The 31 Thoughts podcast dropped last night and in it included a fairly lengthy section on the Edmonton Oilers where co-hosts Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman gave their opinions on what Connor McDavid’s team might do this off-season.
Some of the topics covered:
- Andreas Athanasiou
- Edmonton’s lack of scoring support against Chicago
- Jesse Puljujarvi
- Holland’s Patience
- Could the team explore trading Oscar Klefbom or Adam Larsson?
- Who might come in to replace Mike Smith?
You can listen to the full pod at the end of this post. Skip ahead to 1:01:45-ish to get the Oilers content.
So starting with Andreas Athanasiou. The prevailing thought from both hockey pundits is that he’ll be a cap casualty. The Oilers may very well walk away because they’re afraid of being beat in an arbitration hearing. Friedman did point out that AA could accept the team offer during the arbitration process though but I’m not sure why he’d do that unless he thought he was going to lose.
My guess is they’ll look to move on from him and recoup draft picks.
As for Puljujarvi, according to Marek, he was told that things were very close to being done but Friedman had heard that that wasn’t the case at all. As he stated in his latest post on Sportsnet, he said that the team might’ve thought things were close but the player didn’t.
Another point that was added by Friedman was the Oilers were looking to sign him to make it easier to trade him but Puljujarvi wanted more control over where he was going. Perhaps he wasn’t going to sign unless he knew where he was going.
The two also felt that JP’s peers from his draft class are establishing themselves in the NHL and maybe the best thing for Jesse would be to get over to North America and play.
This is something I agree with. Another year in Finland is not something I would consider best for his development or career trajectory. Had he moved to the KHL or the SHL, then I could understand because there’s an element of increased difficulty there in addition to immersing himself into another country and culture.
Jeff Marek asked about Mike Smith and the pair had pondered earlier in the pod on the number of goalies that are going to hit the market this off-season. It’s possible that some might have to sign for less because there are more chairs than people to sit in them.
Friedman offered up the names of Thomas Greiss and Anton Khudobin as players he could see signing in Edmonton.
I’m not sure about these guys, to be honest. They both make a fair chunk of cash, right? Khudobin ($2.5M) and Greiss ($3,33M) and they’re both 34 years old… They are solid netminders though. I reckon if Holland could get them for closer to $2M/yr, that would be the best-case scenario. Otherwise, perhaps finding a trade to fill the need might just be the way to go.
Finally, there was lots of chatter about what Ken Holland could do with the defense. Friedman noted that he thinks Holland will be patient and that he won’t move his young defenders, specifically naming Darnell Nurse as he’s not an older player and he’s part of the leadership group.
They did mention Oscar Klefbom and Adam Larsson mind you.
The Klefbom/Krug rumor came up and then the bearded wonder mused, “Edmonton and Toronto, to me, look like potentially natural trading partners.” as well as “I really do believe Holland isn’t going to move his young D. So where’s the fit?”
I do concur that it looks like Toronto is going to muscle up this off-season but the targets still have to be able to play.
Now, the Leafs have Morgan Reilly, Jake Muzzin, Travis Dermott, and Rasmus Sandin on their left-side according to Mr. Friedman. That would lead one to believe that Adam Larsson could be the target for Toronto but how would that leave the Oilers?
They’d have Bear, Benning, and Bouchard as their natural right-shot defenders available in addition to Kris Russell and Caleb Jones who can both play their off-side. Would you be comfortable with that set-up going into 2020/21 if Larsson could net the team Andreas Johnsson or Kasperi Kapanen?
In my mind, if the Leafs and Oilers really want to shake things up, make the Nurse/Nylander trade.
It’s my belief that Nurse’s mean streak is slowly losing its luster as he grows older so that part of his game is becoming less impactful and his contribution to the offensive part of the game is predicated upon playing with Connor McDavid primarily. Take him away from 97 and the offense dries up. So what are you left with?
FYI, Erik Gustafsson is 11th over the same time
A few other 5×5 metrics to consider when reg. Nurse's off. contribution:
25 GF% w/97: 50.71 (nice!)
25 GF% wo/97: 42.98 (Uh oh)
97 GF% wo/25: 51.52 <— (!!!)97's p/60 w/:
Benning: 4.4
Nurse: 2.8
Russell: 2.7
Larsson: 2.2— B.L.H. (Edmonton Oilers Enthusiast) (@BeerLeagueHeroe) August 13, 2020
I don’t think that Edmonton needs to get younger on the back-end. In fact, they could benefit from getting older and a veteran left-shot blueliner that excels at defending and puck-moving is a lot easier to find than not.
I’d argue that the Oilers would be a better team, a deeper team if they traded Nurse for Nylander and added Erik Gustafsson to fill in on the 2nd pair. But that’s just me. If the team is worried about a physical presence, don’t trade Larsson and/or sign Derek Engelland…
It really all goes back to Friedman’s belief that Ken Holland won’t be making any panic moves but he will look to improve the netminding and the wings.
It’s going to be an interesting fall for all of the Canadian NHL teams… I talked to a gentleman who covers the Canucks and he agreed. “Very busy!” he added.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
