When’s the last time the Flames and Oilers hooked up for a trade? Staios? Smid?
I came across a guest post on another website the other day and there was a gentlemen out of Toronto who wrote something very interesting…
So i was talking to someone with direct knowledge of the situation that there was almost a 3 way trade done on day 1 of the draft just before it began.
They had mentioned that there was a trade in the works that would have sent the 3rd overall pick (clb) to calgary for the 6th overall pick + but that the blue jackets did not want to move to the 6th spot.
Enter the oilers 4th overall pick peter chiarelli was in and almost made this trade
blue jackets
ryan nugent-hopkins
4th overall pick (edm)
flames
3rd overall pick (clb)
sonny milano
oilers
6th overall pick (cgy)
dougie hamilton
this was the entire proposed trade i asked him twice to make sure but he said these were all the parts no additions anywhere , he also said this trade was essentially done until the last second when the blue jackets gm jarmo Kekäläinen played his hand a little quick , mentioned he had dubios above puljujarvi and that was the comment that killed the trade. chiarelli pulled out once he realized that he could get puljujarvi with the 4th overall and that stopped all wheels in motion.
That would’ve been a killer I say. Now it’s all hearsay and rumour at this point of course. We’ll never know if this is actually true or not but how would’ve this deal changed the landscape of the Oilers as we know them today?
Is it safe to assume that the team would’ve still gone and signed Lucic? I say yes.
Bob Stauffer has intimated that the Oilers had Mikhail Sergachev at the no.4 spot behind Puljujarvi. I’ll say they would’ve taken him at no.6 but they would’ve had their choice or Juolevi or Tkachuk as well.
Who would slot in at 3C? Caggiula? A free agent? Not sure they’d have had the cash to bring in anybody significant.
Here’s how the roster might’ve looked had the deal gone down.
Down Nugent-Hopkins but up on defence with Dougie Hamilton. We know that the Oilers did in fact talk to the Blue Jackets GM and the Flames GM at the draft (Stauffer has mentioned this on his show as well) and we also know that Chiarelli was trying to get Hamilton out of Boston at last year’s draft.
Walter Foddis had this to say when comparing Larsson to Hamilton:
That’s a tough one. Hamilton is better offensively, whereas Larsson is better defensively. Lookingat some metrics, Hamilton’s eGF% vs top-end competition is better than Larsson’s, especially against top-pairing D-men. Hamilton’s eGF% vs top-pairing Dmen was 47.3% & Larsson’s was 39.5%.
Overall, Larsson’s CA RelTM is -4 and Hamilton’s +2, which suggest Larsson is stronger defensivelly. That is, Larsson’s NJD allowed 6 fewer shot attempts/60 minutes than Hamilton’s Flames.
The opposite is true for offense, though. Hamilton’s Flames generated 11 more shot attempts per 60 minutes than Larsson’s NJD.
So although Larsson appears be stronger defensively, Hamilton’s offensive game more than compensates for this deficiency.
Comparing them on the WoodMoney metric would be interesting.
Would the Oilers still be looking for that PP QB? Chiarelli did say that the Hall deal was going down regardless but I have to call bullsh*t on that if Hamilton could’ve been acquired…
I don’t like the idea of the Oilers having poor depth at centre but one would have to think that had this scenario gone down as such that the Oilers would’ve traded one of the left-wings (Pouliot most likely) for a serviceable third line center.
What are your thoughts on this rumor? Would you have rather had Hall, Lucic, Hamilton and Sergachev, or Nugent-Hopkins, Lucic, Larsson, and Puljujarvi? Which grouping would’ve made the Oilers a better team?
Let me know in the comments below!
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The Oilers added Adam Larsson a few weeks ago, could they add another RHD next summer?
Friend of the blog and former BLH writer Micah Kowalchuk sent me an interesting message the other day talking about how the Oilers could very well find themselves a good young dman closer to the expansion draft next summer rather than digging around and overpaying for one this summer. Here’s the message I got from him:
“If you play around with General Fanager’s expansion draft calculator, these are the teams that, between the defense they have on the roster and their forwards, likely have to expose a good RHD:
Columbus, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Winnipeg
Columbus has a ton of NMCs, and likely have to expose one of Johnson, Murray or Savard
Florida has a ton of high end young talent that has to be protected at forward and just signed some high value defenders or traded for some, and may have to make Pysyk or Demers available (odd as that is).
Minnesota has a ton of young players on the roster as well, and unless they want to exposure Suter or Spurgeon (which is unlikely), they probably have to put Brodin or Dumba up on the market.
Winnipeg also has the “plenty of young talent” problem, and burning all their protection slots on right side defenders seems unlikely, so Trouba or even Myers may be on market
Colorado has the young talent issue as well, with the likelihood of having to exposure Barrie or Zadorov as a concern”
Let’s take a gander at the teams’ defensive depth charts from www.rosterresource.com. I sorted them leftie/rightie and highlighted the ones I think the teams would choose to keep if they had the choice. Players with movement clauses were also highlighted.
Ryan Murray – Seth Jones
Jack Johnson – David Savard
Dean Kukan – Dalton Prout
Zach Werenski – John Ramage
Dillon Heatherington – Blake Siebenaler
Oleg Yevenko – Jaime Sefers
Jacob Graves
Markus Nutivaara
The Blue Jackets are a little bit blessed in that they don’t have any movement clauses on the back-end. I reckon they’d be happy to move on from Jack Johnson in order to fit Zach Werenski into the lineup.
Francois Beauchemin – Erik Johnson
Fedor Tyutin – Tyson Barrie
Chris Bigras – Eric Gelinas
– Patrick Wiercioch
– Nikita Zadorov
Ryan Stanton – Mat Clark
Duncan Siemens
Mason Geertsen
Cody Corbett
Anton Lindholm
Sergei Boigov
Colorado is in a bit of a pickle here. Did they sign Wiercioch with the intention to trade Barrie? What will come of Zadorov? Interesting team to pick at for the Oilers if the opportunity arises.
Keith Yandle – Aaron Ekblad
Jakub Kindl – Jason Demers
Michael Matheson – Mark Pysyk
– Alex Petrovic
– Linus Holtstrom
Michael Downing – Steve Kampfer
Jonathan Racine – Jayce Hawryluk
Ian McCoshen – Mackenzie Weegar
– Josh Brown
– Brent Regner
Now this is a team with some depth! Wow! I know they are high on Matheson, so I have to wonder if he plays enough games whether he’ll need to be protected or not. Pysyk, Kindl, Petrovic, and Hultstrom look to be cannon fodder for the expansion draft if they are kept all year. Although, that being said, they’re all on one year deals apart from the Swede. So they’d be free agents…
Ryan Suter – Jared Spurgeon
Marco Scandella – Matt Dumba Jonas Brodin – Christian Folin
Mike Reilly
Nate Prosser
Victor Bartley – Hunter Warner
Gustav Olofsson – Alex Gudbranson
Dylan Labbe
Nick Seeler
Guillaume Gelinas
Zach Palmquist
Now here’s a team in trouble for the expansion draft. They’ve got Parise, Koivu, and Pominville with movement/trade clauses along with young players like Charlie Coyle, Mikael Granlund, and Nino Niederreiter needing to be protected too. Eric Staal is also someone they’d have to consider protecting. I expect some real movement from the Wild this year.
The Oilers should really try to lean on Wild GM Chuck Fletcher this year to get a good talent for a bargain price but from the sounds of how things went at the draft, I’d be surprised if Chiarelli could come to an agreement on a deal with Fletcher. Especially after what Shero did getting Hall for Larsson. (God I hope Larsson turns out to be the next Charlie Huddy or something similar)
Ben Chariot – Dustin Byfuglien Toby Enstrom – Tyler Myers Mark Stuart – Jacob Trouba
– Paul Postma
Josh Morrisey – Jan Kostalek
Julian Melchiori – Nelson Nogier
Brenden Kichton
Brian Strait
The Jets might be another team ripe for the picking… Wheeler and Little have clauses as well as Byfuglien, Enstrom, and Stuart. That only leaves them two spots to protect Myers, Trouba, or Scheifele…
So Micah does bring up a good point right? Do you think that the teams mentioned above are as handcuffed as Micah believes they are? Let us know in the comments below!
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When the dust settled around the blockbuster deal that saw Nashville and Columbus exchange marquee young players, – defenceman Seth Jones and center Ryan Johansen – my first impression was that the Edmonton Oilers missed out. The oil lost out on a right shot D with a ton of potential because we either didn’t have the assets to trade, or refused to do so.
However, later on in the day, after listenting to the Oiler’s produced and managed talk show, “Oiler’s Now” I had a different perspective, or at least some added perspective on where the Oiler’s brain trust is taking this team.
Host Bob Stauffer had spent the bulk of the show on the defensive, justifying why the Oiler’s hadn’t over-paid (like Columbus did) to acquire promising young defenceman Seth Jones. At the end of show he fielded the call from a “T” who said a number of things including that Stauffer was dumb, and that Nugent-Hopkins was not a strong enough asset to land Seth-Jones. That was enough to send Stauffer over the edge and the big man sent a venemous volley back to the caller.
“Actually T, you’re the dummy, because the Edmonton Oilers could have got Seth Jones for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. And he’s not the only defenseman he could have had out of Nashville. If you had a clue.”
Bob Stauffer
Whoa momma. Looks like this is one of those moments when Stauffer gives up on being coy and is all in for being direct. My interpretation: the Oiler’s did enquire about Jones. No surprise. But whereas I (and many other fans) believed Nugent-Hopkins was not enough to land the burgeoning star defenceman, Stauffer lays waste to that notion.
The Oilers could have got Seth Jones, but decided the deal wasn’t fair value for the Nuge. Now that may sound off, base, considering what Nashville eventually received for Jones, but are we maybe under-valuing our asset and over-valuing Nashville’s because we are in such a deficit for right shot D?
If we look at Seth Jones’ performance with Nashville this season, he is far from a top pairing defenceman. He’s actually a third pairing defenceman. Which many argue is fair, considering he is playing behind Roman Josi, and Webber. But when we consider he is losing minutes to ostensibly lesser prospects lie Ryan Ellis and Matias Ekholm, there grows a concern.
According to Stauffer, he’s watched Jones a lot this year and noted he wasn’t exactly “hitting it out of the park.” My interpretation of that comment would be that Jones’ defensive game is deficient and he is undoubtedly lacking on the physical end. He’s not going to punish opposing forwards like, say, a Boychuck or Chara would. And when you look at what the Oilers are lacking on their blueline, that was doubtless a concern for Oiler’s GM Pete Chiarelli, who likely came to the conclusion the risk wasn’t worth the reward, and pulled the Nuge off the table.
Does Johansen’s Downside Make Him More Of A Gamble Than Nuge?
So then the additional question is, how did the Preds get an asset like Johansen when they gave up an asset that is clearly in his developmental stages? I would say there were a number of reasons for that, the biggest ones point to flaws in the Columbus organization. First off, they have a coach in Torterella who doesn’t seem to know how to get the best out of his star players. All you had to do was point to Torts insistence that the Sedins block shots to know that he doesn’t always put his players in a position to succeed. Johansen for his part, has a reputation of marching to his own drum and that doesn’t work for Torts.
Johansen is also not that far away from restricted free agency. Considering his representation and history, the Bluejackets could only look forward to a potentially long, messy negotiation that could end with Columbus losing Johansen and not getting fair value. That’s a concern.
Lastly Johansen has had health issues, specifically heart problems. If that did become a chronic issue he would have to retire, and the Bluejackets would be left with no return. Considering these factors, which Columbus likely did, their return was decent. They have one of the best young defencemen in the game with a ton of, “potential.”
Nuge Is Still Huge
Comparatively speaking, the Nuge is on a very nice contract for a top six player. He continues to round out his game, and is widely considered to be ahead of the curve with respect to two-way play and still has more upside. A 25 goal 70 point campaign was my expectation for this year, and while he’s not on pace for that, 60 points in a season is not too shabby (currently on pace for his standard 56 points) in today’s NHL, and that’s more or less where I believe he will end up.
Now, if we had a magical hockey trade wand and Roman Josi was coming back in exchange for the Nuge, I think we can all agree the Oiler’s would have to do that. But in this situation that was not the case. Stauffer refers to more than one Nashville defenceman being available and that was likely Ellis, or Ekholm, not Webber or Josi.
Landing Hamonic Now a Must
Now that the Jones’ transaction has happened you would have to think Chia and co are very focussed on in Travis Hamonic. They won’t be able fo give an equivalent top 4 D, which NYI wants, but a top 6 forward and decent defensive prospect should match Snow’s best offer. My concern is that since Chia over-paid for Griffin Reinhart, so Snow will believe he can really hit a home run on Hamonic, so there could be battle of wills here. At this point, my confidence remains with Chia.
As for the efficacy of Stauffer’s comments, I have to think he was telling the truth and not spinning. Chiarelli and McClellan’s vision of the future appears to be one where they can be dominant at both ends of the ice, and Stauffer’s comments reflect that, as the media division of the Edmonton Oiler’s should. So if the Oiler’s rob Peter to pay Paul, it won’t be an extreme exchange.
It’s time for the weekly round up with our beloved Edmonton Oilers!
This week, the Oilers had three games on the dock: A 3-2 Overtime win in Vancouver, a 3-1 win here in Edmonton vs Detroit and a poorly played 7-4 lost versus a good Washington team.
Going 2-1 this week, the Oilers have improved their record to 3-5-0.
Edmonton Oilers Three Stars of the Week
3. Mark Letestu
Letestu gets the nod for the third star of the week as he had some pretty good chances via McDavid, including his first of his Oilers career. He’s been showing some great energy in the bottom six role and I’m starting to notice good things about him more and more.
2. Cam Talbot
He’s the number one goalie, no question. Nilsson had a poor showing (albeit there’s a debate to how much of that loss against Washington was truly his fault) and Talbot was simply superb this week. He had two wins and was solid in relief of Nilsson in an awful game from the Oilers. He looked especially great against Detroit. Isn’t it great having a goalie that we can finally trust? I imagine we will have some speculation about his next contract soon.
1. Connor McDavid
McDavid had points in all three games. He had a very nice assist to Nail Yakupov against Vancouver, Scored a highlight worthy goal against Detroit and had a goal and an assist against Washington. Sure, he had an own goal against Washington and had a rough night despite the points, but he’s 18 and he’s starting to look like he’s going to be an elite talent….very soon. Not that nobody was doubting that.
Edmonton Oilers Rumors:
Pretty quiet on the Oilers front. It’s still very early on in the year and should not be a surprise that there is a lack of movement throughout the league. Struggling teams will make coaching changes before making a significant trade. Usually at least.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if Cam Talbot or Anders Nilsson got hurt or Connor McDavid for that matter? Well I’ll lay it out for you nice a simple…. The wins would start to dry up… The Oilers’ defence is simply not good enough and there are some bodies that need to be moved out and some brought in. And that my friends is what we’re going to discuss today. A changing of the rearguard.
At the time of writing the Oilers are 7th in the NHL for shots against per game. Meaning they’re the 7th worst team in the league for allowing shots on the net. They’re also the 6th worst team in the league for giveaways but the 3rd best team in takeaways. Not to pile it on and this has nothing to do with the defensemen themselves but they’re the 2nd worst team in the league to date on faceoffs winning a measly 45.9%…
I’d say they’re pretty lucky to be at three wins and 4 losses right now.
But getting back to the defence. Just from the eye test I’m seeing problems with almost all of the veterans more specifically Mark Fayne and that’s who we’re going to focus on right now.
Fayne seems to be way out of his depth, I don’t know if it’s the way McLellan is using him or he’s not used to this kind of system or maybe he’s just unable to do what the coach is asking of him. He’s been in the NHL long enough that he should be able to adapt to whatever changes the coaching staff makes to the team’s style of play be it breakouts, defensive zone coverage, or special teams. But to me it seems he’s getting eaten alive out there more often than not.
But that’s not what the numbers are telling us. Sure he’s -4 and according to his PDO from Puckalytics.com (97.1) he’s not getting many breaks there either. His Corsi For % sits at 48.1% and that’s not bad for a dman that is getting the tough starts and is constantly getting put out against the other team’s best lines. If we looked at last year’s stats a 48.1 would put him in the Andy Green or Dennis Seidenberg area. Last season Faybe ended with a 46.2 CF% which place him around the likes of Niklas Grossman, Tom Gilbert, and Alexei Emelin.
But what does his Corsi Against tell us? That might open things up a bit as to why he looks a bit under par. Last season he had a 56.0 CA/60 and this season so far that number has gone up to 59.8 but he’s not the worst. Eric Gryba is at 62.9 followed by Andrej Sekera at 60.1. They’re leaking shots…
Now look, you don’t want your defense giving up shot attempts the clip those three are doing it at. The best in the NHL at it are the Los Angeles Kings. Drew Doughty and Jake Muzzin are masters of the CA/60… They’re possession “Kings” of you will. The pair averaged around a 46.0 CA/60 last season and a 57 CF%… Damn good if you ask me and something the Oilers should thrive to achieve with their defenders.
It’s early in the year yet so we can expect all of those numbers to change but for the sake of getting in too deep with the numbers, let’s leave them where they are and figure out a way to improve the personnel on the back end of this Oilers team.
As we talked about on yesterdays Oilers Rig Podcast, there is going to have to be a sacrifice now that the team is experimenting with a harder and heavier element on that top line. Well “have to be” is a bit strong a term, I think a consideration will be made at that spot after Jordan Eberle is 100% healthy. IF the line is producing then just as the sun rises everyday, that line must be kept intact. But (folks this is a real possibility here) if that line fails to click in the system that Todd McLellan is attempting to instill, expect someone to be moved. And as I’ve spoken of before, the two options are Eberle and Yakupov.
Seeing either of those players moved would be akin to a swift boot to the nuts. Not something anyone would enjoy particularly. But if that kick to the junk got you $10 million dollars, you might consider it and that’s what I’m speaking to here. No matter how much you want it Oilers fans, you’re not going to get what you expect in return for these players. You’re not going to get a 30 goal scorer in return for Jordan Eberle and you’re not going to get a player that is equal to that of Nail Yakupov either. I imagine fans are still looking at and using Yakupov’s draft pedigree as some place to draw a line in the sand regarding his trade value. But that’s not how it’s done. His value probably lies somewhere around the middle-6 forward or 2nd pairing defenceman if not a sub top ten first round pick and a prospect.
What we do know today is Yakupov is making a lot of people happy with his chemistry alongside McDavid. The two lead the team in scoring for Pete’s sake! The other thing we know is that Hall and Nuge are a pair that shouldn’t be separated. And Lastly, we know that forwards work in pairs not trios. The days of the Stastny brothers and the French Connection have been over for some time now and aren’t coming back.
Ipso facto Eberle is out. He’s out because if this new heavy forechecking in the offensive zone is a real direction the team wants to go, Eberle won’t cut it. He’s not tailored for that game and you can’t expect Hall and Nuge to do that 82 games a year and come out unscathed. Another player has to do it for them for the sake of their health if anything.
So where do we go from here? We go to Winnipeg and try and work out a deal for Dustin Byfuglien. Why Big Buff? Well consider these reasons:
What are the Oilers lacking on the PP? A huge bomb from the point.
What are the Oilers lacking on the blueline? A defender that can play 25 minutes a night and destroy the opposition.
How much more than the Eberle’s $6M will Byfuglien be asking for? $7M, $7.5M? He’s making $5.2M now and at season’s end he’ll be 31. Is he worth the $7 million that folks were willing to give Brent Seabrook per year long term?
Potentially there’ll be a lot of salary opening up this summer. Purcell, Gazdic, Klinkhammer, Miller, Gryba, Nikitin and Scrivens are coming off the books. That’s about $12 or $13 million set to be freed up with onlyTalbot, Nilsson, Jultz, and a few prospects needing to be signed.
So those are three VERY compelling reasons to go for the Jets defender apart from the highlight reel of hits above. But does Eberle fit there? What would a potential deal built around Eberle and Byfuglien mean for a player like Nik Ehlers? Would he be able to switch to LW and thus give center Mark Scheifele some very talented wingers to play with?
What are the Jets plans for their own defence. Losing Byfuglien would certainly open up a hole but is that something they’re anticipating? Could Jacob Trouba fill the void and therefore welcome the highly regarded Josh Morrisey to the squad? It’s worth pondering.
But all of this does nothing to the current core apart from add another NHL body to the contract list. So with that said I heard that Scott Howson was scouting the Islanders/Blue Jackets game the other day and a report came out detailing a Cam Atkinson to the New Jersey Devils for Adam Larsson trade. Not only that but yet another post was published on The Hockey Writers discussing the Blue Jackets trade options at this point, you can view that here.
Now I’m seeing all of this and I’m hearing that the Blue Jackets are in the market for a defensive defenseman. The Oilers have two on the roster right now, Mark Fayne/Andrew Ference, and three if you include Nikita Nikitin within the definition of defenceman.
Listen below to what Jonathan Willis said on Lowetide’s show about which veterans tend to stick around when a new GM is hired. Skip to the 25:50 mark for the comment.
<—- Looking at Columbus’ d-core right now, it’s nothing to brag to your buddies about and I can see why they’d want to shake things up but if their goalie would stop doing his best impression of Devan Dubnyk circa 2013 they might win a few of these games.
So if I’m looking at players that simply don’t fit here, I’m looking at Goloubef, Prout and Tyutin as the sacrificial lambs. Ryan Murray is in the Nail Yakupov category of players meaning there’s a part of you that wants to move him but you can’t because he was a high draft pick and there’s so much “potential” left to be had. Can’t see them moving on from Jack Johnson and Savard just signed a new deal.
Where do the Oilers come in? Well I suppose Fayne and Ference’s experience could come in handy. I think that the Blue Jackets would love to move on from Prout here and they’ve got about three and a half million in salary available, so what if they picked up Mark Fayne and tossed him up with Ryan Murray, demoted Goloubef to 3rd pairing and sent Prout packing?
What would the return from Columbus be? Well you’re probably not going to like it. It’d probably be right winger Rene Bourque unless the Oilers are adding on, which they very well could do given the amount of bodies they’ve got developing in Bakersfield. What would it take to pry a player like Oliver Bjorkstrand (RW) or Kerby Rychel (LW) out of Columbus? Oilers Director of Player Personnel Bob Green would be very familiar with Bjorkstrand given Green’s team in Junior (Edmonton Oil Kings) and Bjorkstrand’s team (Portland Winterhawks) squared up in some vicious playoff series’ a few years ago. But even then, would you give them another defenceman like Justin Schultz and bring Darnell Nurse up or would you deal some prospects ahead of Jultz? He is an NHL defenceman after all.
If the Oilers started the new year minus Jordan Eberle, Mark Fayne, Justin Schultz and prospects or draft picks; brought in Dustin Byfuglien, Rene Bourque, Kerby Rychel/Oliver Bjorkstrand AND had Darnell Nurse on the big team’s roster, would that be worth it to you if Edmonton could re-sign Byfuglien?
