During the opening segment of his Dec. 23rd edition of Oilers Now, host Bob Stauffer let his listeners in on what he thinks the Edmonton Oilers might be doing with some of the players in their bottom-six. Most notably new signing Kyle Turris and redemption man Jesse Puljujarvi and where they could be finding themselves deployed in 2020-21.
Merry Christmas, by the way!
“I would say that Kyle Turris is going to play in every situation. We know he’s most likely going to center the third line. I fully expect him to be on the 2nd unit powerplay…. And I think he’s going to be killing penalties. He might even be killing penalties with a guy like Jesse Puljujarvi.
I know many of you have got Puljujarvi slotted in the 2nd unit powerplay for Edmonton, but if I was Puljujarvi and I came into this situation with the Oilers trying to carve out a niche for myself, I might volunteer for the PK.
You could see three forward PK units. Case in point, Maybe we have Gaetan Hass (as an example) or, Theoretically, Jujhar Khaira maybe with Josh Archibald. Could have Ryan Nugent-Hopkins with Kailer Yamamoto and then, could have Kyle Turris with Jesse Puljujarvi.
This would limit the amount of minutes both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are playing. Draisaitl would obviously remain an option, he’s very good at 3v5 situations and has probably been the Oilers best faceoff man over the last couple of seasons.
Now, I don’t know how much of this is of any surprise to you. Personally, I think that with the return of Pulju and knowing that he was playing on the PK for Karpat, that was an indication that he could possibly take on that role for the Oilers. Usually the PK units are comprised of a club’s bottom-six for the most part, right?
What was more interesting to me was the names Stauffer threw out and how he threw them out.
He listed Turris, Puljujarvi, Yamamoto, RNH, Archibald, Haas, and Khaira. That’s seven names but it was the “theoretically” he used right before he mentioned Khaira that has me wondering if JJ’s time might be coming to an end if Haas excels or another pivot can’t be found. I mean, Stauffer’s been saying that JJ would get claimed if he hit the waiver wire for a couple of years now and the big center has been in the rumor mills for the same amount of time if not longer.
So who didn’t Bob include?
Zack Kassian, Dom Kahun, James Neal, Alex Chiasson, Joakim Nygard, Tyler Ennis, and Patrick Russell.
I remember Kass got a lot of time on the PK when Todd McLellan was coaching but Coach Tippett took him off pretty fast. Other than him, only Russell really appeals to me as someone who could be a good addition to the Oilers penalty kill.
Circling back a little, if right-wings Kassian, Yamamoto, Puljujarvi, and Archibald are all going to be big parts of Edmonton’s PK, on paper that means they’re going to be in the lineup as often as possible, right? Leaving us to conclude that Chiasson and Russell are really sitting on the outside looking in.
But here’s the thing, the coach loves the Dane and the team needs more cap room…
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