Category Archives: Prospects

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

How Will the Oilers Deal with the Seattle Expansion? PLUS Trade Rumors and Proposals

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This morning I was discussing a hypothetical trade with some of my followers on Twitter (@beerleagueheroe) and one person brought up that the Oilers will need to think about the returns they get this year and how they might pertain to the Seattle expansion draft. I thought it was an interesting thing to go over, so I want to do that briefly and then go over some trade rumors real and proposed by myself.

SEATTLE

We’ve been told that the expansion draft rules will be the same for the Seattle franchise as they were for Vegas. Below I’ve copied and pasted right from NHL.com said expansion rules.

Protected Lists
* Clubs will have two options for players they wish to protect in the Expansion Draft:

a) Seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender

b) Eight skaters (forwards/defensemen) and one goaltender

* All players who have currently effective and continuing “No Movement” clauses at the time of the Expansion Draft (and who to decline to waive such clauses) must be protected (and will be counted toward their club’s applicable protection limits).

* All first- and second-year professionals, as well as all unsigned draft choices, will be exempt from selection (and will not be counted toward their club’s applicable protection limits).

Player Exposure Requirements

* All Clubs must meet the following minimum requirements regarding players exposed for selection in the Expansion Draft:

i) One defenseman who is a) under contract in 2017-18 and b) played in 40 or more NHL games the prior season OR played in 70 or more NHL games in the prior two seasons.

ii) Two forwards who are a) under contract in 2017-18 and b) played in 40 or more NHL games the prior season OR played in 70 or more NHL games in the prior two seasons.

iii) One goaltender who is under contract in 2017-18 or will be a restricted free agent at the expiration of his current contract immediately prior to 2017-18. If the club elects to make a restricted free agent goaltender available in order to meet this requirement, that goaltender must have received his qualifying offer prior to the submission of the club’s protected list.

* Players with potential career-ending injuries who have missed more than the previous 60 consecutive games (or who otherwise have been confirmed to have a career-threatening injury) may not be used to satisfy a club’s player exposure requirements, unless approval is received from the NHL. Such players also may be deemed exempt from selection by the League.

POTENTIAL OILERS ROSTER IN 2020

LW C RW LD RD G
Lucic McDavid Pulju Nurse Larsson no
Caggiula Draisaitl Yamamoto Klefbom Sekera tendy
Khaira RNH Strome Russell Benning past ’19
(open) (open) (open Davidson

Red=NMC/NTC, Blue=RFA signing this yr, Green=Expansion exempt

Please let me know if I’ve left someone out!

I’m just assuming that all of, or most of, the RFAs will be re-signed up to at least 2020. But the Oilers will have to have at least 1 goalie to expose. So keep an eye on what happens with Cam Talbot in the next summer or two.

I didn’t include any farm kids because I’m not sure if any of them will get 40 games combined in the next two seasons to force them to become expansion eligible.

Zack Kassian’s deal runs out the summer of the proposed expansion draft, so he’d still technically be part of the roster and could be left unprotected like Derek Engelland was for Vegas.

So if we’re hypothesizing here with the two protection lists, what would yours look like?

  • A) Lucic, McDavid, Draisaitl, Puljujarvi, RNH, Khaira, Strome, Nurse, Sekera, Russell, Goalie A?
  • B) Lucic, McDavid, Draisaitl, Puljujarvi, Nurse, Larsson, Sekera, Russell, Goalie

Either way, the Oilers are kinda hooped, no?

In option A, they’re forced to expose one of Klefbom, Nurse, Larsson, or Benning. In option B, they’re forced to expose Puljujarvi or RNH on fwd and one of Nurse, Klefbom, Larsson, or Benning on D.

Now, will there be a lockout again and with said lockout compliance buyouts? Which player with an NMC would be the best to let go strategically? Lucic, Sekera, or Russell? And who gets dealt first, RNH or one of the young D (Larsson/Klefbom)?

**EDIT** The NTC/NMC thing is a bit tricky. I didn’t read up on it before. But here’s the gist. NTCs don’t have to be protected but NMCs do. So Lucic’s no-movement clause switches to a no-trade clause (player submits list) a year after the supposed Seattle expansion draft. The Oilers are stuck with him unless there’s a lockout w/compliance buyouts. BUT Russell+Sekera’s NMCs switch to modified NTCs the season before the Seattle expansion draft. Therefore, they can be exposed. I hope I got that right! Sorry for the confusion! Read more here.**

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TRADE RUMORS/PROPOSALS

This section and the above are not connected, think of them as separate blogs. I don’t want to confuse anybody into thinking I’m writing about expansion and then trade proposals that would hurt the Oilers expansion draft strategy. I’m just shootin’ the shit here.

I guess Max Domi is on the block. That’s really interesting to me because I feel like he’s a pretty decent player having a tough go in the desert right now. It’s not like an analytics-leaning GM to deal a young player like this unless of course, it’s been suggested to him by an agent.

Max Domi is in the final year of his entry-level contract and will be an RFA this summer.

He has been in pretty sharp decline since his first season though.

  • 2014/15 – 54pts (81 gp + 18 goals)
  • 2015/16 – 38pts (59 gp +9 goals)
  • 2017/18 – 22pts (52 gp +3 goals) to date.

Domi and McDavid are pretty good buddies. Tie’s kid can skate and shoot and he’s as fearless as they come. Top that off with his willingness to correct the other team’s behaviour with his fists and I think we’ve got the kind of player who would thrive in Edmonton.

I wonder what the Coyotes are looking for here? Would they accept Ryan Strome and one of the Oilers’ D prospects not yet in Bakersfield? I know the narrative is a tad Hollywood but I’m thinking Jujhar Khaira is a better fit for 3C than Strome for the Oilers and the Elder Strome would slide right into Max’s 3C role in Arizona seamlessly. He’d also be one of the older forwards on the Coyotes upon arrival as well.

At the beginning of this blog I talked about a trade proposal I sent out on Twitter that got the conversation about expansion started. Here it is:

What if the Oilers had two offers on Patrick Maroon,

  • From Toronto: Josh Leivo + Nikita Soshnikov (Both RFAs this summer)
  • From St.Louis: Jordan Kyrou

Which one would YOU pick or would you hold off for something better?

So as it pertains to the expansion draft, maybe you take the World Junior and OHL scoring standout Jordan Kyrou since he’d be exempt or do you take the duo from Toronto because they offer skilled depth and the Oilers HAVE to make a better run for the playoffs next year and not even think about the Seattle expansion draft…

Tough call…

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

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Armchair GM, Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Prospects

The Edmonton Oilers and the Top Ten NHL Draft Prospects for 2018

First off I want to thank all of those on Twitter who I’ve had some pretty heated debates for being cool and stating their opinions. It’s been fun. I’d also like to thank the Oilers for going 5/5 on the PK versus the Flames and also for being 4-1 in their last 5 games. I did wonder aloud what would happen of the Oilers won three and lost one repeatedly until the end of the year if that would be enough to at least challenge for a wild card spot? Would it be enough to save the jobs of Peter Chiarelli and Todd McLellan?

What a game eh? Crikey I thought it was over after the 1st period AGAIN! But man, from the 2nd period until the shootout, THAT was an entertaining game. Brandon Davidson, right? You totally forgot Adam Larsson was out, didn’t you? Connor shit-talking the refs was outstanding! Ryan Strome’s game was fantabulous! It’s the kind of game you want to see every night, right? Do you think that a game like that is enough to make up for the Buffalo game?

I want to get into this post now and I’ll disclose this right off of the bat, I got the idea from an article I read at the Athletic. I don’t think it’s plagiarism because I’m certainly not ripping off the post word-for-word, but I am using the same premise.

Oh, if you haven’t signed up for a subscription to The Athletic, you should.

It’s a wicked offer that includes a free 7-day trial so you can try The Athletic on for size free and see if the in-depth, ad-free coverage on the site is to your standards. If you’re not feeling it and its worth of $4.49/month, shut ‘er down anytime during the trial before getting charged.

Trust me, it’s a good deal and the content isn’t just nerdy stats stuff. There are lots of opinion pieces and interviews with players/coaches/GMs, rumor blogs from team insiders like Pierre LeBrun, prospect coverage from the draft guru himself Corey Pronman, DETAILED analysis and breakdowns of systems and plays from Tyler Dellow and Justin Bourne, and much more.

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ON TO MY POST!

I have ten prospects from the upcoming draft that I’m going to be writing about and I get my rankings from MyNHLDraft.com. I love that site because it gives us a consolidated ranking from all the other rankings out there and it simply makes everything easier for a post like this.

Here are the candidates:

  1. Rasmus Dahlin – (LHD) 6’2″ 181lbs – Frolunda (SHL)

    What’s his deal? THE best defensive prospect to come along in a VERY long time. Everything is off of the charts with this guy AND he’s still growing. Could you imagine a defenseman that skates like Erik Karlsson, hits like Victor Hedman, and has the demeanor/hockey IQ of Niklas Lidstrom? Personally, I think he’s the next coming of Borje Salming.

    How would he help the Oilers? “Dahlin to McDavid to Draisaitl, SCORE! Another goal for the Oilers league-leading powerplay!”

    That’s one way he’d help the Oilers.

    The Oilers would finally have a threat from the blueline. They’ve spent countless seasons trying to draft/trade/sign for one without success on a Dahlin-like level. Even at 17, he’s cool as a cucumber out there and Edmonton could use that sort of calmness on the back-end. They would have to bear with the kid though because he gambles sometimes and it doesn’t pay off but if the Oilers fan base could hold back from getting all over one of their players for once, he’d become an all-time great for them. 

  2. Andrei Svechnikov – (RW) 6’1″ 180lbs – Barrie (OHL)

    What’s his deal? The younger Svechnikov (older brother is in the DET org.) is one of the best skaters in the draft. Pure skilled sniper and he’s not afraid to go to the blue paint to get his goals. Has been compared to Tarasenko and Hossa. He’s tearing apart the OHL at the moment with 19 goals in 24 games.

    How would he help the Oilers? Those that are crying for the Oilers to add skill on the wing would love this guy. He oozes confidence on the ice and brings it every night. He’s got a frame on him that wouldn’t make it difficult for him to compete in the NHL as an 18 year old. He’d definitely be helpful on the PP but only if the coaching staff saw fit to allow him to contribute, right?

    Now you have to ask yourself as an Oilers fan, do you want another baby on the wings? Do you think with the poor history of successful Russian hockey players in Edmonton, that he’d be the right pick?

  3. Brady Tkachuk – (LW) – 6’2″ 194lbs – Boston U (NCAA)

    What’s his deal? Best power forward in the draft. He has soft silky mitts and a beauty shot to go with it. He’s very physical, more so than his brother, and he’s also much more irritating than his brother. Tkachuk stood out in a very good way at the World Juniors.

    How would he help the Oilers? Ratings for all of the Battle of Alberta games would shoot up. That’s one. He’s basically the new Corey Perry but a better skater. He’d draw a ton of penalties because he’s an annoying prick on the ice and knows how to get under the opposition’s skin. He’ll actually hit and physically, he’s ready to play in the NHL.

  4. Adam Boqvist – (RHD) – 5’10” 168lbs – Almtuna (SWE)

    What’s his deal? Erik Karlsson mini. Or maybe like Erik Brannstrom, who Vegas drafted last year. He can shimmy and shake and is the purest offensive dman in the draft I believe. Great shot, excellent passing and puck handling. He’s prone to getting caught out though because he takes a lot of risks. He’s not big but there’s a sort of revolution going on with small dmen coming into the league and Boqvist should benefit from it.

    How would he help the Oilers? It would take a year or two before he could make a real impact with the roster but of course having the kind of offensive hammer from the blueline in the Oilers toolbox would pay outstanding dividends on the PP and the Oilers transition game needs a lot of help right now. This is an aspect of the game, once acclimatized to the NA ice/game, Boqvist would excel at.

  5. Filip Zadina – (RW) – 6’0″ 198lbs – Halifax (QMJHL)

    What’s his deal? 27 goals in 38 games in Halifax is his deal and how about that World Juniors performance?! He shoots and he scores. It’s that simple. Give him the puck if you want a goal. Craig Button says he’s the best goal-scorer in this draft and we’ve actually been hearing about him since he was 14.

    How would he help the Oilers? Zadina is probably a better goal scorer than Svechnikov but doesn’t bring as much on the other side of the puck that the Russian will eventually bring. So if you’re looking for a Claude Giroux type, I reckon Zadina is your man. Gets points wherever he goes too.

  6. Quinn Hughes – (LHD) – 5’9″ 168lbs – Michigan (NCAA)

    What’s his deal? Red rover red rover we call Quinn Hughes over. Listen, this kid can flat out skate. One of the best end-to-end skaters I’ve ever seen probably. Very Coffey-like. It’s so good it masks how small he is but like I said above, there’s a size revolution going on in the NHL now. Smaller dmen are going to thrive in this no-hit NHL that’s being promoted. I think his on ice vision is quite high-end and his shot/pass are above average.

    How would he help the Oilers? Transitioning the puck. Simple. When the opposition is tasked with finding a way to stop one of McDavid, Puljuarvi, Draisaitl, or Hughes coming at them, they’re going to trip all over themselves.

  7. Oliver Wahlstrom – (C) – 6’0″ 195lbs – USNDTP

    What’s his deal? Shootah! Wahlstrom is a shoot-first ask questions later type of player. Might not be the best goal scorer but could be the best shooter. 27 goals in 35 games for the USNTDP U-18 squad is massive! He’s slated to attend Harvard next season.

    How would he help the Oilers? Lots of ppl clamoring for the Oilers to pick up a Hoffman or a Pacioretty, right? Well Wahlstrom would be able to take that mantle. He’s the kind of player that would thrive on a line with a centre who could dictate the play/hog the puck a bit and allow him to get open for a shot. I’m sure McDavid and Draisaitl fall under that category, no?

  8. Evan Bouchard – (RHD) – 6’2″ 181lbs – London (OHL)

    What’s his deal? Great poise. High hockey IQ. excellent passer. HUGE cannon. He’s also a right-shot which is very valuable these days. Look, the London knights basically traded away their best dmen this year (or lost them to the NHL) and asked Bouchard, a 17 year old, to take over. And that he has. He’s well over a point-per-game (58pts in 46gp) and he’s rising up the draft charts like a friggin’ rocket.

    How would he help the Oilers? The big right-handed shot is one that the Oilers have been lacking for some time. I love the poise too. It’d probably take the same amount of time for Bouchard to develop as it did Nurse but if you were patient enough, the payoff could be ridiculous! I do wonder if we’re looking at a Jake Muzzin-type of dman in Evan Bouchard?

  9. Isac Lundestrom – (C) – 6’0″ 185lbs – Lulea (SWE)

    What’s his deal? Lundestrom is fast, gritty, has very skilled stickhandling abilities. He has a good handle on when and when not to move the puck.  I asked a scout based in Sweden about him and he said that Lundestrom might not be a star in the NHL but he’ll be a very good hockey player whose coach and fans will really love.

    How would he help the Oilers? From what I can gather, if all things turn out, Lundestrom will be a very good 2-way centreman. Now with McDavid, Draisaitl, and RNH currently taking up the top three, I imagine that we’re looking at an Elias Lindholm kind of player or to a much lesser extent, Henrik Zetterberg. Tenacious but skilled. I think that kind of player would benefit the middle-6 quite a bit. I think that a player like Lundestrom could help on the PK eventually.

  10. Noah Dobson – (RHD) – 6’3″ 183lbs – Acadie-Bathurst (QMJHL)

    What’s his deal? Here’s another dman who’s rocketing up the draft charts. Dobson is a BIG boy and still growing, right? I think he’s looking a bit like Colton Parayko right now. But boy oh boy can this kid shoot the puck. Not only that but he can skate with the puck very well. Sam Cosentino said that offensively, the sky is the limit for Dobson and for a right-handed dman, that’s great to hear.

    How would he help the Oilers? Evan Bouchard is the better dman all round but I’d argue that perhaps Dobson’s shot is better and maybe he’ll have a bit more success on the PP than Bouchard. I mean the Oilers prospect depth on D is pretty rude as it is but as we’ve seen in Anaheim, you can never have enough dmen coming up through the pipelines.

So what do you think? If the Oilers do happen to find themselves drafting in the 1-10 range, are there any players you’d stay away from? Are there any players, aside from Dahlin, that you’d be hell-bent on trading up for?
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Armchair GM, Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, NHL Entry Draft, Prospects, Rumors, Trades

MAJOR Changes Ahead for the Oilers?

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I received a message from one of my sources a couple days ago telling me that the Oilers will be going with a different head coach and GM in 2018/19. Whatever power struggle is going on between McLellan and Chiarelli has come to a head and Nicholson/Gretzky have had enough.

So those of you that have criticized the Oilers in the past for not doing an “exhaustive search” can rest easy because they’ve been talking to potential candidates for over a month now.

Now you can take that info to the bank or you can laugh it off. No skin off my back. I just share what I’ve been passed along BUT keep in mind anything can happen between now and this summer including the Oilers going on a ridiculous run that would save the jobs of everyone involved.

First off, I’m not part of the fanbase who believe the Oilers should let either the coach or the GM go but I do think it’s inevitable that one of them is axed this summer.

If I had to pick a reason though for each of Chiarelli and McLellan to be let go, they’d be the following:

  • Chiarelli – His inability to make changes to the coaching staff this season has been staggering. I know he’s loyal to his head coaches but the special teams this season has murdered the Oilers in the standings. You can argue all you want about leaving the team shorthanded but the Oilers have beat really good teams this year with this roster.
  • McLellan: We come back to special teams. They’ve been atrocious. His selective stubbornness with roster selections and line combos baffles me to this day. If the reports of his staff not changing anything up at the practices are true, then he’s lost the plot and doesn’t have the creativity to work with this group.

That rant eh? WOW! Well done Lowetide! Make sure you subscribe to our channel folks! There’s lots of good content from prospect vids to oilers compilations to radio hits like the one above.

With that said, who do you think would make a good coach for the Oilers and likewise, who’d be a hire at the GM’s position that you’d support. Here are a few candidates I thought of:

  • Head Coach: Dave Tippet, Darryl Sutter, Joel Quenneville, Ken Hitchcock, Derek Laxdal, Rocky Thompson, Sheldon Keefe, and Todd Nelson.

Tippet did wonders with not very much in Arizona for many years. Sutter turned the Kings into Cup contenders AND winners but is his style of hockey conducive to winning in today’s NHL? I don’t think you can argue with the credentials that multiple Stanley Cup-winning coach Joel Quenneville would bring to the table IF Chicago decides to move in a different direction next season.

OR should the Oilers go shopping in the AHL? Laxdal (Former Edmonton Oil Kings head coach who won 2 WHL championships with the Oilers current director of player personnel, Bob Greene) and Keefe’s teams are at the top of their divisions in the AHL. Rocky Thompson seems like the new Dallas Eakins, and Todd Nelson had a marginally successful experience when he worked in the Oilers’ organization previously.

Would hiring a Laxdal, Thompson, or Nelson be too nepotistic though?

Or maybe Paul Coffey is the guy coming into run the show? That’s what Glenn Healy said recently…

  • GM: Julien Brisbois, Paul Fenton, Dean Lombardi, Bill Guerin, Ken Holland, Keith Gretzky

Brisbois is surely being courted by the Montreal Canadiens and Fenton will be GM-ing with one of the teams who haven’t offered their current GM a new deal for next season. Please forgive me but I can’t seem to find the current GMs that are going into next season without a contract though. I want to say Vancouver and Detroit are two of them.

I’ve tossed Dean Lombardi’s name out there on Twitter but it seems a lot of people would be against that because of the loyalty-contracts he handed out to guys like Mike Richards and Marian Gaborik. He’s a champ though but would the Oilers just be following the same recipe used to hire the current regime if they hired Lombardi and Sutter?

Another name that has been tossed out is Bill Guerin but he’s a former Oiler… So maybe cross his name off of the list despite him running the show for Pittsburgh’s farm team which is currently in 2nd place in its division and Guerin actually being considered for the GM’s position in Buffalo. He’s actually got a very well known reputation for being an extremely hard worker and for having an outstanding eye for talent. But he’s an old Oiler, so no thanks, right?

Then there’s Ken Holland. He hasn’t had much to write home about in recent years but he IS the guy that built those great Detroit Red Wings teams in the late 90s and well into the 2000s. Lots of experience and connections with Holland. He DID train Steve Yzerman afterall…

It’s such a hard decision, right?

I’m not sure if the next coach should be one that coddles the players though. I wouldn’t mind one that placed an emphasis on defense either. I reckon Ken Hitchcock could walk in and turn these boys around in record time though.

As for GM, I like either Ken Holland or Bill Guerin. I believe a Holland/Hitchcock duo would work well together given their history with Hockey Canada. OR perhaps a Guerin/Quenneville duo?

What are your thoughts?

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How About Some Coffey with Your Pizza Party? Plus a Ridiculous Oilers/Sens/Golden Knights “Rumor”

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Lordy lordy, what a return from the bye week it has been! The Oilers were on fire last night and had a great showing on Hockey Day in Canada! I’ll be honest, I was a bit worried that they’d come out of that week off with more rust than my first car! Luckily Connor was there to reassure me that the Oilers had shaken off that rust.

Jesse Puljujarvi folks! I think he was probably the last player I figured would dominate that game but boy was he a beast out there! I was on the Oilers Live Podcast after the game and we were talking about how the Oilers might fill the hole on McDavid’s left wing after they trade Pat Maroon (nice 2 goals by the way) and my thoughts were if that 2nd line of Lucic, Draisaitl, and Puljujarvi could dominate like that on a nightly basis, I’d have ZERO qualms with McLellan putting Nuge on Connor’s wing, as RNH seems to be a MUCH BETTER shooter than playmaker. I think the 3rd line is really starting to find itself and what I mean by that is Khaira and Strome are finding chemistry as I’ve been impressed with their performances recently.

Darnell Nurse on the PP was really a breath of fresh air. I’ve gotten a bit sick of seeing Klefbom and Benning out there, to be honest. The thing with Darnell is that I’m not sure we’ll find his maximum effectiveness coming from his shot. I think it’ll come from his skating and rushing. Sean from theoilknight.ca was also on the podcast with me had mentioned he’d watched a lot of Nurse in the OHL when Nurse played for Sault Ste. Marie and that the dman had one helluva one-timer. I think last night wasn’t enough for me to make a definitive judgement on Nurse as the PP QB but I like what I saw enough that I HAVE to see more!

Can we get some Slepyshev in the next game please? Mike Cammalleri had a shocking game vs. Vancouver last night. That 5-bell special he gifted Brock Boeser in the 1st period was mad! As if that’s the guy you want barreling down on Talbot. He had some other poor plays later in the game too. It simply wasn’t his night.

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Let’s move on to the Paul Coffey hiring.

I don’t feel like this is a bad hire and I’m all for having more smart guys in the room whether they’re part of the old boys club or not. Look, I get that there’s a faction of the fanbase who get really pissed off when the Oilers hire someone from their glory days but there aren’t a lot of players in the history of the NHL that can speak to the kind of ups and downs that young players deal with like the OBC. If they can offer something that isn’t being offered within the team now, how is it going to hurt?

He doesn’t have the professional resume! Is what the naysayers will shout from their huts. And they’re not wrong either but it doesn’t matter. He’ll be with the team until they see fit to give him an ambassador tag. I mean MacTavish’s contract has run out but he’s still with the organization. What’s Messier doing these days? I just reckon these boys are on the year-to-year deals until someone says they’re not.

I do feel like the hire wasn’t Chiarelli’s doing though. It was Gretzky’s move and that says to me that there’s a disconnect between the brass up top and the GM. Which you can add to the disconnect between the GM and the coach and lastly, the special teams coaches and the players.

It tells me that perhaps Mr.Coffey is joining to find out what the hell the issue is and report back to Gretzky and Bob Nicholson.

You might be asking yourself why that is and I’m of the belief that the men above wanted Chiarelli to let one of the assistant coaches go and when Chiarelli took that request to McLellan, the head coach refused to sign off on it.

So in the end, loyalty, not a poor performance on the coaches’ or GM’s part, might see them out on their butts this summer. I mean we know that Chiarelli will stick with his head coach through thick and thin as he did with Claude Julien in Boston. And I’m not opposed to that. This organization has been through WAY too much turnover in the last 10 years, right?

If you look at Winnipeg and how their ownership has stuck with their GM and coach through all of these lean years, it’s paid off. As opposed to Buffalo for example, where they cleaned house AGAIN this past summer and it’s not paying off for them at all. What do you do?

Hire Paul Coffey in a skills coach role, right?

How different is this title to that of say, Ryan Smyth’s?

We’re being told that Coffey will help the young dmen throughout the Oilers organization, be that players that are in junior still, the AHL, or the NHL.

Lowetide is going to have something up later on detailing Coffey’s addition over at the Athletic.

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If it were me, I’d have axed those asst. coaches long ago, contacted Darryl Sutter and Dan Bylsma to see if they’d be interested in forming a sort of MEGA-Coaching personnel for the rest of the year and re-evaluated this summer.

I have heard Dean Lombardi’s name out there in connection to the Oilers too though… So we’ll see.

THE RUMOR

First off, I’ll tell you that I get all sorts of messages in my DMs from people claiming to be on the inside. Some are outright ridiculous and some are thought-provoking but I wanted to share this one with you to let you pick it apart.

Apparently, Vegas wants Erik Karlsson and Karlsson wants Vegas but Ottawa wants a player out of Edmonton that the Oilers won’t include in a deal to get Hoffman and the Sens don’t want to take a whole lot of money back in ANY deal. So Vegas is offering William Karlsson (yeah, the 20 goal guy) and Nate Schmidt to Edmonton for “that player” so they can package him with some other assets to acquire Karlsson from Ottawa. 

Where it falls apart for me is Vegas dealing its no.1 centre and a LH’d dman to Edmonton… Regardless if Karlsson is a UFA, he’s the teams best pivot and why in the hell would Edmonton want another leftie on D?

You gotta wonder sometimes…

What do you think? Leave your comments below!

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Armchair GM, Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, NHL Entry Draft, Prospects, Rumors, Trades

Oilers Trade Landscape to Change with Injury to Nugent-Hopkins?

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Poor Nugey, out with a fractured sternum, which is ridiculous by the way. The Oilers, and more importantly Todd McLellan, are now forced to go with McDavid and Draisaitl down the middle. Iiro Pakarinen is back up from his destruction of the AHL to hopefully help on the PK (at home).

FYI: Lowetide has a similar post up at the Athletic. If you’re not signed up, do so through my link here and I’ll get a tidy little gift certificate for $10 from Amazon and a hardy handshake from me if we ever meet. It includes a free 7-day trial so you can try The Athletic on for size free and see if they enjoy the in-depth, ad-free coverage on the site. If you don’t feel it’s worth the $4.49/month, cancel anytime during the trial before getting charged.

I just want to answer the question presented in the title quickly and if you’d like to read on to get a more detailed answer (albeit a bit unorganized), you can continue. It’s game day and I’d rather not waste TOO much of your time, that’s what we have Oilers Twitter for 🙂

Answer: RNH’s injury will not change the Oilers trade landscape. If there’s a team that wants him and is willing to pay, he’ll be traded. IF not, he’ll be an Oiler after the deadline and most likely into next season. This isn’t a playoff team today but ask me in a month and we might have a different answer because if there’s any team in the NHL that is capable of winning 85% of their remaining games, it’s this Oilers squad.

So, we’re about to see what the team might look like sans RNH but with Leon and Connor running their own shows. If I’m not mistaken I believe the latest line combos have Strome as the 3rd line pivot and Letestu as the 4C. I would prefer Khaira to be the 3C myself but I believe it was Woodguy who said that Strome should actually move up with Caggiula to play with McDavid on Lowetide’s show this week thus moving Puljujarvi and Lucic to Draisaitl’s line and Maroon down to RNH’s. That way the unicorns are still present but of course, that was before the extent of the RNH injury was known.

Speaking of Woodguy, I guess he’s not a fan of developing players…

Isn’t that a line of bullshit if you’d ever read one.

I’ve got time for McLeod but this is where the analytics community loses its traction with folks who are on the fence. Could you imagine if there was no Twitter to be a dick on?

Listen, if Nurse is already leading the team in scoring from the blueline, it’s obvious some offence is coming and whether that’s now or in 2 years, he’s going to get paid. Not giving him the reps to become a better dman would be an egregious error on management’s and/or the coach’s parts. This isn’t a 7 game “heater”, it’s a 46 game progression. Not only that but just because a player hasn’t played on the PP in his previous 3 years doesn’t mean he can’t do it now or he’s not equipped to do it. He doesn’t have to score goals to be an effective piece of the powerplay either as you’ll see below.

Moving on…

These are the lines as of practise yesterday:

The PP units have been altered slightly as well.

Now with Nuge out 5-6 weeks, how is that going to change what direction the Oilers go on the trade market and what kind of effect will his absence have on the Oilers’ roster?

Well, we can already see that the special teams units have been affected. The 2nd unit has no true playmaker but maybe that’s not such a huge deal. I put it out on Twitter and Kurt Leavins suggested that McLellan might just load up one unit and run that group for 1:30 of the 2-minute man-advantage. I remember back in the early 90s that the Pittsburgh Penguins would run Mario Lemieux’s unit for nearly the entire PP and it was so deadly that they were rarely out there for more that 1:30. The downside to this tactic might be having to run your bottom 6ers immediately after the PP and risk a bad matchup vs. the other team’s better players.

This season Ryan Nugent-Hopkins took over Jordan Eberle’s scoring, so we may very well get hit there too. That being said, Nuge only had two goals in the last month, so I might be wrong there.

The Oilers PK could take a hit as well. Nugent-Hopkins has been a mainstay on the kill since he joined the team and I find him to be a good penalty-killer. Will the road PK continue to be top-5 in the NHL with RNH on the IR?

On the other end of the spectrum here is an opportunity. When one player goes down with an injury, it opens up the door for another player to take advantage of the situation. I believe that most fans are thinking that person will be Ryan Strome. I think it will be Jujhar Khaira. But it’s entirely possible that it’ll be both.

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Bumping Strome up to the 1st unit PP might be exactly what he needs to kick start some production out of the guy and I really love Khaira on the PK. I think he’s just as good of a player as Benoit Pouliot in that role.

Where do the Oilers go from here with the trade deadline approaching fast?

I am of the belief there are two ways they can go:

  • Go for it! – Basically, try and do the improbable and make the playoffs. Make trades that’ll better the club more than weaken it.
  • FIRE SALE! – Concede the season and make plans for the summer and next season.

There’s actually a third way to go and that’s simply staying status quo.

There’s a belief that the Oilers really need that right-handed PP guy who can improve the Oilers’ transition game but if we look at some of the teams who have top PPs we might be tempted to believe that a top RH’d defenseman isn’t what the team needs for its PP but more for its transitions.

2017/18 Top PP Teams (PP%/goals):

  1. Pittsburgh (26.9%/46) – 3 goals from dmen (Letang has 2, Oleksiak has 1)
  2. Winnipeg (25.5%/42) – 4 goals from dmen (Myers has 3, Byfuglien has 1)
  3. Tampa Bay (24.4%/39) – 3 goals from dmen (Sergachev has 2, Hedman has 1)
  4. Nashville (23.6%/38) – 12 goals from dmen (Josi has 5, Ekholm has 4, Subban has 3)
  5. San Jose (22.1%/34)- 7 goals from dmen (Burns has 4, Heed has 2, Vlasic has 1)

Edmonton’s PP is 27th in the NHL and running at a blistering 15.4% and they’ve only scored 19 times with the man advantage with Oscar Klefbom scoring the only tally from the point on said PP.

Kind of a long way of saying that maybe the Oilers don’t need to pay a premium price for an effective RH’d defenseman who can run the PP. Maybe if they’re going to make a big move using a Nugent-Hopkins or a Klefbom, that they go for an elite RH’d 2-way defender who is an upgrade on the current personnel offensively.

But I digress (sort of). Despite Nugent-Hopkins being hurt, there’d still be teams interested in him, like the Montreal Canadiens, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Arizona Coyotes, and the Carolina Hurricanes.

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A wild card might be the Colorado Avalanche though. Now that they’ve got Samuel Girard running their PP due to Tyson Barrie’s injury, is there an opportunity there for the Avs to send Barrie to Edmonton for RNH to upgrade their 2C position from Carl Soderberg?

The Boston Bruins are looking to add a LH’d dman apparently and if it weren’t for the strained relationship between Chiarelli and the Bruins brass, I’d think there would be a real chance at Chiarelli being able to strike a deal there.

Those would be summer moves though.

Realistically, the UFAs are gonzo. I’m not sure if Slepyshev will find a new home next month or head back to Russia this summer. So what we’ll be looking at is Chiarelli thinning out the wings even more so and replacing those players with temporary solutions with an eye to the summer where he’ll (if he’s around) sort out the flanks then.

Does that mean Ty Rattie and Brad Malone are coming up from Bakersfield? Does it mean we’ll finally see Slepyshev (if he survives the deadline and McLellan) up in a top-6 role? If those players were successful in their short stints, would you sit on them and look for them to continue their performances into 2017/18 or would you try to deal them or simply say thanks for helping out and let them walk?

If Chiarelli and his team decide to take a mulligan this year I’d be very excited to see who he brings in but concerned for the compete level of the team for the rest of the campaign. It’s been a bad luck year which keeps getting compounded with injuries like the one to RNH.

Would you be okay if he moved out some of the youthful players who are RFAs this summer like Drake Caggiula or Matt Benning in return for some older players who have term left on their deals? Maybe you trade both for Andrew Shaw or simply one of them for Charles Hudon (sniper with a poor sh%).

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