could be available. So far, however, the Habs are resisting the temptation to move him. Were he to be shipped to the Jackets, his struggles at center could test the patience of coach John Tortorella.

Nugent-Hopkins is a better option but he carries a $6-million annual salary through 2020-21. With over $5 million in cap space, the Jackets would have to make room to absorb his contract or convince the Oilers to pick up a portion of his cap hit. The Oilers lack of offense at right wing suggests the asking price could Cam Atkinson or Josh Anderson. – source

LeBrun also said this,

“But as it stands right now, I think they want to go out and find a top-two center or certainly a top-six forward, and they feel pretty good about their team if they can do that.” – source

Interesting… Of course, both quotes were from Nov.15th and since then the Oilers have added a… Left-winger… But let’s keep running with Moe’s tweet and say the Oilers are still looking to add a player or two.

We are under the impression that the Oilers are looking for help on D and for some scoring. Who could help out there that play for Columbus that they “might” be willing to move?

  • Ryan Murray (LHD) – Has never really panned out for CLB the way they thought he would.
  • Josh Anderson (RW) – That holdout at the start of the year might’ve soured relations.
  • Sonny Milano (W) – Is definitely NOT a Tortorella guy.
  • Matt Calvert (W) – Injured now but is a UFA this summer.
  • David Savard (RHD) – Also a UFA but would be a hard bargain to acquire for EDM give his RH’dness.

Let’s keep in mind that the Blue Jackets aren’t exactly eating shit this year, they’re 2nd in the Metro division, so there’s no real pressure on them to make any moves but from the way LeBrun and McKenzie are talking about them, they’d really like to get that top-two centre sooner than later. I think the thing with Columbus is that they don’t really have a lot of prospects, well great ones, to use as trade fodder. If they’re dealing with Edmonton though, I don’t think the Oilers would want prospects back anyhow, they’d actually like to move some. So in that sense, perhaps they are better trade partners after all!

If RNH is the rumored target for Columbus and Edmonton is looking to add scoring depth, in order to give them the ability to separate Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, and a dman, would you consider something along these lines:

To Columbus:
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
Kris Russell
Anton Slepyshev

To Edmonton:
David Savard
Josh Anderson
Sonny Milano
1st Rounder in 2018

STOP! I know! I don’t want to trade The Nuge either! He’s playing out of his skin this season and Todd McLellan would probably saw off his own dick with a rusty butter knife than deal him BUT this is all for conversation anyhow. Shits and giggles if you would.

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A deal like this would give the Oilers a legit top four of Klefbom, Larsson, Sekera, and Savard*. It would alleviate the team of Kris Russell’s contract (assuming he agreed to the deal), Todd McLellan wouldn’t have to explain to the media how he feels about Slepy being hurt again, and Bob Stauffer would be able to wax poetically about the “old-school” nature of Josh Anderson on a daily basis. Sonny Milano is a wizard with the puck and looks to be NHL ready too. There’s nothing wrong with having that kind of skill in the bottom 6 (But will he check?). Lastly, it also never hurts to load up on 1st rounders, especially in next year’s draft!

For Columbus, it’d give them the top-two, NO! A no.1 centre that they’ve been on the hunt for since dealing another no.1 centre in Ryan Johansen and it wouldn’t cost them Seth Jones. They’d get an under contract, smooth-skating, shot-blocking genius who can play both sides of the ice in Kris Russell, and a very skilled (and young) RWer in Anton Slepyshev (Although I’m not sure how Blue Jackets fans feel about Russians since Nikita Filatov and Nikolai Zherdev did them in a bad way all those years ago).

Here’s the problem though, there’s no guarantee that the deal would work out for the Oilers (I think it’d work out very well for Columbus as they’d be getting the best player in the deal). Even though Anderson has 7 goals and 3 assists already this season, losing a major contributor to the Oilers offense, like RNH, is would hurt more than help, obviously.

Do the Blue Jackets have another defender that could replace David Savard right now? I’d venture a guess that the answer is no.

Does this do anything to address the Oilers apparent lack of “team speed”? As far as I know, Josh Anderson is more Cam Neely than Mike Gartner and how far off is he from Pat Maroon skillset-wise?

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How would the deal work on a financial level? Not very well… Just off the top of my head (because that’s how I do this blogging thing) the Oilers would be taking back at most $7M dollars back while the Blue Jackets would be adding closer to $11M, a $4M difference thereabouts. Capfriendly says that Columbus has $3.85M of “projected cap space” and $5M of current cap space… Either way, she’d be close for Ol’ Jarmo’s finance division and wouldn’t allow them to do much more.

Maybe the Oilers’d be better off asking for Oliver Bjorkstrand (I’m sure Oilers head scout and former Edmonton Oil Kings GM Bob Green would love this eh? Oh those old Winterhawks/Oil Kings games were something!) instead of Josh Anderson. He’s a natural RWer and he shoots right too (Anderson’s a lefty).

While both teams seem like excellent trade partners, perhaps a deal would best be done in the summer and usually deals of this magnitude do wait for the summer hours. Then again, all the GMs are in one place this week…

I really do not want the Oilers to part with RNH but we have to be realistic too. The long-term plan with Leon and Connor is that they are 1C and 2C. That means the Oilers are going to have to find someone to play RW on McDavid’s line. Someone preferably mid-20s to late-20s in age, NOT a teenager!

There are a lot of people who don’t want Chiarelli to deal Nuge either and they’re POV is completely understandable. Trader Pete does good on the little deals and rather shitty on the big ones depending who you ask. I like Larsson for what it’s worth and I’m happy watching Strome play 3C whilst Leon and Pulju play where Eberle used to play.

But with that said, I hope he takes a page out of Sakic’s book IF he deals RNH and gets a good haul in return because if he doesn’t and he goes for a player that fits rather than a player of equal value, it could cost him his job, especially if the Oilers miss the playoffs or fail to make it to the Western Conference final.

Maybe Lowetide’s suggestion of Frank Vatrano or a player like that would be a better deep dive?

What do you think? Nuge to Columbus HAS been on the burner for a few years…

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Oilers/Golden Knights: Five Things We Learned After Game 18 PLUS A TRADE!

What. A. Shellacking!

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The Edmonton Oilers are the first team in the Vegas Golden Knights’ history to put up 7 goals against them! They’re also the first team to put up 8 goals as well. lol.

Overall, I thought the whole Oilers team played well and it’s hard to pick players who didn’t play well when Edmonton won the game 8-2 but Yohann Auvitu wasn’t great. Sometimes he handles the puck like it’s a hand grenade and other times he’s passing the puck like it’s an egg. Like Jokinen, we’ll touch on him next, I can’t see where he fits on the roster and I wonder if he’s the next to go with Andrej Sekera due to come back soon.

THE TRADE

A couple of hours before the game tonight Peter Chiarelli pulled the trigger on a deal with the LA Kings dealing struggling veteran Jussi Jokinen for Mike Cammalleri.

First off let me say that this is the way you right a wrong. The Jokinen gamble didn’t pay off and Chiarelli found a way to correct it.

Now, I will warn you that if you didn’t like Jordan Eberle’s lack of backchecking, you’ll hate Cammalleri’s… When he’s not scoring he’s not doing a whole lot else. So let’s hope he’s scoring more often than not.

At first glance, you can’t help but dig the trade. Both players make similar money and are winding their careers down on whatever team will take them. What you will find separates them is that Jokinen has VERY good possession stats and Cammalleri never has… Ever.

https://twitter.com/DennisTFP/status/930655055287525376

“We made this trade to improve our shooting. Mike’s always been an effective offensive player with his shot and ability with the puck,” Chiarelli said prior to Tuesday’s game. “At the end of the day, improving our offence will obviously take a collective effort but will be given an opportunity to help improve it.” – source

The stats analysts are pointing to the return of Kyle Clifford and Marian Gaborik as possible reasons and that Cammalleri’s fancies are wretched compared to those of his teammates and the player he was traded for.

I’d offer that Cammalleri has never really been a “glue guy” in the past and speculate if that had anything to do with it. I mean he did have 7pts in 15 games, so it’s not like he was underperforming.

Now with the Oilers putting up an 8-spot on Vegas, who will come out of the lineup for Cammalleri? Is there an urgency to put the 35-year-old veteran in right away? I think it’ll be Pakarinen that does come out for him after seeing the Finn get buckled by a point shot in tonight’s game.

FIVE THINGS WE LEARNED

  1. The Oilers are coming back to life.In their last 10 games, the Oilers are above .500… FINALLY!

    On the Oilers most recent road trip they scored 8 goals, add that to the 8 goals they scored tonight, that’s over 3 goals per game and in a 3-2 league, you need that.

    We knew it was coming, well those who are like-minded with me knew it. The team couldn’t go as long as they were without scoring more than 1 or 2 goals a game. The goals (and the wins) are going to come now and I think the team will be a +.500 team for the rest of the year.

  2. McDavid vs. Nugent-Hopkins: Who’ll score more goals this year?You wanted to know who was going to replace Eberle’s goals? We asked this when Hall was traded and it was Maroon that covered the difference last year. Somebody always fills the void. Now, it might not come on your timeline but the goals always come.

    But at this point the top three for Oilers scoring looks like this:

    McDavid – 9
    Nugent-Hopkins – 8
    Maroon/Draisaitl – 5

  3. Oscar Klefbom and JJ Khaira post good numbers for a second straight game2pts for each of these beauties! Things are really turning around for both of these players after starting the year out slowly.

    With those 2 pts, Klefbom overtakes Kris Russell (What?!}) as the Oilers’ leading point producer on the back-end.

  4. Edmonton’s out of the basementWith that 8 goal explosion, the Oilers climbed from 31st in the NHL for goals for into 25th says ESPN.com. Good timing eh?
  5. Don’t look now but…Connor McDavid had 3 pts tonight and has jumped into a tie for 6th place in NHL scoring according to the un-updated stats page on ESPN.com.

Next up the Western Conference-leading St.Louis Blues are in town and they were just the recipients of a 7-4 beatdown from the Flames. I imagine they’ll be in a touchy mood and the Oilers will need to make sure that the tandem of Jaden Schwartz/Vladimir Tarasenko see very little of the puck or else they risk getting lit up.

One saving grace might be the Blues’ PP and PK are sitting 20th and 21st in the league respectively. The Oilers could really do themselves a favor by taking advantage of them there!

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Can Todd McLellan Develop Young Talent? (Puljujarvi Recall to Test That) From Lindsay Ryall

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Jesse Plujujarvi in full stride

In Pro hockey, one player’s misfortune can be another’s gain. And that was certainly the case when promising forward Anton Slepyshev went down with injury, and Oiler’s high-end draft pick Jesse Puljujarvi got the tap, tap, tappy, and was called up from the Bakersfield.

Slepyshev was fitting in well before the injury, scoring two points in two games on the Nuge’s second line.  But JP also had a strong showing in his first game, scoring a goal, skating well and being a physical presence.

For many Oiler fans, there was a collective sigh of “I told you so,” when Puljujarvi’s star shone so brightly on his first game back.  That feeling was aggravated when Oiler’s management stubbornly hung on to Kailer Yamamoto past his due date, keeping the diminutive dynamo with the big club when he clearly was not ready for full-time NHL work.

And while Yamamoto was with the big club, the only place for Puljujarvi was to languish on the farm where he could ostensibly work on his game.  The bigger question is, was this the best move for  Puljujarvi development and on a macro view, the Edmonton Oilers?  When contrasted with similar moves since McLellan’s tenure has started, you have to question if there is a development plan, or if it’s flawed.

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Back in McLellan’s rookie year, he inherited a former first overall pick in Nail Yakupov who’s game clearly had stalled.  Initially, McLellan put Yakupov in a position to succeed, right alongside the franchise Connor McDavid.  The two played well together,  Yakupov produced, but when injuries led to their separation they were never reunited, and Yakupov’s game and confidence evaporated.  For the sake of a proper value pump before trade, he could have brought them back together, but chose not to.  Later when Yakupov was traded McLellan chose to point fingers at the previous coach as the reason for player’s poor development.  That may have been valid, but McLellan certainly did nothing to help.

In 2016 when oft-injured Tyler Pitlick came storming out of the gate, McLellan was specious in trusting the former second pick of the Oilers in the 2010 draft.  Eventually, McLellan warmed to the player but there were a number of un-warranted nights in the press box before Pitlick passed the trust test, and for a younger player this could have led to confidence issues.  Ultimately one more injury led to Pitlick leaving for Dallas in a move that may have purely been the GM’s.  My guess is McLellan chimed in his two cents as well, and it wasn’t a thumbs up for a player that continues to produce in the bottom six on another NHL team.

Even in Draisaitl’s 2015 impact year when he scored 51 points, McLellan made the decision to start Leon on the farm where he scored two points in five games and openly spoke of how the decision bruised his confidence.  To his credit, LD rebounded to have a productive year, but was it because of McLellan’s coaching?  Or because he happened to spend a lot of time with players named Hall and McDavid.

Getting some perspective on McLellan’s coaching ability, he seems to be challenged with developing offensive players.  This may sound strange considering the offensive teams McLellan had in San Jose, but as it stands right now the Oilers are in last place in goal production in the NHL . . . how does that happen on a team that has McDavid, Draisaitl, Nugent-Hopkins, and others on the team?

Meanwhile, the coach switches linemates frenetically like a like a teenager with ADHD, while players are unable to gain traction and chemistry with teammates.  The end result being an Oilers power play loaded with talent continues to underachieve, currently ranked a pedestrian 24th.

As Puljujarvi continues to make his way in the NHL the pressure to produce will always be there for the player, as it should. There should be a growing focus on whether McLellan is doing his part to succeed and show he can create systems that produce offense, as well as defense.  To this point, the Oilers look to be limiting their opposition to 1 or 2 goals letting the McDavid – Drai combo work its magic in overtime.  That plan may have worked in a couple of games, but it definitely won’t get the Oilers into playoff contention this season.

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Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Oilers Post Game Report, NHL

Oilers/Capitals: Five Things We Learned After Game 17

I’ll start off by saying this, I think this effort was 10x the one from yesterday. The Washington Capitals are an offensive juggernaut in my opinion and the Oilers held them to only 1 goal. The defense was on point but the offense is still struggling and I don’t really know what one can do about that.

I was very happy that Ovechkin and Kuznetsov didn’t take the game over though. A fine showing by the Oilers not to let that happen!

Five Things We Learned

  1. Pat Maroon wasn’t taking any shit tonight!

    I loved the passion from Big Rig tonight. He was battling everywhere and he’s showing us that he’s really making an effort to snap out of this slump by trying everything. That scrap with Tom Wilson was nearly a minute long and Wilson is no slouch when it comes to chucking knuckles. Add to that another 7 shots on net tonight.

  2. Khaira, Brossoit, and Auvitu came to play!

    I loved Brossoit’s game tonight. He was the rock Edmonton needed back there and each performance like this that he has increases the amount of confidence Todd McLellan has in him and the more likely he is to get the call in the future.

    JJ Khaira was having the kind of game that would’ve had him one of the 3 stars at the end of the night until he failed to stay on Orlov but thus is life for a young NHLer. The rest of the game he was solid and looked very confident.

    Auvitu… You want to get pissed at the guy for jumping into the play so much but luckily nothing too terrible happened as a result. Now, I don’t mind a dman that is so offensively minded as long as he’s putting up points but the Frenchman isn’t. At least he didn’t cost the Oilers a goal

  3. Todd McLellan HAS to do better. 

    I was flabbergasted when I didn’t see Jesse Puljujarvi in the OT but I did see Ryan Strome (who didn’t show badly) and Pat Maroon (who at one point was the only defender back). All of that open ice is tailor-made for Jesse Puljujarvi with the way he skates and all of his power… Personally, I think it’s bullshit that McLellan didn’t put him out there.

  4. NHL reffing is still garbage.

    This isn’t something we learned tonight but it’s something that continues to plague the NHL. I know that the job is a very difficult one to do and you can’t call everything on Connor McDavid but you can call something. Like one thing. At least!

  5. Oscar Klefbom bounced back.

    I loved his game tonight. The difference between tonight’s game and yesterday’s game was like night and day. He kept it very simple and really took to heart what the coaching staff laid out for him after the Rangers game. I hope that he can continue this trend up and we get to see a goal from him soon.

Next game up is versus Vegas and this is important for a few reasons.

  • Vegas is a Pacific division rival. The time to start climbing up the standings is now.
  • The Golden Knights are fast and tenacious, two things that kill the Oilers unless they’re playing New Jersey, so Edmonton is going to have to be well prepared for that. I hope they go with the same lineup but with Talbot in net.
  • I’m not 100% for sure but I’m assuming that Vegas will have Maxime Legace in net and what better opportunity for the Oilers to score more than 2 goals than against an AHL netminder.

Now, it’s going to be all unicorns and lollipops vs Vegas. At the moment, they are playing very well but it’s time for the Oilers to get their special teams on the right track and summon the spirits of 2016/17 to help them put some goals in the bloody net!

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Oilers/Rangers: Five Things We Learned After Game 16

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The game started out with great optimism. Jesse Puljujarvi was in the lineup and I was hoping for an excellent performance from him and disappointed I was not. He was the best Edmonton Oiler on the ice tonight and the most dangerous by far.

The 2nd line of Milan Lucic, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and the aforementioned Puljujarvi dominated the Rangers.

That was the good thing. The bad…

Oscar Klefbom and Leon Draisaitl were not on their “A” game and I’d go as far as to say that Klefbom was a shadow of what we’ve known to expect from him. He did have the most ice-time in all situations but on every goal against, he was a step away or behind the play.

Leon simply couldn’t get anything going tonight and that’s a shame. He’s really been playing well as of late too.

Five Things We Learned

  1. Jesse Puljuarvi showed us exactly what we’ve been looking for since he was drafted. I wonder where all of those folks are that were insinuating that he was a bust… at 19 years old.

    This afternoon he was forechecking hard, getting his stick in there and using his massive frame to knock loose the puck for his quicker pivot. He was shooting at nearly every opportunity possible (those snappers from the blue line surprised me) and the shots were very good too.

    In the end, the Grinnin’ Finn ended the evening with a gorgeous goal, 5 shots, and two hits. Here’s to hoping that adrenaline continues to pump through to the game tomorrow night versus Washington.

  2. Pat Maroon is working his way into the doghouse.

    Even though he had a team-high 7 shots on net, with the way that the team is leaking goals on the PK, an undisciplined penalty like Maroon took which led to a Rick Nash goal, is not something that Todd McLellan takes lightly. If he’s going to be taking penalties like that then he’d better be contributing on the offensive side of the puck a bit more.

    I’d go as far as to say that Maroon needs to go out there and get in a scrap to try and get back that emotional mojo we all know and love about him. We haven’t seen one of those trademark cellies of his in a while and I think we’d all like to.

  3. Todd McLellan’s player deployment was not good

    Especially on defense. I’m not sure how Klefbom managed to “earn” 24 minutes of ice-time today but that’s something I had a problem with. On the flip side, it wasn’t like Russell or Gryba could’ve stepped up and filled the void.

    David Staples said in his post-game podcast that Scotty Bowman once mentioned that a coaches job is to get the right players on the ice at the right time. Situational reading if you will and I agree with Staples in that McLellan wasn’t reading the game well today.

    Nuge’s line was flying and as soon as McLellan noticed that Draisaitl was off his game, he should’ve started using RNH’s line as the defacto no.1 line. After the 2nd goal that Klefbom was on for, why not sit him for a shift or two, let Russell take a spin. Nurse and Larsson could’ve handled the extra load for a few minutes.

  4. Mark Letestu is showing his age.

    Our golden boy from last year is struggling to get his game together early on. Nearly 30% of his TOI was on special teams and I have no idea why he’s on the PP right now. I’m hoping that McLellan will replace him with Puljujarvi and let Letestu do what he does best, play 3rd/4th line minutes and take important faceoffs when needed.

    The guy isn’t going to have the juice to go in the playoffs if he keeps getting the TOI and assignments McLellan is giving him. Also, is it fair to say that the team has the personnel to cover him on the PK?

  5.  Jussi Jokinen is showing us why FLA bought him out.

    We’re 16 games into the NHL season, nearly a quarter of the way in, and Jokinen has yet to show us why the Oilers signed him. I mean he’s not making huge money but I’d rather have had Matt Hendricks for another year at this point. If a player is on pace for under 10 pts a year, I’d like to see a bit of life out of him.

    He’s slow, he’s not adding anything to the Oilers’ special teams, and I’m thinking that whole mentoring thing for Pulju is a sham but the analytics folk love him and I can see why, his fancies are outstanding this year.

    grabbed from naturalstatrick.com

    What I get confused about is if the fancies are that good, why aren’t they translating into goals? JJ’s 5×5 CF%Rel last night was -29 btw…

    I’d say he’s a good candidate to be in the pressbox once Slepyshev and/or Cagguila return. He’s simply having too hard of a time keeping up right now.

I’m torn right now because there are two ways of addressing a slumping team,

  • let them play their way out of it
  • change the personnel and shock the system

McLellan and his coaching staff, I think, have found successful combinations in their top 6 now IF Jesse Puljujarvi can continue to play average to above average. The shutdown pairing of Nurse and Larsson have found some chemistry and I can’t see that pairing being changed anytime soon but the rest of the roster is really up in the air.

The forwards I’m not as worried about because two good forwards are out injured but the defense is still concerning. Andrej Sekera will be returning in the next 4 weeks and that’ll help but how good will he really be out of the gate? You know it’s going to take some time, right? I’m saying at least a month.

Washington will be a great test for the Oilers tomorrow. I had a chance to watch them when I was in Edmonton and the Oilers were keeping up with them until Kuznetsov scored that ridiculous goal. But what Edmonton has to do is get on them fast and stay on them. I believe the Capitals are going to be without their top defender in Matt Niskanen so that is a plus but Washington’s 3rd line of Vrana-Eller-Wilson is a beauty and Eller actually had a helluva game versus Edmonton the game I was in attendance.

Edmonton MUST come away with 2pts one way or another tomorrow night!

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