Is There a Future with the Edmonton #Oilers for Cooper Marody? “He looked like a goner but the Oilers qualified him.”

Coming from an Edmonton Oilers point of view, BLH provides you with excerpts from the latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation from all of the internet’s best sites including Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, Sportsnet, The Athletic, TSN and more!

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The Hockey Writers (Parsons)

Benson, Koekkoek, Turris, Nurse Deal Details

Tyler Benson

If he makes the club or gets called up, as Bob Stauffer points out, he will compete with Devin Shore and Brendan Perlini for a LW spot in the bottom six. During his AHL career, Benson has scored 141 points in 156 regular season games. He does need to clear waivers for the upcoming season, so if he gets called up, there’s a good chance it’s because the Oilers intend to give him a long look.

Slater Koekkoek

The Oilers didn’t get to see all they wanted to with Koekkoek last year. An injury limited him to only 18 Oilers games after having a decent run with the Chicago Blackhawks. Head coach Dave Tippett seemed to rely on Koekkoek in a depth role when he was available to them and he may want to give the blueliner another go.

Kyle Turris

Turris is training hard and looking to prove himself to the Oilers this coming season. After a disappointing 2020-21 campaign, he’s got one more shot (his contract expires at the end of the season) to show he’s an option for Edmonton, even if it isn’t at the third-line center spot the team envisioned.

Darnell Nurse

For fans who ask why the Oilers didn’t just wait a little bit to see if Nurse was going to be able to repeat last year’s success before signing him to an extension part way through the year, consider there is a real risk to not showing confidence in a player who already signed two bridge deals because the Oilers didn’t know what he was.

BLH’s Thoughts: As I said this morning, if Benson doesn’t come to camp with that extra bit of quickness in his step, it’ll be game over because without it, the rest of his game and all the good things he does as a hockey player will get dragged down simply because he’s not fast/quick enough to get into the spots he needs to be to make the plays.

Kyle Turris is almost in the same boat but he’s at the end of his career as opposed to Benson, who’s at the beginning. For Turris, he’s got enough experience in the league that he knows what kind of shortcuts to take to hedge the fact that he’s lost a step. The other thing is, the coach has to realize what he’s got with Turris and put him on the ice in situations that clearly benefit the veteran or else she’s gonna be a long season and it might not be long until Bakersfield has themselves has a new addition.

Oilersnation (Lewis)

ON’s 2021 Prospects Countdown – No. 19: Matvei Petrov

The Oilers selected Petrov with their sixth pick, No. 180 overall, the one that Kyle Dubas declined to take in exchange for Zach Hyman’s free-agent rights. Petrov was ranked in the top 100 by most scouting services ahead of the draft so there’s potential for this pick to be a hidden gem.
Corey Pronman of The Athletic ranked Petrov No. 113 before the draft and pointed out that, as of right now, he’s fairly one-dimensional as a player…
Ben Kerr of Last Word on Sports had him ranked No. 79 and raved about Petrov’s arsenal of shots and how he can score from all over the offensive zone…
It would be interesting to see Petrov come overseas and play in the OHL, but a huge season in his third go-around at the MHL level in Russia will certainly build hype around this prospect. He finished 19th in the league in goals in 2020-21 as a U18 player, so his next season could be a huge one.

BLH’s Thoughts: I find it intriguing that the Oilers have found another gem in the draft that dropped. The other time I’m thinking about was with Rafa Lavoie and he was supposed to go in the first round.

I would really l like to see Petrov come to North America and give it a go with North Bay in the OHL. They took him with the first pick in the CHL import draft and surely he’d get a ton of ice time in addition to getting acclimated to the North American ice… From a selfish POV, It’d be way easier to track his progress too.

Lowetide.ca

TRAINING CAMP HOPEFUL NO. 3: COOPER MARODY

Cooper Marody is a good hockey player. In the two years he was healthy and playing for the Bakersfield Condors, he scored 40-60-100 in 97 games.
Edmonton qualified him and it appears Marody will get a contract and a look in training camp. Does he have a chance?
He isn’t good as a two-way player. Thanks to the hard work of Eric Rodgers, we have all three seasons of Marody’s AHL career covered. Aside from being a quality scorer, he has been an outscorer in his two healthy seasons. Beginning in in 2018-19, he on-ice even strength goal differentials were: 60-26 (69.8 percent) in 2018-19; 15-23 (39.5 percent) in 2019-20; 39-21 (65 percent) in 2020-21. When healthy, Marody is a dominant AHL player at even strength.
So, if he’s so good why isn’t he in the NHL already? I think his timing was bad as bad can be on the first recall. He came up under Todd McLellan, played two games in October and was sent down. In November he was recalled and played two games under McLellan (over 12 minutes versus Vegas) and played the Nov. 20 (McLellan was fired earlier in the day) and one more game under Hitchcock. That’s all she wrote. Bad timing, that’s all.
Will he make it? Don’t know. He looked like a goner but the Oilers qualified him. That suggests there’s value placed on him, and maybe that turns into NHL work. We’re still learning about Holland, and we do know that the DRW deployed men in the minors for a long time and still considered them solutions. I think he could fill-in on a recall if there’s an issue with one of the right-wingers, and the fourth line doesn’t have to be all PKers now that there are a few more sprinkled in the top-9 forwards.

BLH’s Thoughts: When people ask about a player’s two-way ability, I don’t believe them to be asking about whether or not a skater is outscoring his opposition when he’s on the ice. I get that if he is doing that, he’s spending more time with the puck that without it and he’s making the most of that time, but I believe what folks are wondering about is if he’s good away from the puck and how is he defending and in puck pursuits. Is he going into board battles first and coming out of them with the puck more often than not? Things like that.

Just from my ow viewings of the player, I found that NHL defensemen had no problems defending against him because he was always trying to use the moves that made him successful in the AHL and an NHL defender simply laughs that off as he rides the forward into the boards or angles him off to kill the drive.

He, like Benson, doesn’t have that extra step in order to get around the opposition with speed and maybe things have changed but I believe it was last season that Jason Gregor asked him if he was working on his skating in the offseason and Marody basically intimated that he didn’t feel that was a concern for him. Instead he used his offseason to record an album in Nashville…

So we’ll see, but I still don’t think he’s an NHL player and watch these clips below and tell me how many of those goals are because of his skill and not because his linemates (read: Benson) are setting him up for the tap-ins.

The Daily Goal Horn

NHL Free Agent Bargains

Joe Thornton (C): At 42 years of age, Jumbo Joe can still help a hockey team out. (Last season) Playing in 44 games, he notched 20 points.
James Neal (F): The 33 year-old had just five goals and five assists (10 points) in 29 games during his season with the Oilers.
Sami Vatanen (D): He certainly doesn’t put up the offensive numbers as he used to, but he can still help a defense out.
Ryan Donato (F): Donato scored 20 points in 50 games last season and should be picked up before the season starts.
Jason Demers (D): He’s a right-handed defenseman that can still play third pair minutes.
Tyler Bozak (C): The 35 year-old scored 17 points in 31 games last season playing bottom six minutes. There’s no doubt he can still be a productive contributor.
Eric Staal (C): Staal could bring value to a team’s fourth line next season at a bargain price. His leadership and experience would be worth the money alone.
Zdeno Chara (D): If he does play, he’d be a great value add to shore up a team’s bottom pair.
Nikita Kusev (F): He could be worth a cheap flyer or at least an invite to camp on a PTO.