All posts by Rob Cooke

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Armchair GM, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Rob Cooke

Where will the Oilers right wings finish?

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After a longer than expected delay we are back with the third installment of my point prediction series. Today we are going to make some guesses and see where the Oilers right wings finish the season. We know who the four guys are more than likely that will dress the majority of the 82 game schedule, barring injuries or trades of course, with three being locks to make the team in the fall and see some major minutes. The top three right wingers for the Edmonton Oilers is obviously going to be Jordan Eberle, Teddy Purcell, and Nail Yakupov. The final member of this quartet could be a toss-up between Rob Klinkhammer and the younger and cheaper Tyler Pitlick. Young Tyler has had a rough go as a professional hockey player with injury after injury constantly delaying him from taking the next step to become a full-time NHL player. After all the kid has been through I’m hopeful he can finally put together a full season of hockey and fight for the minutes that will be Klinkhammer’s f not challenged. For my purposes, since I need to choose one for this I am going to have to go with the more experienced option and assume that Rob Klinkhammer will fill the fourth line right wingers position.

Now that we have our list let’s look at where the Oilers finished the 2014/15 season to see roughly where we are at so far in our predictions. Last season the Edmonton Oilers scored a paltry 193 goals. While not the leagues lowest scoring franchise they were definitely a far cry from the league leading Tampa Bay Lightning with 259 goals or the western conference leading scorers, the Dallas Stars. So far to date I have a total of 135 goals from only eight players. It is fairly safe to assume that I am predicting a fairly big increase in production this coming season. A lot of that increase will be the result of a vastly improved power-play under the new coaching staff. Now that we have the introductions done let’s get down to business and make some guesses.

 

Jordan Eberle

Jordan is by far the best player on the starboard side for the Edmonton Oilers and has been a very consistent producer since first joining the NHL with Taylor Hall and Magnus Paajarvi in the fall of 2010. Since his first NHL goal where he brought fans to their feet with one of the nicest goals I have ever seen.

I’ve probably seen that goal a few thousand times by now and it still amazes me. The skill needed to pull off something like that are just astounding. I don’t care what anyone says, that is still the nicest goal that I have ever seen a Oilers player score. Back to the topic at hand though. Since that amazing first NHL goal Ebs has been a very consistent point scorer for the Edmonton Oilers. Other than his first season as a pro Jordan has proven to be an extremely durable player missing a grand total of seven games over four seasons of hockey. So we generally know that Eberle will play unless he absolutely can’t. Another thing that we know about Ebs is that he has excellent shooting skill. He will usually opt to pass the puck if he doesn’t get the perfect shot that he wants. That can be both a good and a bad thing as even the imperfect shots sometimes find the twine.

Last season Jordan led the team in scoring with 63 points. That included 24 goals and 39 assists. HIs third season of more than 20 goals in fact, and he did it while posting a below career average shooting percentage. His career average is 14.0% and last season he dipped slightly to 13.1%. Still a very solid number and a reason to be hopeful for slightly higher numbers next season.

The addition of Connor McDavid will affect everyone on the team as we all know. At home the Oilers can gift the McDavid line with easier competition, which would ensure the Nuge line would in effect be fed to the wolves, but on the road no such luxury exists and the opposition would likely run out their top players against Hall and McDavid. This is when the trio of Pouliot-RNH-Eberle will make them pay for it too. Their chemistry together last season was excellent and I think unless they are split up, which I don’t foresee happening, that they will continue right along putting pucks in the net. My prediction for Jordan is that his shooting percentage will take a slight bounce upwards but his even strength minutes will drop slightly. This will mean that his totals from last season are fairly close to where he will likely finish the season. 27 goals ad 41 assists. That is a pretty solid number, even more so after you see what the rest of the right side will bring to the table.

 

Teddy Purcell

Teddy Purcell was acquired last summer for the overpaid and under-performing Sam Gagner. The trade was, in essence, a swap of bad contracts. Purcell had more experience but was thought to be heading toward a buy-out from Steve Yzerman and his Tampa Bay Lightning. Definitely not a ringing endorsement from his former club, but it isn’t like we didn’t know that he had warts to his game. Anytime you swap two bad players you know they are coming with some baggage. Teddy may not be the most physical or the fastest guy on the team but does bring things to the roster that  few other forwards can say that they do. He is a real veteran forward, one with nearly five hundred games on his resume. He is a dependable two-way forward with a good defensive conscience. He is one of the few if not the only player that will play in the top six that can say that. He may not provide amazing numbers points wise but having him on a line with Taylor Hall and Connor McDavid gives the trio a defensively responsible forward that will be able to cover somewhat for the other two when the play beats them back up ice.

There is a veritable cornucopia of posts and tweets arguing the idea that Purcell should have been headed for a buy-out instead of to training camp this fall. My question to them is who takes his spot then? Yakupov? He isn’t ready for that yet. His game is still far too much chaos in his own end and other teams would quickly take advantage of that fact. Purcell is the best available option to play second line minutes to start the season. He is spending the summer training with the inhuman Gary Roberts. You know, the guy that broke his neck had surgery and still came back to be an effective pain in the ass in the toughest league in the world. Yeah that guy. Roberts will kick his ass all summer long, along with Connor McDavid, and Purcell is going to come to camp in 6 weeks in the best shape he has ever been in. Don’t be surprised to see a bigger but faster player than we did last September.

Last season Teddy had an atrocious shooting percentage, 8.2% to be exact, but not actually that far below his career average of 9.4%. That isn’t really any difference when you think about it. Over the season if he had been at his average it would have added two more goals to his total. Teddy did manage 12 goals and 22 assists last season. Not bad numbers but definitely not the offense I would expect from a guy making 4.5 million this year. One other thing to remember when we are projecting this player is that he is in a contract year. With the number of players that are being left unsigned year after year one has to think that is weighing heavily on the minds of players that are in the same position as Purcell.

I predict that Purcell comes into camp in better shape than he has ever been in and he takes the bull by the horns to earn the second line minutes that he is best suited for. My hypothesis for Purcell is that he will be on McDavid’s right side until roughly Christmas when Yakupov will take over the spot. In his time with the franchise player Purcell will definitely make the most of it and will capitalize on his quality linemates. After being shifted off this line I still see Teddy being an effective forward aiding Anton Lander in his development. This coming season I see 15 goals and 23 assists for Purcell. HIs slick hands will ensure that he still sees his share of power-play time.

 

Nail Yakupov

Some have called him enigmatic. Some say he is a victim of the “Russian” factor. For myself I prefer not to jump to conclusions about this young potential star scorer. Nail has had a rough start to his career to this point. He started out under Ralph Kruger and his development seemed to be heading the right direction. He wasn’t asked to do what he wasn’t accustomed and he equated himself very well He had 17 goals and 14 assists for 31 points. Very solid numbers for a rookie, but keep in mind that Yak did that all in 48 games. His rookie year was the lock-out shortened season. After his freshman year Craig MacTavish was given the role of general manager after Steve Tambellini was released from his duties and he decided that the correct path of action was to remove the coach that finally seemed to be moving the team in the right direction in favour of the AHL flavour of the month. In what could have been the worst mistake of his career as GM, MacT decided to let Kruger go, via Skype no less, and hire Dallas Eakins. We all know how that worked out for this team. Right back into the sewer we went and we are just emerging now.

Yakupov had his minutes cut and seemed to lose all his confidence under Eakins. The pair never seemed to be able to mesh as a coach and player and as such it really hampered Yakupov’s development. Once Eakins was finally put out of our misery Nail seemed to flourish under the tutelage of Todd Nelson. After the coaching change Yakupov seemed to come alive and we got to see the free and easy smile return to this young mans face that has helped this fan base make him an icon!

Predicting Yakupov’s points is a little harder than most, just because there is so much chaos to his game that one never knows just how things will transpire when he is on the ice. That is precisely why I see him starting on the third line this fall. Adding that much defensive chaos to an already pressure filled season for McDavid to start just isn’t a smart thing to do. I do think that McDavid will rise to exceed expectations just like he has at every other stage in his career and will prove capable of handling a little additional chaos in his game. For his part I think that Nail will take a huge step forward in his development this season and while he won’t ever be the most reliable player in the defensive zone he will likely be more predictable in his habits and less of a liability.

His point totals should rebound this season as well. After such a promising start to his career it isn’t hard to envision future years of 30 plus goals for this sniper. And let’s be honest, there is no one on this team that likes to score more than Nail. Remember the greatest celly in Oilers history? Here it is.

https://youtu.be/tfysDNnuX64

How can you not cheer for a guy like that? His enthusiasm for the game is the best thing about this humble and kind-hearted young man. Well actually the best thing about him is that he can be an Oiler for the next 15 years still! Okay so we know that the start of last seasoning was really just a continuation of the season before under Eakins so point totals from last season are for the most part irrelevant but we will look at them anyways. Last season Nail played 81 out of the 82 games possible but still only managed to net 33 points, 14 goals and 19 assists. Not good numbers for a first overall pick but we have already established that  there were extenuating circumstances involved that did nothing to help the situation. This season I think we will see a rebirth of Nail and that he will finally take steps forward under proper coaching and mentorship. Don’t get me wrong, Derek Roy seemed like a tremendous mentor to the young man and it helped make the second half of his season a lot better than the first half.

My prediction for Nail is that he will finally reach the 20-goal mark this season and that his point totals will exceed forty for the first time in his short career. I see 21 goals and 24 assists. Just think that has the potential for 21 more celebrations for the fans to adore and other teams to hate this season! Sounds like magic to me!

 

Rob Klinkhammer

How can you not root for a guy with Klinkhammer for a last name? Colonel Klink joined the Oilers part way through last season as part of the David Perron to Pittsburgh and filled the role he was acquired to fill. He is a fourth line defensive minded player that will never pot a lot of points but brings intensity and dependability to the bottom half of the roster. In his 40 games with Edmonton last season he only managed 3 points, including his only goal in the blue and orange. He is not a goal scorer that is for sure. He had a grand total of 5 goals last year split between the three teams he suited up for. To be fair though his shooting percentage with Edmonton was abysmal for lack of a better word. While his career average is nothing to scream at with a mediocre 9.2% but in his 40 games with Edmonton he could only muster a pathetic 3.2%. That is really bad, I mean insanely bad! Obviously his percentage almost certainly will revert back to closer to his career average but he does have more than one season with a lower than average shooting percentage. So how much he will bounce back is up for debate.

He will likely be on the opening night roster but should he falter at any point through-out the season he will quickly see himself sitting in the press box or sent down to Bakersfield. My guess is that he will see roughly 50 games this season and will eventually be replaced with a younger and cheaper option. Not that Rob is that old but at 28 he definitely won’t be a part of the McDavid cluster in the future. It is hard for me to rip on the guy too much as I’ve watched him play since his days with the Lethbridge Hurricanes. I like Klinkhammer and I like what he can bring to the bottom six but unfortunately this isn’t a popularity contest and there will likely be better options available before the end of the year. That being said I will venture to guess that the Colonel will play admirably  while he gets the chance and will contribute 5 goals and 6 assists to the cause. Solid numbers for a fourth line player.

With only 49 more days until the first pre-season game in the league, 50 for us Oilers fans that are interested in the split squad games against the abhorred Calgary Flames, there is going to be excitement building in the city of Edmonton and all of Oilers nation. How many people are actually going to stay indoors on what will likely be one of the last nice weekends of the year to get the chance to watch Connor play in a prospects tournament in Penticton? I know I sure will be. The Oilers first game will be on September 11th at 8:30 pm in case you were wondering. I was hoping to attend the tournament for my fourth time this year but alas it is not in the cards. Kids sports start earlier and earlier every year it seems.

In any case I will be back soon with the next in the series covering the starting six defensemen and the one or two others that will likely make the opening night 23-man list. Thanks for reading and I want to hear from all of you in the comments. I will try to get back to every comment that I see but sometimes that just isn’t possible. If I don’t respond on here feel free to tweet me, @cooke_rob. Thanks again for reading and be sure to visit the Beer League Heroes T-shirt shop. My own designs will available here soon, stay tuned for an official launch date and a couple small contests that I am going to run for you fine folks.

 

Cheers

Rob

 

 

Armchair GM, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Rob Cooke

The Oilers Salary Cap Situation

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A few days ago, well July 25th to be exact, the New Jersey Devils re-signed young defenseman Adam Larsson to a six-year contract extension with a 4.16 million dollar cap hit. Why am I telling you something that 95% of NHL fans already know about?  First because this is roughly the deal that I see Oscar Klefbom signing between now and next July 1st. Larsson has a slightly better draft pedigree but has had a hard time making the NHL as a full-time player. Klefbom appears to be the real deal and should again take a big step forward in his development this year under new coaching and with less pressure to be the best defenseman on the team. With slightly less minutes at evens and roughly the same zone starts that he was gifted last year Klefbom should be effective and improve on last season. The second reason that I mentioned the Larsson contract is because with the idea of re-signing Klefbom long-term before next summer it got me thinking about the Oilers cap position moving forward.

It is a little tricky when discussing the Oilers salary cap situation, currently nhlnumbers.com, brought to you by our good friends over at OilersNation, shows that there is 3.144 million in available space. That is not a lot of space to begin with and when we factor in bonuses we are possibly up to two million dollars over the cap this year. That is two million over with Darnell Nurse and Leon Draisaitl playing all or some of the season in the AHL this year as well. The bonuses that I am including are only for McDavid, Klefbom, and Reinhart. I am not saying that I think Reinhart makes the team but just going by what the Nation network has on their site. The inclusion of Reinhart is besides the point this year anyways. The issue is going over the cap with bonus dollars.

When a team goes over the cap with their player bonuses that amount is deducted from the cap total the next season as a penalty. Normally that isn’t a big deal but with the cap likely staying at roughly the same level or rising only very slightly every dollar will count in the 2016/17 season. It will be the first year in the new building and playoffs are damn sure expected at that point. We will need to bring in whatever players we will need to be competitive in the new building. In reality though it sure would have been nice to go on one last playoff run in Rexall before they close the old barn down.

When we enter the off-season next summer we will see a fair amount of dollars come off the books just through contracts expiring that will likely not be renewed. We all know who isn’t going to be in Oilers blue when Rogers Place opens their doors. Teddy Purcell and his 4.5 million dollar cap hit will likely either be  moved to another team at some point this season or will walk as a free agent come July 1st. Another 4.5 million will come off the books when the Oilers will say good-bye to Nikita Nikitin next summer as well. I know that Ron MacLean seems to think Nikitin will bounce back and be a stud defenseman for the Oilers, he said so yesterday on Oilers Now, but I don’t see it happening and even if he does I think he would need to take a massive cut to his salary in order for that to happen. The other two free agents that are both likely going to be allowed to hit the open market are Rob Klinkhammer (love that name!) and Eric Gryba. At $725,000, Rob Klinkhammer isn’t going to free up a ton of space but will likely be moved to bring up an internal option. Gryba will go if for no other reason than Griffin Reinhart will likely take his spot in the very near future and $1.3 million is a decent chunk of change to tie up in a number 7 or 8 D-man. The final free agent that will more than likely not be returning after the upcoming season is the Professor, Ben Scrivens. If Cam Talbot, who we will get to later takes the starting job and runs with it then we will likely see Mr. and Mrs. Scrivens move on down the road. On the plus side if Scrivs is moved or allowed to leave upon contract expiration that will add another $2.3 million to the pot.

We may also be able to remove the $3.9 million cap penalty that is Justin Schultz should the team finally decide that what he brings to the team isn’t even close to be worth what he is paid. If I am Peter Chiarelli I would have Jultz on a very short leash this season and would feel no remorse at all for stapling his ass to the bench when warranted. I could see a scenario where Justin could spend a few games in the press box observing early on if he doesn’t appear to have made some sort of step forward with his defensive game. The one thing to keep in mind is that Todd McLellan is a wizard with the power-play so we can hopefully expect at least a return to his former levels in that aspect.

For the sake of argument lets say that all these players are either moved at the deadline or allowed to leave via free agency this summer. Returns from trades we will consider as all being futures for this exercise. So with these six gentlemen removed from the roster for the grand opening of the new joint we would have a little bit of walking around money to throw around come July 1st. With roughly $17.2 million in cap space being opened up there is the possibility to go big game hunting next summer. This is where we need to bring up Oscar Klefbom and his new deal. Like I said I would like to see him signed to roughly the same deal as Larsson, five or six-year term with around 4 million as the sticker price. With his current deal paying him only 1.244 million, if he hits his bonuses, we would still see an increase of 2.56 million year over year. So when we remove that amount we are left with roughly 14.64 million in space.

There is other people who will need to be included in next years line-up that are currently unaccounted for as well. At some point both Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse are going to force their way onto this team and will need to be included in the cap hit as well. So out of that 14.64 million we can take 5.1 million, again assuming all bonuses met, and we are left with 9.54 million in cap space. Not a bad amount to find a top pairing defenseman but unfortunately there is one more player internally that will be looking to take a big bought out of our free agency dollars.

Cam Talbot has one year on his deal and has the possibility of being the biggest value deal in the league should he perform as expected. If Cam comes to camp takes over the starter position and never looks back we could be getting one hell of a bargain this year. Next year not so much. Just because I am in an optimistic kind of mood today lets say that Talbot is everything that the stats folks say he is and a little more. Lets say he finishes the season top ten in adjusted save percentage and goals against average. What does that do to our goalie with the 1.45 million dollar price tag? Well since he is an unrestricted free agent next summer we know that it will not be cheap to get him locked up should his season go well. Would $5 million be a realistic number to ask for a top ten starter in the league? I don’t think so. Dubnyk re-signed with Minnesota to a 4.33 million dollar cap hit deal after his Phoenix-like performance last season, so should Talbot be able to have a year like Duby did last season or even close to it we are looking at a decent wage increase for sure. So we take the 1.45 off the 5 and are left with a 3.55 million dollar increase to Talbot’s salary. That would still leave the team with roughly six million in cap space to use come free agency and big game hunting.

Obviously what I wrote doesn’t take into account possible trades and other roster moves that can free up space but we are not in quite as rosy a position next summer as some seem to think. The big name free agent defensemen that are possible to be available next year are going to be to rich for our blood I fear. Mark Giordano, the Flames captain, is rumoured to be asking 9 million per year over a long-term deal so that is a dead issue for sure. No way in hell can Edmonton afford that kind of hit or term. We may need to move out some more salary next summer if we really want to acquire a top pairing defenseman. Who knows how the year will shake out though.

What do you think? Do we the cap space that we will need next summer to bring in a real number one defenseman or are we going to be waiting to see what Nurse, Klefbom, and Reinhart are going to be? Let me know in the comments or on twitter, @cooke_rob.

Thanks very much for reading and be sure to come back next time Beer Leaguers! And As always make sure to visit the best little Beer League T-Shirt shop on the great wide web for all your Beer League Heroes and 16-Bit NHL Superstars shirt needs.

Cheers!

Rob

Armchair GM, Edmonton Oilers, Merch, NHL, Rob Cooke

Examining the Oilers Core.

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I am a firm believer that for a team to be a consistent cup contender a team must have a core group of players that are kept together for as long as possible. That is a very easy statement to make without providing any additional information with it. A few questions that come up when talking about this subject are what is the core? How many players do you in include in the core? What positions make up the core? Who exactly are the core players for the Edmonton Oilers? And finally are all the pieces here?

The first question when we are examining the Oilers core is obviously what is the core? That question goes hand in hand with the question of how many players make up the core so I will answer both of those questions before we look at the Oilers group specifically. The core of a hockey team is the group of players that are most needed to be a successful NHL franchise year after year. Easy enough answer right? Well how many players does the core consist of? That is a tougher question because not all supporters of the core theory agree on how many players should be included and what positions they play. I have seen some suggest as little as five players make up the core while others, myself included think there should be a total of twelve players included.

The next question that needs to be answered is what positions does the core encompass. For me personally the positions that I include when I talk about a teams core are the top six forwards, the third line center, the top four defensemen, and the starting goalie. Simple enough right?  There are plenty of other possibilities when discussing positions to include so if your don’t line up with mine it isn’t that big of a concern. Next question will take a little longer to answer, Who are the Edmonton Oilers core players?

Well if we follow the guidelines I set out above as to who is included it is fairly easy to see what players we include and where we need to add. The top six forwards are nearly set now, the only question mark being the second line right wing. By all rights that should be where Nail Yakupov slots into the line-up but until his two-way play improves significantly he can’t be relied on to a six winger. The other five slots are a given right now. Connor McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will be one of the best top two center pairings in the league in the near future so we are set there. Taylor Hall is one of the premiere left-wingers in the NHL right now and Benoit Pouliot proved last year that he is capable of being a consistent top six player on the left side. Jordan Eberle is a rock-star on the right wing right now, being as he is the only consistent offensive threat on the right side until Yak develops a little more. The third line center is being filled currently by Anton Lander and depending on what coach McLellan decides to do with Leon Draisaitl could be his slot long-term. If Leon is moved to the wing excels we could really have three scoring lines that are an actual threat to burn teams at any time. The forward group is in pretty damn good shape if I do say so myself.

The defense is still a big question mark for this team and I am positive that we don’t have four viable top four options on this team right now. Andrej Sekera and Mark Fayne will be the top pairing without a doubt in my mind. They will face the toughest competition on a nightly basis and will see a lot of time on the penalty kill for both and the power-play for Sekera. The second pairing is where things get a little hazy. Oscar Klefbom is a legitimate second pairing defenseman right now, likely a number four but will get better still, but as far as I can see there is no one on the team that can have the same said of them. Justin Schultz isn’t a top four guy on any other team in the league. He should be getting third pairing minutes at evens and first power-play unit minutes. There are other options long-term but none should be counted on to fill the role that would be required. Both Darnell Nurse and Griffin Reinhart will eventually be solid top four defenders but are not there yet. Nurse especially has the potential to be the number one defender this team has so desperately been trying to find since the mass exodus following the glorious cup run in ’06. Still having three out of four already in the line-up with Fayne hopefully holding the spot for Darnell Nurse and Reinhart nearly ready to take on full-time NHL duties things look pretty good on the backend for the first time in a decade.

The starting goalie position looks to be filled for the foreseeable future. Cam Talbot looks like the goalie of the future for the Edmonton Oilers. He is a better than good bet to be a solid starting goalie for a long time in this league. Darcy McLeod, aka @woodguy, had some excellent posts about the goalie situation both prior to the draft and after. There were four pieces total that covered the situation with Talbot, the links for all of them are here, here, here, and finally here. All excellent articles to read, especially if you are still having concerns about how the whole Talbot situation will play out. He is a legit starting goalie, or very damn close to it.

We currently have ten out of the twelve players that we need to have a complete core. The other two should hopefully be here this year sometime. Either Schultz will actually start to play defense or one of the younger guys will take his minutes and run with them. Reinhart has significant skill with the puck and a howitzer from the point. If he works on his acceleration this summer he could be a possible option to take the minutes that Schultz currently will get. Up front this season is vital to the future of Nail Yakupov with the Edmonton Oilers. Should he fail to produce on a consistent basis the management may find that his brand of chaos on ice just isn’t worth what he provides offensively. If he isn’t significantly better than he was to start last season he will be moved at some point this year in favour of a bigger and stronger Leon Draisaitl. I’m not saying Yak is a bust or even that he will be but he has the potential to be a 35 plus goal scorer in the NHL for at least a decade if he can finally put it all together and find the net more often.

Smart money is on Yakupov figuring it out and putting together a season more akin to the second half of last season than the first half. I sincerely hope the kid does put it all together because for all of his chaos he really is delightful to watch play the game. His enthusiasm is inspiring and his love for the game is contagious. I look forward to the days where we get to see the exuberant cellies from years past and the giant smile on his face that gives everyone the warm feelies.

Here’s hoping I am right and that this core group remains together for a very long time. What say you Beer Leaguers? Do you have a different theory about the core? Different players included? Let me know what you think, either here or on twitter, @cooke_rob. Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the Beer League Heroes Shirt shop for all your BLH or 16-Bit Heroes shirt needs. Also stay tuned here for the launch of my own shirt design store, it will be coming very soon to a webpage near you!

 

Cheers

Rob

Armchair GM, Breaking News, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Prospects, Rob Cooke, Rumors

NHL expansion bids are in. How does it affect the Oilers?

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It was made official by the NHL that there was two official bids for expansion franchises filed yesterday. All paperwork along with a 10 million dollar deposit had to be received by the head office at the end of business yesterday. According to the official NHL press release this morning there was significant interest with 16 applications being given out be league. However, only two potential ownership groups managed to meet all the criteria in the short time allotted. This is the official release from the league this morning.

Is it just me or does this come across as kind of arrogant and condescending? Imagine that, people can’t pull magical arena deals out of their hats. Two weeks in my opinion was a farce to begin with. Had the time frame been doubled or more I think we would have seen more bids submitted. Seattle seemed to depend on an arena deal that couldn’t materialize in time so it didn’t happen. In case you didn’t read the press release or are still unsure after doing so, the two bids were submitted by Quebecor and Bill Foley. So that obviously means the return of the Quebec Nordiques and an as of yet to be named to team in Las Vegas. Both cities are well on their way to having their arenas built with Las Vegas already starting a season ticket drive to gauge interest. That drive was going exceptionally well with well over 10000 seats sold the last time that I had checked.

That is all well and good to know that there will be two more NHL franchises in the league hopefully for the 2017-18 season, but what does it mean for the Oilers? Well for starters it will require another league realignment. I can’t see the NHL adding Quebec to the eastern conference without a team coming to the west in addition to the Las Vegas franchise. It doesn’t make sense to have a 32-team league divided unevenly. Jonathon Willis wrote an interesting piece yesterday regarding realignment and he suggested 8 divisions with 4 teams in each. Here is a link to the full article. For our purposes here is what his potential realignment would look like.

WESTERN TEAMS
NORTH PACIFIC: Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and Winnipeg                                CANADA EAST: Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City
SOUTH CENTRAL: Arizona, St. Louis, Colorado, and Dallas
SOUTH PACIFIC: Los Angeles, San Jose, Anaheim, and Las Vegas

EASTERN TEAMS 
NORTH CENTRAL: Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota, and Columbus
NORTH ATLANTIC: Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington
UNITED STATES EAST: Boston, New Jersey, Islanders, and Rangers
SOUTH ATLANTIC: Tampa Bay, Carolina, Florida, and Nashville

While I really like the idea I don’t see the league moving to this format. Instead opting to go with four 8 team divisions. That would likely mean that the Las Vegas team would join the Pacific and Columbus would join the Central in the west. Quebec would possible join the Atlantic but that would mean that another team would be forced to move to the Metro division with Boston being the most likely in my opinion. So if that is the realignment that the league chooses it does add two more teams to the west, evening out the conferences and making the west just a little more competitive with the addition of the Blue Jackets.

The other way that the Edmonton franchise will be affected by the expansion process is through the inevitable expansion draft. Teams will only be allowed to protect a certain amount of players on their roster at the time and the rest will be up for the taking by either Quebec or Las Vegas. The NHL hasn’t set the rules for how many players at each position they will be able to protect so for my purposes I will go off of the rules that were used in the 2000 expansion.

There were two possibilities for how many players a team can protect. The first version allows a team to protect 1 goalie, 5 defensemen, and 9 forwards. The second would see a team select 2 goalies, 3 defenders, and 7 forwards. Under the requirements set out in the 2000 expansion draft there was no eligibility requirements for a team opting to protect only one masked man. If a team chose to protect two however, then said team had to ensure that each protected goalie had player in 10 games the previous season, with 31 minutes of ice time being needed to e considered a game played. If ten games were not played in the previous season the other eligibility criteria is 25 games over the two previous seasons. Next rule is that every team has to have one defenseman unprotected that played a minimum of 40 games the previous year or 70 total over the past two seasons. There is also the same eligibility requirements for the forwards with at least two needing to meet the same criteria as the defenseman.

If you area asking yourself why the game limits set on players that are being unprotected it is to ensure that any expansion franchise will have the opportunity to receive players that will have some semblance of NHL experience. Now I am not saying that Edmonton is going to leave Jordan Eberle unprotected just because he will meet the 40-game eligibility requirement. That is just ridiculous and all of Edmonton management would likely be strung up outside the new arena if that ever happens. People need to be rational, calm, and logical when trying to come up with a list of players to protect on the team. There was a discussion of the writers last night about this same thing and we all agreed that analytics will play a huge role for the two teams that will potentially be joining the league.

To me selecting the players that Edmonton will protect shouldn’t be overly difficult because we have our clear-cut core players and those that aren’t. If you are not a core player at this point you will likely be expendable in the upcoming expansion draft. I realize that the draft won’t happen for at least a year but more likely two, with it occurring sometime between the Stanley Cup finals and the 2017 entry draft, but for our purposes here today we will base our picks off of the current roster as it sits. So let’s get right to it and expel some reasonably useful NHL players and a whole lot of players that are not.

First off, if the draft were to happen today I would have a very hard time not selecting option A. That would be 1 goalie, 5 defenders, and 9 forwards, There is just too much talent on the team to opt for a second goalie, there by giving up two defenders and two forwards. If I had to make the selections for the team my list would look like this:

Goaltender(1): Cam Talbot

Defensemen(5): Andrej Sekera, Mark Fayne, Oscar Klefbom, Darnell Nurse, and Griffin Reinhart.

Forwards(9): Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Benoit Pouliot, Nail Yakupov, Leon Draisaitl, Anton Lander, Bogdan Yakimov, Greg Chase, and Matt Hendricks.

From my list you can tell the players that I value above all else. Thankfully there is no minimum amount of games played to allow for a player to be protected. Also with the  players left there are more than a couple of options for filling the league requirements of games played. On defense with Nikita Nikitin and Andrew Ference we have two players that played in excess of forty games last year. No one said they had to play well, just that they had to play. In the forwards group we have Teddy Purcell that has been a consistent player over his career and would be a good addition to a new franchise. Along with the Teddy Bear we have Lauri Korpikoski, Mark Letestu, and Rob Klinkhammer also unprotected that would fit under one of the two eligibility criteria.

We must not forget that just because certain players are unprotected doesn’t necessarily mean that the player will even be selected. I doubt there is much of a market for Nikitin and his outrageous salary. There would likely be about the same amount of interest or even a little less in an aging Andrew Ference with two years left and a full no-movement clause to boot. The forwards would garner more interest as all the players left available are either actual NHL players or are a reasonable facsimile thereof. Of the nine forwards that I chose to protect the only two that I can see a case being made for someone else on are Bogdan Yakimov and Greg Chase. The others are all key players on the roster, including Matt Hendricks. Hendy might not be a star player, a la Taylor Hall or Connor McDavid,but he plays an integral part of this team and his leadership skills can’t be discounted. Players like Draisaitl, Nurse, and Reinhart are big parts of the future of this franchise and they deserve to be treated as such. Some may say that they would rather keep Davidson or Schultz but to me Reinhart will be the better player in the long-term.

Anyone have any issues with the players I have selected? Have a completely different list? Let me know in the comments if you agree or disagree. Hit me up on Twitter too, @cooke_rob and we can talk some puck. Thanks for reading and remember to check out the as always excellent Beer League Heroes T-shirt Shop for all your T-shirt needs. The shirt shop is here, if you are interested in checking out the great designs that are currently offered by the website. Stay tuned for the launch of the official Cooke’s Shirt Shack in the very near future as well! It will be the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, like the coolest of the cool! Like , fer sure! Thanks for coming out Beer Leaguers!!!

AMENDMENT: I apologize to all the readers but I was mistaken in the rules the expansion draft. I missed the rules regarding younger players. First and second year professional players will not require protection as they are exempt from being selected. By this rule it would take McDavid, Draisaitl, Nurse, Reinhart, Yakimov, and Chase would be exempt from being selected.

With these stipulations I would obviously change my selections. No need to protect players that are exempt from being selected in the first place. Again I apologize for my error and appreciate those that pointed it out to me. Below are my new selections based on this new information.

Goalies(2): Cam Talbot and Ben Scrivens

Defense(3): Andrej Sekera, Mark Fayne, and Oscar Klefbom

Forwards(7): Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, Benoit Pouliot, Matt Hendricks, Anton Lander

I only chose to protect Scrivens because I didn’t feel there was 5 defensemen or 9 forwards that I would want to protect. I would have opted to keep Brossoit instead of Scrivens but he doesn’t meet the games played eligibility to be protected. Thanks again for reading and again I apologize for my error.  

Cheers

Rob

Armchair GM, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Rob Cooke, Rumors

WELCOME TO THE MAD HOUSE, an Oilers blog

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Well here we sit on Sunday morning and it is a real slow news day for the Edmonton Oilers. So slow in fact that I have decided to debut my new weekly series. Welcome to the madhouse will be a point-form style blog that will not only cover Oilers news but really anything that I feel like commenting at the time. So fair warning people, if you want to read an article solely about hockey this one may not be for you from time to time. Today you are in luck though because I have a lot going on inside the old hat rack that I want to touch on. So let’s get right to it, enter if you dare.

  • The NHL has agreed to try three-on-three overtime format this season and I have seen a lot of good things being written about it. I mean come on, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that by going to this new format we will some really fast hockey. Teams with a lot of speed up front will be looking to push the pace will the bigger stronger teams struggle to keep them to the outside. I for one am stoked to see the Oilers playing three-on-three as we have a bevy of speedy players up front and potentially on the back-end as well. Can you imagine Hall and McDavid flying down the ice with that much room to move? Like I said, the majority of feedback that I have seen is positive but one goalie has remarked that he thinks that it will be harder on the net-minders. Cory Schneider had this to say when discussing the new format. Not exactly a ringing endorsement but a scathing review either. Check out his comments at the end of the post about goalie skill levels and making nets larger to bring out more skill. Interesting hearing that coming from a goalie.

 

  • All Edmonton Oilers fans know there is a great big elephant in the room this morning. That beloved pachyderm is present courtesy of the second buy-out window granted to the franchise for filing the Schultz arbitration. I wrote a piece late last week discussing the merits and pitfalls of using said buy-out and I am still on record as being in favour of using it. If the space can be freed to sign Cody Franson or Christian Ehrhoff for 3 years I say do it. There is a lot of space coming available next summer with both Ben Scrivens and Teddy Purcell coming off the books next year so I say do it! Fortune favours the bold! Or at least that is what we are told, we have never seen the bold we were so falsely promised… The only key RFA’s next summer are Oscar Klefbom and Justin Schultz with Schultz being moved if Franson signs. We have no need of Schultz if we have a better version of the player here.

 

  • What would the addition of a player like Franson do to players like Nurse? Adding Franson pushes everyone but possibly Sekera and Fayne down the depth chart. The addition of a player of that caliber would mean that both Griffin Reinhart and Darnell Nurse start the season in Bakersfield and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Nurse has a grand total of six games as pro and Reinhart, while having a full season of AHL experience, still has only eight NHL games on his resume. Just because they are very highly touted prospects doesn’t mean they will be gifted roster spots like in years past. New management seems more than capable of separating the wheat from the chaff so to speak. I think that regardless of who the players are the seven or eight best will be on the opening night roster. Not just the most expensive…

 

  • Talking about Darnell Nurse, just how crazy good is this kid? He has the ability, size, mean streak, and speed to be the real number one defender that we so desperately need. Of course that is the best case scenario and even if it does come to fruition it won’t be for a few years yet as Darnell progresses as a player. At this point I think the worst case is a second pairing player but I just see too much skill and too many natural physical gifts to not be at least a top pairing guy.

 

  • Monday, besides being the end of the Oilers 48 hour buy-out window, is the deadline for official submitting an expansion bid. Originally it was thought that we would see bids coming from Las Vegas, Quebec City, and Seattle. It came to light Friday that the possible ownership group in Seattle would not be submitting a bid after arena issues were not able to be worked out in time. There is talk of second bid coming from the Seattle area but it is uncertain whether the league will be keen to be outside of the greater Seattle or if they will refuse the $500 million franchise fee that is expected from each new team. It does however seem all but a certainty that Quebecor media will be handing their bid in along with the $10 million deposit. And with Las Vegas proceeding with the building of a fantastic new arena complex it is a virtual guarantee that the prospective owners have all their forms filled out and a giant suitcase full of money to wheel into NHL headquarters tomorrow morning.

 

  • I was on Twitter last night and our very own Beer League Hero brought up the polarizing discussion of the Big E. Of course I mean Eric Lindros. One of the most physically dominant skilled players I have ever had the opportunity to watch. BLH asked if, and I am paraphrasing of course, we will ever see a player like Lindros again? It is a great topic for discussion as there was no one like him ever before he joined the league and hasn’t been anyone like him since. He has made many errors along the way. From his refusal to join the Nordiques to his off-ice issues that have been well documented. I am not going to condone his actions as there is no reason for what took place to ever happen but I am thinking that those items need to be separated when discussing him as a hockey player. If we are talking about what he is like as a person then by all means bring on the character attacks and prior misdeeds but in a discussion about him as a player shouldn’t revolve around what he did in a night club 20 plus years ago. Just my opinion.

 

  • Will the summer of insanity ever end for the Boston Bruins and general manager Don Sweeney? He traded one of the top up and coming defenseman in the entire league in Dougie Hamilton for next to nothing in return. He had a better offer, although marginally, from former Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli but had to add in an extra player on top in an attempt to stick it to our Chia pet. Then he moved power forward Milan Lucic to the Los Angeles Kings for promising young goalie Martin Jones and the 13th overall pick in the 2015 draft. The pick was used to select Jakub Zboril, a defender for the Saint Johns Sea Dogs of the QMJHL. I know nothing about this young fella so I won’t make any judgement as far as whether he is a good pick at that point of the draft. I do understand Boston adding defense at the draft though. Likely an attempt to find a replacement for Hamilton but that isn’t coming any time soon. Beleskey was an okay add for the team and was even kept below 4 million per which is well below what he was asking. Overall I don’t know that either of the two trades they made were any good. The Hamilton trade will take years to decide on but it is a clear win for Calgary right now. The Lucic trade was one I liked but personally I think the guy is over-rated to begin with, The point of all of this is that Boston subtracted one of the best defensemen they had and didn’t bring anyone that can be considered close to a replacement. Sweeney is on record as saying that his team may not be doing adding yet. With the expectation being a playoff berth next year they damn sure better not be done. This team is worse than they were prior to the NHL draft that is for sure.

 

  • The final thing that I want to touch on is the fabulous t-shirts that Beer League Heroes is currently selling through our store. There are some fantastic designs and let’s not forget the always stylish Beer League Heroes shirt! Get yours before  they are gone!!! Besides being a great deal they are also great at helping meet women! The conversations these beauties will inspire will be the stuff of legend! No but seriously they won’t help your game at all. If you had none before the shirt like me you still won’t have any after you wear it. But at least you will have a really snappy new shirt!

I have decided that I will end this weekly blog series every week with a question to pose to all you fantastic readers and I will post the best answers in the following weeks edition. Today my question to all of you is what should the entrance song be for the Edmonton Oilers this season? My answer is in the video below. Thanks for reading, leave me a comment and follow me on twitter, @cooke_rob. Have a great night!

 

Cheers

Rob