Edmonton Oilers Talk: “Marody’s career may lay elsewhere.” Says Oilers Pundit

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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The Cult of Hockey (Leavins)

What will the Edmonton Oilers off-season moves mean for its 2 biggest guns: 9 Things

• 5. Debating and analyzing trades is part of what fans and those of us who write about and/or cover the team do. It’s part of the package. Having said that, it is my hope that Warren Foegele gets judged on his own merits on the ice as opposed to what Ethan Bear may or may not have brought to this club. If the Taylor Hall–Adam Larsson trade and subsequent departure of Larsson via free agency taught us anything, it is to judge the player and the transaction separately. Surely it’s OK to cheer for both players going forward.

BLH’s Thoughts: Ha! Good luck with that! 

• 4. I think it is all but guaranteed that Ryan McLeod will start the season in Edmonton. And while I wouldn’t rule out Dylan Holloway making it onto the roster as well, I suspect he is penciled in to start the year in Bakersfield, perhaps in the 1C slot that McLeod held last campaign.

BLH’s Thoughts: Good idea. Holloway has a history of starting slow when he’s jumped up to the next level. Don’t believe me, check out his stat line here going back to his U15 days in Calgary… 

• 3. I know that hockey content is always a little thin during the dog days of August. So it may be pure co-incidence that the Oilers social media team has been paying so much attention lately to Alex Stalock?

BLH’s Thoughts: Smith and Koskinen aren’t exactly lighting it up on the socials, are they? Who else are they going to put videos up of? I mean, if they were smart, they’d send their social media team out to get some footage of the guys who are training locally in order to build up some buzz for the new season. 

• 2. 24-year old Cooper Marody is barely still a prospect at his age. The Oilers have issued Marody a qualifying offer to the RFA. As this piece went to press, Marody had yet to sign. What should we read into that? I’d suggest a range, from nothing at all (it’s not unusual for a minor contract like this to hang out there for a while) to a sign that Marody’s career may lay elsewhere.

BLH’s Thoughts: Maybe Cooper is surveying his options… He sees that there’s no chance in hell he’s making the Oilers roster and he’s done all he can do in the AHL… 

• 1. One of the idiosyncrasies of a hockey market such as Edmonton is that everyone (me included) spends a big chunk of the off-season talking about every tiny detail surrounding the club. We dive deep into the 3^rd-string goalies, 8^th D-men and 14^th Forwards. We dissect draft picks selected 200 positions deep.
  • To be clear: That’s not a criticism. The thirst for any new tidbit of information on the team is proof of just how strong the Oilers brand remains, and how brightly that incredible passion burns.

BLH’s Thoughts: Does anybody else get annoyed at this spin from the media? They don’t want to sound like they’re criticizing the fanbase for being f*cking obsessive about things that are totally out of their control, so they call it “passion”… I mean, it’s really condescending when you think about it because they know that the kind of “fanning” that has someone looking at a hockey team’s 3rd line center is not exactly healthy.

But I’m no doctor, so what do I know? “Passion” it up to your heart’s delight I suppose. Just don’t get pissed when somebody meets your “enthusiasm” for hockey with a “meh”. Egos don’t like that… 

• …five of the seven men expected to break camp on the D-corps are very good puck movers/transporters. More pucks will move North from the sticks of Evan Bouchard, Duncan Keith and Cody Ceci than from the trio of Adam Larsson, Caleb Jones and Ethan Bear…
• That extra help should help accomplish three key things:
  • It will serve to spread out the opposition’s defence, making the Oilers offense harder to stop.
  • It should lessen the load that McDavid and Draisaitl will have to shoulder, giving them more attack time with full tanks of has.
  • And it should put better offensive contributors on their flanks such as Zack Hyman, Warren Foegele and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (due to the presence of Derek Ryan) more consistently.
• In short, the Oilers two biggest, most dangerous gunners are better equipped than ever before. And they were already Hart and Art Ross winners.

BLH’s Thoughts: I definitely agree with Leavins that this newly re-designed defense is going to be better at getting the puck up the ice, that said, they’ll need to get the puck in order to do that and which defenseman aside from Darnell Nurse do you trust to win the battles in the trenches more often than not?

The Athletic (Wheeler)

Who goes first in a 2018 NHL Draft redo? And how do their pre-draft rankings hold up today?

BIG Climbers

• 16. Colorado Avalanche: RW/LW Yegor Sharangovich
  Actual draft pick: No. 141 (change: +125) to New Jersey
  
• 21. San Jose Sharks: LW John Leonard
  Actual draft pick: No. 182 (change: +161) to San Jose
  
• 25. St. Louis Blues: C/LW Philipp Kurashev
  Actual draft pick: No. 120 (change: +95) to Chicago
  

Fallers

• 10. Edmonton Oilers: C Jesperi Kotkaniemi
  Actual draft pick: No. 3 (change: -7) to Montreal
• 24. Minnesota Wild: C Barrett Hayton
  Actual draft pick: No. 5 (change: -19) to Arizona
• 26. Ottawa Senators: LW/RW Grigori Denisenko
  Actual draft pick: No. 15 (change: -11) to Florida

BLH’s Thoughts: Wheeler also has Martin Kaut (COL), Jay O’Brien (PHI), and Isac Lundestrom (ANA) falling right out of the first round. He’s also got Quinn Hughes leaping over Rasmus Dahlin, Andrei Svechnikov, and Brady Tkachuk to be the 1st overall pick in this re-draft… 

This quote on Kotkaniemi is… unique,

• “He was probably taken too high and probably rushed, though, and he’s not going to be a great player.”

I agree that he was rushed but he was a hot ticket on draft day too. Long term, I think he’s got a future as a no.2 center in the NHL and you can’t get there without being a great player. 

What’s got me perplexed is how Filip Zadina (11th) survived not getting cut out of the first round. He’s not exactly hit it out of the park in Detroit and Wheeler had him re-drafted ahead of Evan Bouchard (12th)

The Athletic (Granger)

Which NHL teams improved or hurt their Stanley Cup odds the most this offseason?

Odds Improved

• 1. Chicago Blackhawks +5000 (-1500)
• 2. New Jersey Devils +6500 (-1500)
• 3. Florida Panthers +2000 (-500)

Odds Worsened

• 1. Arizona Coyotes +15000 (+8500)
• 2. Anaheim Ducks +15000 (+5000)
• 3. Columbus Blue Jackets +10000 (+2000)

BLH’s Thoughts: The Edmonton Oilers’ Stanley Cup odds based on the last month of offseason moves stayed the same at +2800.

The Bet MGM favorites for the 2021-22 Stanley Cup are, Colorado (+600), Tampa (+700), and Vegas (+850). 

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