Edmonton Oilers Talk: Competition is Coming and Is it Time to Deploy the 3-Headed Dragon?

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Lowetide.ca

MACT VERSUS TIPPETT

One of the things I hope we can talk about is Dave Tippett’s usage of young players versus Craig MacTavish. Not necessarily style of player preferred, or even type of player who failed, but about options.
When Fernando Pisani found his way, he had to win a job versus Rita but also Daniel Cleary. There was plenty of competition.
MacT brought Mike Comrie, Shawn Horcoff, Jason Chimera, Ales Hemsky, Fernando Pisani and four games of Jarret Stoll to the NHL in his first three coaching seasons.
Tippett brought Ryan McLeod, Tyler Benson and Cooper Marody.
Edmonton needs forwards, and Tippett needs more competition. The defense is overrun with candidates but Ken Holland needs to find forwards. Not just draft them, but sign college and CHL kids, Europeans and yes, even trade excess on defense for some forwards.

BLH’s Thoughts: When LT says Tippett brought McLeod, Benson, and Marody, it’s not exactly the same as saying Craig MacTavish brought Comrie, Horcoff, Chimera, Hemsky, Pisani, and Stoll, is it?

Marody isn’t “here” and an argument could be made that Benson has barely arrived.

Lowetide is right about the team needing more forwards in the system and by the end of this season, they’ll have it and that might be why Holland has kept his NHL contracts well under the league limit of 50. Maybe he’s thinking of signing Carter Savoie and Xavier Bourgault to pro deals when their seasons end in their respective leagues. Toss in those two with Ty Tullio and that’s three potential late-season adds to bolster the organization’s forward depth that will be able to help at the NHL level if required.

I don’t think my plan would be to have the junior/college kids be my “Hail Mary”, but when you’re cap-strapped like Edmonton is, you’re left relying on teenagers and kids in their early 20s because they’ve got the cheap deals.

That being said, the Bakersfield Condors will have a much more skilled top-nine next year with Bourgault, Tullio, and Savoie (at minimum) flying about for Coach Woodcroft (or who ever they’ve got running that bench). Maybe Dylan Holloway starts the year there in 2022/23 and I think it’s a foregone conclusion that Rafa Lavoie will also be there.

When’s the last time the Oilers had as many as five of their top forward prospects playing for their minor league affiliate?

Competition is coming…

The Hockey Writers

Oilers Can Address Third-Line Centre Woes By Trading for a Winger

The internal solution comes from icing the three-headed monster in Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins at centre and allowing the coaches to mix and match wingers with each of them.
Along with creating a wider variety of options to possibly add via trade before the deadline, a young player in Dylan Holloway should make a return from injury and could slot in on the wing.
Mark Spector suggests that Holloway should finish the season with the Bakersfield Condors of the AHL before being called up to help the Oilers in their playoff run. If that’s the case and the Oilers want to still run with these types of lines, they will have to find an internal placeholder, possibly Ryan McLeod on the third-line left wing.
Depth was the ultimate downfall of the Oilers in their last playoff exit. Once scoring dries up a bit or the team plays a good shutdown team, they will sorely need scoring from more than the top six.

BLH’s Thoughts: RNH found some luck playing wing with Leon Draisaitl two years ago and that pretty much put an end to his days as a full-time center, didn’t it? Nowadays he splits his time between Leon’s line and his own when Tippett moves Draisaitl up with Connor.

Now, there’s some who believe since Nuge was a 1st overall pick and he can’t drive his own line that he should be a top-six winger every night, not a center. My feeling is that as a 3C he’ll face a lower quality of competition and his battery won’t run out as quickly therefore giving the team the option of moving him up the lineup when the moment strikes.

I’ve said before that I also support the idea of moving both RNH and Yamamoto to the third line with Brendan Perlini to give the team a quick-footed grind line which has scoring potential and a high defensive work rate. My only concern would be the trio getting trapped in their own zone by a stronger opposition with more size. Perlini’s a big guy but he’s no Tom Wilson and Nuge is a good 2-way player but he’s no Ryan O’Reilly.

At this point, with how the Oilers’ bottom-six sucking the life out of the club’s 5v5 scoring overall, they should start trying some new things to try and ignite production before thinking about trades.

Daily Faceoff

Stocking Stuffers for Pacific Division teams

McKenna: “I’m thinking about the Edmonton Oilers and I’d like to get them a big old bottle of self-awareness.”
“I don’t think that the Oilers are really at a stage where they don’t realize what’s going on but I think it would fit nicely into a stocking. I also think that the team really does need to look in the mirror when it comes down to how they play defensively.”
“70 percent of their giveaways are in the defensive zone. That’s not a recipe for success. Their goals scored against per 60 is way in the negative. You look at the team that’s been so good on the power-play for so long, it’s come back down to earth and the depth scoring has dried up.”
“They’re just so loose defensively. They need to take ownership. If you want to win in the playoffs, you gotta defend.”

BLH’s Thoughts: He’s not wrong… But this is what happens when you put all your eggs in one or two baskets and fail to develop support players to sprinkle throughout the lineup…