So we’re switching things up with our “Around the Oilogosphere” segment. Instead of posting individual snippets and linking to them, we’re going to basically make a “Oilers blogs of the day” sort of post. Not sure if it’ll be daily or weekly but we’ll work that out. We’ll probably include some links from other NHL news as well like trade rumors or major happenings.
Either way, you can enjoy coming to one place to get all your Oilers links (minus the athletic ones because they’re behind a pay wall) and information.
Enjoy!
OILERS NEWS
Fanrag Sports: Bob McKenzie on Next Steps for Oilers – One question at the heart of the angst of a segment of Oilers fans, though, is whether or not Chiarelli should still be the one sitting at the general manager’s helm.
Cult of Hockey: Craig Simpson on Puljujarvi – Speaking on the Oil’s handling of Puljujarvi on Oilers Now — which sees Puljujarvi getting third line minutes and no first team power play time — Simpson supported the current approach: “I’m not worried about the way he’s being handled…
Oilersnation.ca: Dustin Nielson on Puljujarvi – With the exception of the power-play, penalty kill, goaltending, and overall coaching in general, nothing has frustrated Oilers fans this season as much as the usage of fourth overall pick Jesse Puljujarvi.
Oilersnation.ca: 3 NHL Replacements for Todd McLellan – Whichever side of the fence you’re on, it’s obvious that McLellan’s days in Edmonton may be coming to an abrupt end. Here’s a look at a few options with NHL pedigrees whom the Oilers brass could (and should) target pending the departure of their current HC.
The Hockey Writers: The Oilers’ Maniacal Mismanagement of Montoya– Montoya has played well for the Oilers. However, his continued presence within Edmonton’s roster has raised a handful of questions with respect to the organization’s general approach as well as its vision of both the immediate and long-term future.
NHL TRADE RUMORS
The New York Rangers Are Open To Trading A First-Round Pick – The Rangers have three first-round picks in the 2018 NHL draft – their own, the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning – two second-round picks and two third-round picks. GM Jeff Gorton says there are opening to moving one of their first-round picks.
Dreger on Melnyk billboards and Hoffman trade potential– What has already been a fairly disastrous season for the Ottawa Senators has the potential to get even uglier this summer, depending on what happens in key contract and trade-related areas.
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Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman spoke about the Edmonton Oilers in their latest podcast (check it out here) from March 8th and it’s a nice 9-minute segment dedicated to the Oilers and their woes.
I want to transcribe some of it here for you today and comment on some of the things they say but if you’re the impatient type and simply want to hear the segment first, scroll down to the bottom and you can listen to it.
JM= Jeff Marek
EF= Elliotte Friedman
OSCAR KLEFBOM
JM: Elliotte, Oscar Klefbom and the idea that they may be playing him simply to showcase him despite him being a little bit banged up.
EF: I think a lot banged up. I’ve wrote a couple of times this year that Kesler is being held up by duct tape and a couple of guys reached out to me and said Klefbom is too.
I’ve written a couple of times here too and I don’t understand why he’s playing. Like, I get guys want to play and you want to wait until someone is officially eliminated but he’s clearly hurting and there’s no logical reason for it. And finally someone said to me, you know what could be going on here?
They’re going to make a move here.
JM: How can it be a showcase if he’s injured? He’s not going to show well.
EF: Well I think people understand what he was
JM: So do you need to see him now? That’s the point I don’t get. If you’re running him out there hurt, what’s the value there for anybody? Certainly not for Klefbom, not for the Oilers.
EF: You know what? Honestly Jeff, there’s so many questions about this thing that I have. I can’t answer this question. But the fact is that I think that teams are scouting him, I think people were looking at him and I think they got to sign Darnell Nurse, who’s had a really good year and I think Klefbom has value. He had a great year last year, he scored 12 goals, he’s got a good contract. I do think people are looking at him.
Oh, Oscar is definitely on the block and I do expect him to be dealt this summer because Chiarelli likes Ryan Nugent-Hopkins more and sees more value there. Also, the depth on the left side defense is a helluva lot deeper than down the middle.
My theory on why other teams don’t care if he plays is that his shoulder injury has been disclosed and it can’t get any worse by playing with it. As Friedman said above, they know what they could be getting in Klefbom and are willing to roll the dice.
I think another thing that is starting to get out is there might be a disagreement between player and team as to whether or not to get the procedure done now.
Players want to play (Pat Maroon, Cam Talbot, and Adam Larsson all come to mind this season for playing hurt), they don’t want to abandon their teammates, and it’s my belief that Klefbom is probably feeling a tad guilty and playing through his injury because back in 2015 he was in and out of the lineup, unsure when he was going to be able to come back. He might’ve got some flack from teammates or other staff for not getting back into the lineup.
I just reckon he’d prefer to play the year out and get that respect from his teammates. Of course, they’d understand if he chose to go under the knife but it’s his call, right?
WHAT HAPPENS TO EDMONTON IN THE OFF-SEASON?
JM: What happens to Edmonton in the off-season?
EF: You know, that’s a great question. I watched, I didn’t see Saturday night because I was in Maryland, but I watched the interview (Bob Nicholson one) with David (Ambder) and Cassie (Campbell-Pascal)…
*cuts to interview*
EF: You know I thought Nicholson was dropping a lot of hints there and you got the sense he wanted to say a bit more but he was holding himself back.
He (Nicholson) has a long history with Cassie and I think he wanted to say some more stuff but the thing that struck me was that they’re going to make changes but they’re not going to make changes for the sake of doing it.
He said ‘we fire a lot of people here’ and I think he would prefer to keep Peter and Todd. That’s the sense I got but I think that may be decided by who else is available.
Like what if Barry Trotz (WAS) is available? What if Joel Quenneville (CHI) is available?
And the other thing too is, I don’t know who really is making the final call here?
JM: By way of title it should be Peter Chiarelli.
EF: Or Bob (Nicholson) or the owner (Daryl Katz).
JM: Didn’t the owner want a coaching move during the season? Wasn’t it after that Dallas game?
EF: There’s been some rumbling about that. This year you’re talking about?
JM: This year. Yeah. And Wayne Gretzky was on the road trip.
EF: There’s been a rumor about that. I don’t know if it’s true though. Daryl Katz doesn’t come out that much. It’s hard to check that kind of thing.
JM: Any time I talk to anyone there it’s ‘Katz is fuming. Katz is fuming about this season.’
EF: I agree with that. Someone told me last year they were the highest revenue team in the NHL and they’re not going to be that way this year. Because that arena is such a cash cow.
They’re not going to be there this year (no.1 in revenue) and I do believe that Daryl is upset but who’s making the call? Is it Katz? Is it Nicholson? Is it Chiarelli? Is it Wayne Gretzky? Is it somebody else? Like, nobody seems to have the answer to that.
Now, I’m not exactly sure which Dallas game that is but I’m going to go ahead and assume it was the one they lost 5-1. A matinee game back at the beginning of January.
Don’t you remember? That was the game where Stauffer didn’t do his customary post-game tweet and things got VERY quiet. I wrote herethat there was a meeting to discuss the futures of McLellan and Chiarelli and it wasn’t too long after that Chiarelli did a couple of media interviews to discuss the state of the franchise and that’s when Todd McLellan got his dreaded vote of confidence.
If the Capitals get booted in the first round this year, Trotz is out. If I’m not mistaken, he was on Oilers Now last week and he was saying there’s something off about that team and Trotz… So take that for what it is.
Is there a better coach than Joel Quenneville to take over the Oilers? He knows exactly how it is coaching a team with two teenage superstars and building a winning team around those players.
But I do get where Friedman is coming from. Nobody is really sure who’s at the wheel of this cheese wagon. I mean Coffey was brought in by Gretzky, right?
SPEAKING OF COFFEY
JM: And what’s Paul Coffey’s role here?
EF: My guess is that he ends up coaching but I don’t know if that’s head coach or assistant coach.
JM: He’s scouting in Ontario.
EF: I heard that, could he be a GM? I’ve been told he’s got no desire to be GM. I think he wants to coach.
GM! HA!
If Coffey wants to be a head coach, he’s got all the right people in place to make that happen in Edmonton but that idea, at best, is a terrible one. That said, IF he puts in the reps as an assistant coach and is promoted from there, I think most could get on board with that because he’s earned it.
Who is he scouting in Ontario? Ryan Merkley? They share some playing attributes.
I mean if he’s scouting kids for the upcoming draft, then there’s a good chance he’ll have an official title by the start of next season and watch where he’s sitting at the draft or possibly the draft lottery.
THE TURN AROUND
JM: How close do you think they are to turning it around? Knowing the composition of this team.
EF: They’re not as bad as they’re playing this year. I refuse to believe that.
JM: They need wingers.
EF: They need wingers but that should be, in theory, the easiest thing to find. Now, I will say this, I think one of the things they’re going to have to figure out is how to convince Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl that they shouldn’t play together.
JM: They want to play together. They want to be on the same line.
EF: Ya but I think that’s gotta change. You’ve got to show them Pittsburgh and say ‘Guys, why did they win two Stanley Cups back-to-back? Because they got Crosby on one and Malkin on another and you get someone like Kessel and he plays on a 3rd’.
JM: Yzerman, Federov. Keep going.
EF: You gotta. Those guys have to learn that they can’t play together. Maybe in certain situations. Crosby and Malkin play together on the PP. Maybe you put them together on a line here and there but generally, they got to play apart.
I 100% agree here. The Oilers are by no means this bad. Their 5×5 scoring tells us all we need to know not to mention IF they had some goaltending and special teams, they’d be a 100pt team again and that’s without Eberle or Hall or Pouliot or Mark Fayne.
I grew up being spoiled with the Jagr, Lemieux, Francis line in Pittsburgh but they didn’t always play together either but when they did, the Pens were almost guaranteed to score. A line like that today would be like having McDavid with Laine and Bergeron… Ridiculous, right?
WHAT ELSE?
JM: They need a save and you’re hoping this is just the outlier year for the netminder and he comes back like he did last season.
EF: Yeah but look, I agree with you. Talbot had a rough year but if you look at their team this year, you know, Larsson was worse than last year, Klefbom, because of the injury, was worse than last year, Sekera, who was a pretty big player for them was out for half of the year.
Sometimes you have to bet on our guys aren’t going to be that bad again. Things are going to be better next year.
JM: But you’re not going to go into next season with the same lineup.
EF: No no. That’s why I wonder about the Klefbom thing.
JM: Then again, the idea of we’re not going to make changes for the sake of making changes is- You’ve got a fanbase that’s torches at the castle gate right now. That volcano needs a virgin.
Two things here,
There will be sacrifice but how many, we don’t know.
How could you NOT call this year an outlier will all the f*cked up stats and EVERYBODY but 4 players regressing this year?
Is it possible to have two outlier seasons in a row? Obviously, last year was one and this year is another.
Since the Oilers went away from hiring within the OBC it’s been some sort of episode from Black Mirror or something.
yr 1 – everyone is hurt
yr 2 – nobody is hurt, 100+ pt season but season ended on a bad call
yr 3 – 75% of roster regresses plus injuries, plus players’ dads dying, plus worst home PK in NHL history, plus PP eating sh*t
I’m really on the fence with firing the main men and making a huge trade. Terry Jones said it before me, if you fire those men you take the onus off of the players and they need to be held responsible as well, no matter how noble their actions may be.
Book this though, Talbot, Montoya (IF he’s with the Oilers parent club and not in the minors), and Puljujarvi will have great years as they’ll be going into their contract years. I think it was Lowetide who said to keep Pulju away from McDavid so that the Oilers don’t run into another Leon Draisaitl situation and I’m not sure I agree with that. Good players are good players and should be paid as such.
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This week the Oilers trade talk has been a real treat to experience. We’ve had deals that were never made, deals that are being made up, and an actual trade. The common denominator in all of them, Oilers fans have been given another reason to bitch and moan about Peter Chiarelli.
I mean isn’t it amazing, if you go to the sponsored Oilers blogs like Oilersnation, The Oilers Rig, Copper and Blue, or Oil on Whyte, it’s all FIRE CHIARELLI! Get rid of McLellan!
I get why they do it apart from clicks for the sites but it’s really a shame. I thought re-hashing the Larsson trade every month was bad but this is getting ridiculous (and unoriginal).
Rant over.
The Speculated Trade
Ray Ferraro threw a trade idea out into the wind this week that sparked the fires of discontent amongst Oilers fans. A deal centered upon two stars, Max Pacioretty and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
“What if there’s a deal to be made between Edmonton and Montreal that involves Nugent-Hopkins, and Pacioretty is in it? And there are some other pieces to equal the way that works. Edmonton gets a shooter. Gee, that would look pretty good on McDavid’s side. Montreal gets a centre. Gee that would look pretty good in that centre spot.”
Over at the Athletic, Jonathan Willis also jumped on the “trade Nuge” bandwagon this week and his reason was that all of his numbers are basically the same as they’ve always been but the difference being this year he’s riding a shooting percentage that is 40% better than his career average. Sort of the opposite of what usually happens to an Oiler before he’s traded.
My thoughts: If there’s a year to trade RNH, it’s this one unless the Oilers go on a ridiculous tear and are in a playoff spot come trade deadline. His value couldn’t get any higher and the Oilers still need a top 4 right-handed PP specialist on defense. Someone who can transition the puck a helluva lot faster than what the Oilers dmen are doing now. They could also use a proper right-handed 3rd line centre who is a marvel on the PK too and if they acquired both of those pieces in a trade for RNH, what’s the problem?
On the other hand, if the Oilers are looking for a LW who can score, why not simply move RNH to McDavid’s left wing and be done with it. Internal solution utilized!
The Real Trade
Al Montoya from the Montreal Canadiens to the Oilers for a 5th round pick which may turn into a 4th rounder if the former 6th overall pick plays more than 7 games.
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My thoughts: I like it but the folks in the Oilers Twittersphere who think they’re smarterthan everyone else hate it because they think that the Oilers could’ve grabbed a backup off of the waiver wire, even Montoya had they waited for Montreal to activate him off of the IR. The problem with that line of thinking is we don’t know what the price was for those backups and the Oilers defense could be held just as responsible for the poor goaltending performances earlier in the year.
Another thought out there was that 3rd string goalies can be had anything for a 4th round pick but I don’t subscribe to that. If that was the case, we would’ve seen some of these goalies like Pickard, Hutchinson, Hammond, Lindgren, or Sparks with new homes.
Todd McLellan said that they’re worried about Brossoit getting reps but somebody is going to have to be sacrificed for LB to get some games in. I’m guessing Brossoit hits waivers (gets claimed… wouldn’t that be fun fodder for the Chia-haters?), clears, goes down and then Eddie Pasquale goes to the ECHL or is traded/loaned. Nick Ellis, who’s had better AHL stats than Brossoit since taking over in Bakersfield is getting a raw deal here and I feel bad for him.
The Rumored Deal
What did Peter Chiarelli do to Darren Dreger? Geez.
Yesterday on Dustin Nielsen’s show Dreger dropped this massive bombshell that the Oilers had a deal with the Ottawa Senators that would’ve seen Taylor Hall traded for Cody Ceci but Sens ownership needed to approve it, was nowhere to be found, and subsequently Adam Larsson was traded for instead.
Taylor Hall was rumored to be traded for a lot of different dmen before he was actually traded. PK Subban was one, Dougie Hamilton was one, and Kevin Shattenkirk was another. So don’t get your speedos in a bunch by second-guessing Chiarelli’s player evaluation abilities.
We know GMs talk all of the time and they hash out potential deals on a weekly basis and then tweak them up if need be. Sometimes they sit on a trade for months before pulling the trigger.
The timing couldn’t get any better eh? Dreger had been sitting on this little tidbit of information for nearly two years before throwing it out into the world right when the Oilers mired in a 4-game losing streak and the heat couldn’t get any hotter on Peter Chiarelli?
Or was this a veiled shot at Sens GM Pierre Dorion?
Either way, what was Dreger’s motivation to do this? I can’t see any scenario where saying this would benefit anybody but himself or TSN’s radio numbers. He did mention it whilst talking about Edmonton and Ottawa not being good trade partners but still, I do not believe it was mentioned without ill intent aka it was a dick move.
Last Night’s Game
Fack! Was that a fun game to watch or what?!
The win versus the Ducks has their record versus teams in the Pacific to 4-1-0. They’ve outscored their division rivals 23-12 in that time but do you know what the fun part about the rest of the year is?
21 out of the remaining 41 games remaining in the season for the Oilers are against Pacific Division teams… And if you’re worried about that home PK (obligatory statistical preface: #smallsamplesize), the Oilers PK at home versus the Pacific, 85.7% and an added bonus is that their PP is 37.5%.
Peter Chiarelli said that he was going to build a team that would compete in the Pacific and despite how you feel about his handling of assets, you have to agree that he’s a man of his word.
