This is your TL/DR (too long, didn’t read) summary post where excerpts are taken from the best of the best when it comes to Edmonton Oilers blogs. BLH gives you his two cents on the latest posts being published in the Oilogosphere! Including those from Lowetide.ca, The Athletic, Oilersnation, The Cult of Hockey, Copper N Blue, Oil on Whyte, and more!
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Lowetide.ca
- Evan Bouchard looked very good to my eye last night, I think he’s going to move up the depth chart and it could come quickly. I predicted mid-season during the summer, and it’s early days, but he’s efficient and smart in all areas. This team is lucky to have him pushing for time because my God it’s going to be available.
- Mikko Koskinen has a .913SP so far this season and I think he’s going to slide in below that mark (wrote about it in the summer) but he’ll get plenty of playing time no matter this season. Edmonton badly needs him to have a strong season.
- General manager Ken Holland bet heavily on Keith with the summer trade, but coach Dave Tippett isn’t going to devote 20 games to a 40 percent duo. It won’t happen. If you said Keith-Ceci will be the third pair by Halloween, I’d agree it is possible. Keith-Bouchard might be the pairing by then. Nurse-Bouchard by season’s end is possible.
- I’m saying that the six men we see opening night, and the pairings as populated that night, will be three of the least certain pairings we’ve seen in Edmonton in a long, long time.
BLH’s Thoughts: I disagree with LT here. Unless Holland starts making some trades (which he’s not known to do so much of), he’s put his bets down on Barrie, Ceci, and Keith already and for multiple years no less. What the Oilers have is what they’ll run with for the most part because the coach likes veterans and the GM loves them PLUS they won’t just swap in a kid because he’s got potential. The days of developing hockey players in the NHL is over.
That being said, injuries happen.
The Athletic
Following the Dave Tippett blueprint: How the 2021-22 Oilers mirror their coach’s best teams from the past
| TEAM | LW | C | RW |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Brenden Morrow
|
Mike Ribeiro
|
Jere Lehtinen
|
|
|
Ray Whitney
|
Martin Hanzal
|
Radim Vrbata
|
|
|
Zach Hyman
|
Connor McDavid
|
Jesse Puljujarvi
|
- What seems true is that however this line looks, Tippett has the players to make it better than either the Dallas or Arizona versions. McDavid alone makes that true, and Hyman gives the unit a much-needed two-way stalwart.
| TEAM | LW | C | RW |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Loui Eriksson
|
Brad Richards
|
Joel Lundqvist
|
|
|
Mikkel Boedker
|
Antoine Vermette
|
Shane Doan
|
|
|
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
|
Leon Draisaitl
|
Kailer Yamamoto
|
- Maybe the strongest reason to think that the Oilers will keep McDavid and Draisaitl mostly separated is how well the two fit the mould of Tippett’s best teams, with one guy in a super-powered offensive role and the other anchoring an elite two-way unit.
| TEAM | LW | C | RW |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Steve Ott
|
Mike Modano
|
Stu Barnes
|
|
|
Taylor Pyatt
|
Boyd Gordon
|
Lauri Korpikoski
|
|
|
Warren Foegele
|
Derek Ryan
|
*trade addition*
|
- If you’re going to give one line a ton of offensive starts — and Tippett likes to do that — then somebody else has to pay the bill. In both Dallas and Arizona, it was the third line that picked up the check.
| TEAM | LD | RD |
|---|---|---|
|
Nicklas Grossmann & others
|
Sergei Zubov
|
|
|
Oliver Ekman-Larsson
|
Michal Rozsival
|
|
|
Darnell Nurse
|
Tyson Barrie
|
- In each case, the top blueliner on the team got this job. In Dallas, it was Zubov. In Arizona, it was Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
- That means it has to be Darnell Nurse in Edmonton, right?
| TEAM | LD | RD |
|---|---|---|
|
Trevor Daley & others
|
Stephane Robidas
|
|
|
Keith Yandle
|
Derek Morris
|
|
|
Duncan Keith
|
Evan Bouchard
|
- The answer here is probably a big season from Evan Bouchard. If he can push his way into top-four work, that gives the coaches one pair to really lean into offensive situations, while at the same time letting them run a veteran third pair that can handle some own-zone minutes…
| TEAM | STARTER | PLAYOFF SV% | BACKUP |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Marty Turco
|
.922
|
Mike Smith
|
|
|
Mike Smith
|
.944
|
Jason Labarbera
|
|
|
Mike Smith
|
TBD
|
Mikko Koskinen
|
- It’s kind of hard to blame Tippett for liking Mike Smith, isn’t it? He pops up as the backup on that 2008 Dallas team and the primary driver of Arizona’s success in 2012. That Coyotes roster was built on bend-don’t-break defence and stellar goaltending, and it won two series before modest talent and consistently losing the possession battle caught up to it. Smith deserves a lot of credit for that.
BLH’s Thoughts: When you look at those lines/d-pairings/netminders, it’s hard not to say the Oilers we’re about to watch this season are far and away the best team Dave Tippett has ever coached.
I think we’re set to watch a very special team in 2021-22…
The Hockey Writers Rumors
David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported last week that contract talks between the Panthers and Barkov were moving slowly, but the hope was that a new deal would be finalized before the start of the season. He offered an update on the Barkov negotiations.
As per Peter Baugh of The Athletic, things are “trending in the direction” of a new contract for Jack Johnson who is with the Avalanche on a professional tryout right now. An injury to Devon Toews opened up a spot for a defenseman to come in earn a contract and it sounds like he may have done so.
Canadiens’ head coach Dominique Ducharme told reporters including John Lu of TSN that Carey Price is currently dealing with a non-COVID illness and says, “We are less confident now (that he’ll start the season on time). If he misses the first game we don’t believe it’s going to drag too long. We’ll see. He’ll be back tomorrow & build from there.”
