Category Archives: Rob Cooke

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

 

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

Edmonton Oilers to use buy-out window?

 

What to do? What to do? Will the Edmonton Oilers use the buy-out window presented to them?The twittersphere is exploding with opinions on what Peter Chiarelli will do this weekend. Is he going to buy out Nikita Nikitin, captain Andrew Ference, or Teddy Purcell? There are arguments to be made both for and against using the buy-out option on any of these three players. I had seen Ben Scrivens mentioned as well but that option is easy to dismiss. His 2.3 million dollar cap hit is below the minimum amount required for buy-out.

I read a tremendous piece this morning from Jonathon Willis about using the buy-out and he is totally in favour of doing it. He was then on the OilersNow broadcast with Bob Stauffer, and discussed the idea further among a lot of other things. Jonathon is a very smart man and his reasoning is solid. If you haven’t you really should, here is his article. I won’t spoil the fun of reading by talking about his piece too much but he does make a solid argument for proceeding.

The only real valid argument for keeping either Ference or Nikitin is that this spreads out the cap hit and keeps them on the book for longer. Obviously the first choice of the franchise would have to be trading the pair of them but that would involve in retaining half of Nikitin’s cap hit so would only save us 2.25 million. The big issue with trading Andrew Ference is his no-trade clause. He has the ability to block any move other than the buy-out.

I would imagine that you have all noticed that I didn’t discuss Teddy Purcell when discussing the argument to keep and that is because unlike the first two Purcell can still be a useful player in the top 9. He isn’t fast by any stretch and can be beaten one on one with speed, but he can still contribute offensively and provides a calm veteran presence to a very young team. He is expensive at 4.5 million but is in the final year of his contract. Unless Chiarelli and McLellan are absolutely sure that Leon Draisaitl  is a better option I think Purcell will finish out the contract as an Oiler.

That leaves us with only the two defenders to look at then. I don’t pretend to know the collective bargaining agreement as it is written and will turn to either the above mentioned Jonathon Willis or Speeds as he calls himself on Twitter, @hockeysymposium in case you want to give him a follow. Both are fairly well versed on the CBA and generally are willing to answer questions if needed. According to the CBA Nikitin and Ference will have different parameters in their buy-out situation. Nikitin is a straight forward two-thirds of his salary over the twice the term. So that would translate to a 1.5 million dollar cap-hit over the next two years. Ference, due to age, will be a little different. His breakdown would be over twice the term still but the dollars break down differently than in a younger player. From what I read on it, and don’t quote me, for Andy it would be .67 million this season and then 1.67 million for the next three years.

To me the first choice would be Nikitin. While he is likelier to rebound from last season due to age it comes down to length of term for me. If I am the general manager I don’t want the player that is bought out to be on the books in three or four years. In the third year of the Ference option we would have four key restricted free-agents that could all possibly be looking at raises of decent to high amounts. Nail Yakupov, Leon Draisaitl, Griffin Reinhart, and Anton lander will need to be re-signed at that point and will eat a decent amount of cap space to be sure. The more space available at that point the better the chance that we keep our core young players together for longer. We want to emulate the Chicago franchise in theory. We want to become contenders and stay  there for an extended period of time. To do that we will need these players signed.

This is where the argument against using the buy-out would come in to play though. Even if they do decide to use it that will leave 1.5 million dollars on the Oilers cap-hit if Nikitin is the choice which he more than likely is. Not a ton of money but we do need to keep in mind that Schultz and Klefbom will be both be looking for another deal. Oscar will be looking at a substantial raise should his progression continue as it has to this point. Justin Shultz is a story for another time, his future with the franchise is very much in doubt and I would not be at all surprised if he is moved out at some point over the next year. The decision will likely come down to what the owner and management have for expectations this season. If playoffs are expected then I think they move Nikitin prior to Monday afternoon. Not going to guess if they will trade or buy him out but if they want to be in the second season they need to clear cap space and a roster spot for a better player. If they feel they are still a year away from being able to hang with the big bad teams in the Western conference they will likely retain both players and let their contracts expire to have maximum cap space next summer. One way or another we will have our answer by this time Monday.

It is my opinion that after all the changes that have been made already this off-season that the mandate is to get back in to the play-offs this year. I don’t believe that Daryl Katz finally decided to bring in better management options for them to sit on their laurels and not do everything they can to bring success back to this storied franchise. The only question is if there is a trade partner out there that would be willing to take Nikitin for half of his salary? Some seem to think that a team like the Arizona Coyotes would have interest in him at half his salary in order to get to the cap-floor. My belief is that if there was a trade to be made that it would have been by now and that there is a small possibility that this weekend will end with Nikita somewhere else through trade. Buying him out is likely the only option if they want the additional cap space to add another free agent before training camp.

What do you think? Will the Chia Pet use his buy-out option after passing on it the first time? Did he look to the trade market first and realize this is the only option left available to him? If the team does use the buy-out who is the likely target through free agency? Let me know what you think in the comments section. I always try to reply to each and every comment my blog receives and enjoy interacting with other fans. All I ask is that you be respectful. And hey while we are at give me a follow on twitter, @cooke_rob. Help this lowly basement dwelling blogger get to 200 followers please! Thanks for reading Beer Leaguers. Until next time.

 

Cheers

Rob

 

Armchair GM, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Rob Cooke

Projecting the Edmonton Oilers: Centers

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Last time we talked I ventured into the realm of player point projections for the 2015-6 season. In my exuberance I got a little carried away on Taylor Halls totals. I know that 90 points isn’t likely a realistic number given that the Art Ross went to Jamie Benn last season with 87. Now I am not saying that it is impossible for Hall to get that high of a total just highly unlikely. The X-factor for how well Hall will produce is going to be the phenom. No I am not  talking about the Undertaker for all you WWE fans, although the ‘Taker has always been my favorite wrassler. Of course I am talking about Connor McDavid. We all know he will be an amazing player but what we don’t know is just how amazing and how soon. If the McSaviour steps in and immediately starts kicking ass and taking names then there may be the possibility that we will see Taylor Hall mentioned as an Art Ross candidate. Not likely but still possible. With that out of the way it is time to get to the projections for the centers.

Before I am going to start we will need to figure out just who these players are. We know that this position is finally a strength for the organization after years of not having 4 guys that can play in the world’s toughest league. This season we have three proven pivots in Nuge, Letestu, and to a smaller degree Lander. Lander came a long way last season in proving he belongs at this level and can be a complementary offensive player. His two-way play has always been up to par but with virtually no offense at the NHL level until this past season he was viewed as a bit of a tweener. Too good for the AHL but not good enough for the NHL. For whatever reason he took a massive step forward last season and the third line center position is his to lose in training camp. Obviously the fourth center that will be lifting asses out of seats for years to come is Connor McDavid. He is a guarantee for top 6 minutes from the outset and will get a ton of power-play time and a big zone start push. The kid has excelled at every level he has ever played so there is little reason to doubt that the trend will change to start the year. Now that we have got our list of competitors let’s get to it. Or as the immortal Jim Ross used to say, “Business is damn sure about to pick up!” I love that guy…

RNH

When we talk about Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as a player it is easy to forget that he is still only 22 years old and hasn’t even hit his peak years yet. As insane as it is to think, Nuge will still get better as a player. He is already a very solid two-way player but with another year of experience Ryan will likely be even better than before. How much better is open to debate but what isn’t open for debate is his importance to this team. Last season he proved that he can push the river without Taylor Hall to his left and is able of controlling the game when he is on the ice. There isn’t one part of RNH’s game that I feel is lacking. I would like to see him shoot the puck more but that would be the only real issue I would have with the kid. After missing 20 games in his rookie season, a year in which he was robbed of the Calder, Ryan has been a fairly durable guy even though there was some question in his draft year about whether his slight frame could handle the beating he would get. Over the past three seasons Nuge has only missed 16 games. Pretty damn good for a guy that people thought wouldn’t be able to handle the hitting at the NHL level. Last season we saw Nugent-Hopkins start with the usual suspects. Centering the top line with Hall and Eberle on his wings. When Hall was lost to injury Benoit Pouliot was given the opportunity to fill the enormous hole left in the absence of number 4, and he did fine. Well he did great but we don’t want to give Benny a swelled head.

After the post yesterday we already have our predictions for who Nuge will play with. My best guess is he will play a lot of time with Pouliot and Eberle. Their chemistry in the second half of the season was great and I don’t see any reason to change that now. So we know who the players but how are they going to be used? I doubt they will take a ton of defensive of draws, Lander and Letestu will likely get the lions share of those, but I doubt he gets the zone start push from previous years either. The cherry assignments are definitely going to the McDavid line. We need to put that kid in the best possible position for success. That means a ton of offensive zone starts and a lot of power-play time.

The question then is how much will this affect the output of the RNH trio? My answer to that is not a whole lot really. These three are going to see an over abundance of the neutral zone starts and should still be able to make hay out of it. Nuge last season played 76 games. He had 24 goals to go along with his 32 assists. The 56 points he totaled last season tied his career high while his 24 goals set a new career high. The best part about these stats is that his shooting percentage of last season is entirely sustainable. It is a higher than his career average to this point but if we remove the lock-out season where it was drastically low he is right around par for the course. Next season I see Ryan playing in pretty much every game or damn close to it and putting up very similar numbers despite a change in his zone starts. Nuge will hit the 20 goal mark again but little higher I think. I am going to say 22 goals and 33 assists. That’s 55 points for any of you that need a calculator to add it up. Are we concerned about this total? Not really, I think if Nuge an top 50 next year we are in good standing.

Connor McDavid

There is nothing I can say about this 18 year old kid that hasn’t already been said by someone. If you want some background information on this kid there is scads of articles out there to fill your little McD fix. I’ve also already established that I think he will play mostly with Taylor Hall on his left and if I have to pick one for the right it would likely be Teddy Purcell. Well Purcell until Novemberish, then I see Yakupov taking his rightful place in the top 6. So what will a season of Connor look like? This kid is going to do some amazing things I tell you. Fantastically amazing things. This kid is so good that he will be able to do things that we just don’t think are even possible! I know that we have to temper our expectations for this coming season but that is easier said than done. Every time Connor has come to a new challenge has not only completed it, he has absolutely crushed it!

The speed with which McDavid plays is unlike anything I have ever seen before. He seems to always have another gear to go to. It doesn’t matter what opposition seem to throw at him he always seems to not only persevere but excel. It is so hard to be anything less than exuberant when we talk about Connor, and because of it I have seen some pretty outlandish ideas about how his season could go. One post I read said that he would not only win the rookie scoring race but he would also win the Art Ross trophy as league leading scorer. There is a good chance the guess is right about the rookie race although guys like Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart will want to have something to say about that before all is said and done. So before we get to point predictions for the second coming of Gretzky I will make a few guesses about some accolades he will win this year. I think that yes he will be the rookie scoring race winner this year. No I don’t think he will win the Calder. Not that I don’t think he will be deserving but the league seems to not want Oilers rookies to take home that honor. Maybe it is our punishment for drafting first overall four times. Who knows. He will be at the all-star game and will make the all rookie team. I also think that McDavid will be the Oilers MVP this season. Those are my predictions, if I am right I expect glorious applause and champagne showers but if I am wrong I will categorically deny ever making any such statements.

After we have all dried our tears as the realization dawns on us that our favorite son likely won’t receive the proper respect that is due him. We can continue on safe in the knowledge that one day soon we will get to see Connor take us back to a long drink from Lord Stanley’s Cup. Now that I have warmed you to the cockles of your heart maybe even to the sub-cockles area, as Dennis Leary once said, we can move on to the point predictions. If we use the stats from the past season and adjust it to NHL levels using Gabriel Desjardins NHL equivalencies it would mean translate to roughly 21 goals and 35 assists. Of course when I figure those totals out I am pro-rating his numbers over a full 72 OHL season before I converted to NHL scoring estimates. So as we know McDavid played 47 games in the OHL last season and had 120 points. 44 goals and 76 assists. When we use that ad figure out the totals over a 72 game season it would look something like 67 goals and 116 assists. Those are absolutely insane numbers! Do I agree with the totals that Mr. Desjardins’ ratio suggests? Not necessarily. I think that he likely exceeds those numbers. He will receive a huge zone start push and will play a lot on the power-play which should hopefully be humming along under McLellan. My personal best guess for his production this season is 24 goals and 40 assists. In all reality I would be happy with anything above 50 points but I think Connor will have higher expectations for himself than I do. He is an intense competitor that won’t accept anything less than his best 100% of the time. What are your guesses for this young superstar?

Anton Lander

Anton Lander took some major strides last season once he finally had a head coach that trusted him and believed in charge of his usage. Lander finally developed the offensive consistency that media and fans alike have been hoping for since he first arrived in Edmonton. He played with a variety of players last season and that might have helped his numbers a little bit. Taylor Hall is one hell of a line-mate to have if you are expecting to provide offensively. In his 38 games last year Landy managed 6 goals and 20 assists. Fantastic numbers for a third line center, which is exactly where he will fit into the roster again this fall. The players on his wing this year won’t necessarily be of the same caliber as Hall but with guys like Yakupov and Korpikoski there should still be a decent contribution to goal total this year. For all we know the other wing could be filled with Leon Draisaitl. That would be a nice line to get to watch for the season!

This player to me is the hardest to forecast his numbers for next year because in all honesty I am not entirely sure of who he will play with. My best guess could be way off and that will have a big impact on his numbers. While his point totals are definitely a very important part of the picture there is a lot more to Anton Lander then goals and assists. Anton brings considerable two-way skill and decent face off skills to a team that sorely needs more defensively responsible players.

My projection for Lander is that his scoring levels will remain roughly where they were last year with 12 goals and 30 assists. Really nice numbers for a 3rd line center and depending on who his wingers are the numbers could move in either direction. I wish that I were more confident with my guess on this player but I am not at all. I hope that I am right or even pleasantly surprised as any measurable drop in scoring could be seen as a step backwards in his development and could spell the end of his career as an Oiler.

Mark Letestu

Mark Letestu is one of the newest Edmonton Oilers, joining the franchise on the opening day of free agency. He was signed to a three-year contract with a cap hit of 1.8 million dollars and will fill the vacant fourth line center position once filled by defensive stalwart and faceoff guru Boyd Gordon. I will confess I don’t know very much about the guy and don’t profess to know. For my requirements I read a few different sites breakdown of who the player is and what he will bring to the team. The most notable being from our friends over at the Oilers Rig. In the piece Alex Thomas, aka @alex_thomas14, gives his two cents on both Letestu and Sekera. If you haven’t read the piece you really should as Alex is one of the young shining up and comers in the Oilers blogging arena. I respect his opinions and his writing is generally very in-depth and informative. Should you have missed the article it is available to read here. I wouldn’t be a very good Beer Leaguer if I didn’t also mention that our very own Beer League Hero had an excellent post of his own  the subject that I recommend you to read to get a better idea of the player. If you have a hankering for more information read that piece here.

We can expect he will fill a defensive role for the most, similar to that of Gordon last season. His wingers will more often than not be Matt Hendricks and Rob Klinkhammer with Luke Gazdic making the occasional appearance. The trio is not going to be expected to do a lot offensively but will be tasked with taking the worst zone starts and a lot of time in their own zone. He has been adequate in a bottom six role in Columbus and will bring a lot more offense to the line up then Boyd Gordon could have ever hoped to. My guesstimate is that he will end the season with somewhere between 20 and 25 points and that is about as close to a point total that I am going to go on a player that I don’t know.

Those will be the four most used centers that we will have over the course of the 82 game schedule and it is a far deeper talent pool than a year ago. For the first time in a long time we will have competition at camp at every position, center included. It is an exciting time to be a Oilers fan for sure and I can only see it getting better from here on out. I can’t wait to see what the future brings for this fast young team! Thanks for reading and as always I want to hear from you! In the comments or on twitter, @cooke_rob. Next time we are going to look at the situation on right wing where there will be plenty of competition at amp for the four available slots. Remember if you like our great little site visit our T-shirt shop and get your very own Beer League Heroes shirts!

 

Cheers,

Rob