One podcast and two of my last three articles have been about Taylor Hall in some way. Everyone knows by now I was never the biggest fan of him or his play, and I’d love to stop writing about the guy, but he just can’t stop inserting himself into the Edmonton media and inviting commentary.
Enter David Staples and his latest hot take: reporting on some news from NJ.com and the Fire & Ice hockey blog about Hall’s latest comments on his inability to get over and move forward from his trade to New Jersey, David says,
“Hall’s resentment… still isn’t going away, nor is the very real and clearly bitter resentment that many of his biggest fans in Edmonton feel about the trade. They’re not even close to being over it and won’t be, I suspect, until the day Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli is fired.”
Ok. Well, that sentiment may be present in his fans, but I’d say it’s far and away not, in fact, the sentiment of many, many more Oilers fans who can understand and appreciate nuance in hockey trades and the extracurricular factors that sometimes surround them.
Regardless, Edmonton Oilers fans aren’t who Taylor Hall needs to be concerning himself with now. It’s New Jersey Devils fans. And frankly, if I were a Devils fan, I’d be pretty pissed off at Hall by this point, since all he can seem to talk about his how bummed he is to have been traded.
“But Mike, it isn’t his fault. He keeps getting asked these questions. It’s the media’s fault for beating a dead horse.”
Who cares? The media asks athletes all sorts of questions all the time, and mostly the answers they get back are lame and vague and platitudinous. But Hall has relished every opportunity that has come his way since July to wax poetic about his hurt feelings and the ill will still left in him.
Listen, I understand the emotional turmoil that can result from a sudden move and uprooting of a life. I’m a big proponent of talking through feelings and getting to root causes and doing proper psychological healing. But Hall needs to do that on his own time, in the proper setting. What he needs to be doing when the media comes to his door and fishes for headlines is start spouting the canned PR nonsense we all know and love from hockey players. (“Well, we gotta just start putting the puck in their net and keeping it outta ours, y’know?”) Because every time he bitches and moans about how hard-done-by he was by the Oilers brass, he implicitly complains about his new home and team in New Jersey, and it’s not a good look.
Taylor, I feel for you, buddy. This has been a weird summer. But to David Staples and Taylor Hall, you (Hall) had 6 years to do something with this team and city which handed you the keys, and nothing happened. This was a move we needed to make for the future of our hockey team. And whether you can rationalize it right now or not, you needed this, too.
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So if you were listening to Oilers Now w/ Bob Stauffer recently you would’ve heard him discussing a trade scenario if the Oilers landed the 1st overall pick with Mark Spector. Mr.David Staples wrote about this subject as well here. It’s a much longer and detailed post than this one but it’s very good. I like Staples, he gets a lot of shit but I’ve got time for him. I’m more or less piggybacking on Mr.Staples’ post but I’ve got an opinion on Mr.Stauffer’s comments as well.
If you’d like to hear the Oilers Now segment I’m referring to, you can listen to it here.
Basically his scenario had the Edmonton Oilers winning the draft lottery and making a deal with the Arizona Coyotes. It went as such:
To Arizona: 1st overall selection in 2016 (Auston Matthews)
To Edmonton: Dylan Strome, the 7th overall, 18th overall, and 37th overall picks in 2016.
Staples didn’t like it so much saying the following,
It would be next to madness to trade any of the top three picks in this draft unless you’re bringing back a player like P.K. Subban or Erik Karlsson.
I especially don’t like this proposed Arizona trade because I watched Dylan Strome regularly last year in the playoffs and didn’t come out loving his game. Yes, he’s big, he’s got a great shot and he puck protects and passes well, but he’s not overly aggressive and his skating isn’t great. He kind of reminds me of the Griffin Reinhart of forwards and I wonder if Strome’s trade value won’t drop a bit each year. That said, I haven’t seen Strome this season, so maybe he’s a much better player than he was in the 2015 playoffs.
I can definitely see where he’s coming from with regards to the first comment above and we’ve covered what happens when you deal out of the top 5 previously here. It’s not a good idea.
BUT!
The Oilers are in a unique situation here where they’re really don’t need to add another game-breaker to the team. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and the original core of Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Nail Yakupov, IF they decide to keep some of them, provide enough depth within the top 6 that they shouldn’t really be adding another teenager to it.
The Oilers should be looking to add depth to their roster at both the NHL level and AHL/CHL level.
**One caveat though. Patrik Laine looks to be the exact kind of forward the team is lacking in their top 6 though. A man with size, hands, and a lethal one-timer. He would be the guy I’d be after at this year’s draft. More so than Matthews.**
Taking a Deeper Look at Bob’s Deal
Using the mock draft from mynhldraft.com to see where the Coyotes are sitting in the first round and then using the mock from draftsite.com to check out the possible players that might be sitting around the Coyotes selection in the 2nd round we are left with the following:
7th overall – Olli Juolevi (LD), London Knights (OHL)
18th overall – Max Jones (LW), London Knights (OHL)
37th overall – Will Bitten (C), Flint Firebirds (OHL)
And so we add those three possibilities to Dylan Strome (C) from the Erie Otters of the OHL and that is definitely accomplishing the goal of adding depth to this team’s prospect cupboard.
So this Strome kid that Staples didn’t really rate… He’s put up 240pts in his last 164 games played in the OHL if my math is correct. He’s a whiz on the face-offs, he’s 6’3″ and nearly 200lbs and the most important but often overlooked part… He’s Connor McDavid’s best friend. If there’s even the remotest chance that McDavid could bolt via FA someday, you’d want to give him a very good reason to stick around. And Just keep this in mind as well. McDavid-Draisaitl-Strome down the middle is the right amount of skill and size that Chiarelli craves and one that you’d probably bet on to thrive in the Western Conference.
Olli Juolevi isn’t being touted as a no.1 defenseman as of yet. He’s trending in a top 4 manner at this point. The great thing about the Finn is that he’s a madman on the PP. Put up some serious offensive numbers at the World Junior’s this past year and is anchoring the London Knights back-end. What I don’t like about him is that he’s a left-handed shooter. We’ve got a shit ton of those right now.
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Max Jones is a man-beast. A 6’3″ 200lb version of Raffi Torres but he can actually play. He’s got speed to burn, hands to dangle and a laser of a shot. This is not a guy you mess around with. I’ve wondered if he’s Tom Wilson 2.0 but he’s much better offensively yet still racking up the PIMs. What I’ve heard is that because of his size and physicality he can take advantage of that at the junior ranks but he’ll have to tone that down in the pros and therein lies the question marks regarding Jones.
Will Bitten, besides having a pretty cool name, is a tiny but hard-working centre. If you’re of the older vintage maybe Bitten is in the Ken Linesman category of forwards. He’s 5’9″ or so depending on what publication you’re reading and weighs in around 160lbs. The impression I get from Eliteprospects.com is that Bitten is a tireless worker at both ends of the ice and a very smart hockey player. His size bothers me a bit and I’m not sure if he’d be a Chiarelli-type player unless he were putting up 50 goals a year in the OHL like Alex Debrincat.
The Need for Impactful Veteran Defensemen
Let’s say a deal like this is made. This is where I would change things up. I think at 7th overall that the Oilers could get a veteran right-handed shooting defenseman for that pick. Could the Anaheim Ducks be persuaded into trading Sami Vatanen for the 7th overall?
How about the 18th overall? Would the Toronto Maple Leafs be interested in dealing two of their three 2nd round picks to jump up thus giving Edmonton four 2nd round picks? That would give Chiarelli some wiggling room to move around with.
The Oilers could use all four 2nd rounders on adding depth to their system. Players like highly rated goalie Carter Hart, perhaps the aforementioned and former linemate of Connor McDavid; Alex Debrincat would be there, the Oilers might have the opportunity to take a swing at defender Sean Day, or a local product like Sam Steel or Tyler Benson could be available as well.
The other thing they could do is use the picks to trade for another veteran. Perhaps using one of them as a sweetener in an Eberle for Hamonic deal? Maybe more with the Islanders because they’re devoid of a 2nd, 3rd and 4th round pick in the upcoming draft.
So in a sense the Oilers could come out of the draft with the following:
Auston Matthews, Jordan Eberle, and a 2nd round pick
for
Sami Vatanen, Travis Hamonic, Dylan Strome, Carter Hart, Alex Debrincat, and Sean Day.
Or they could keep the pick and take Laine or Matthews.
But if I’m just blue skying here, and I am, the Oilers could very well have a real opportunity to solve their organizational depth problems in one swoop at the draft this year.
Either way, Mr.Stauffer has provided us with something to chew on until the draft lottery.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! Thanks for reading!
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After the turnover, Eberle was hustling hard until he believed Oesterle had taken control of the puck, then slowed down with the assumption that play was going to turn around. It’s a split-second decision. His willingness to persist on the back-check, even if it puts him out of position for a quick transition, is what he didn’t show. Is this a pattern? Does he routinely give up on back-checks because of an apparent offense-first mentality? I don’t know.
Other questions: Is Eberle simply a poor reader of plays from the defensive side of things? Is it a lack of effort and/or persistence issue? Can these things be learned, or is Eberle too inflexible in not learning them? We all know if that we don’t practice something regularly, it doesn’t become automatic in a game situation. Is Eberle not practicing hard backchecking? Is more prone to transitioning to offense “too early”? Tonnes of questions and you need a lot of video data, let’s say a 20-game sample (1 in 4 games, for e.g.,) to be clear on what’s going on.
We need to be careful of bias and sample size. In this case, recency bias and a sample size of one! To make radical roster-altering decisions on these irrational bases is asking for trouble. We need to look at a player’s body of work over a season. Are the problem areas–patterns that have been meticulously tracked each game–consistent? That is, is the player repeating the same problem despite coaching and video feedback? If so, why is that? The “why” is the key. The why will tell us whether it’s time to trade the player, or if the problems (clearly defined and persistent over time), can be fixed.
David Staples of the Edmonton Journal does analysis along these lines by tracking contributions to Grade A scoring chances, as well as mistakes on Grade A scoring chances against. According to Staples’ tracking, Eberle’s mistakes measure is on the lower side, relative to the other Oilers’ forwards.
Outside of video-tracked data, like that of Staples’s, we don’t have reliable measures of a player’s defensive abilities, but we a few have rough ones. One of them is Shot Attempts Against Relative-to-Teammates. This metric tells us, relative to his teammates, how many more, or fewer, shot attempts occur while the player is on the ice. From 2013-16 (3 seasons), Eberle’s ranking on this measure relative to the Oilers’ other forwards is 8th (+.78) out of 14 forwards. In other words, this suggests Eberle is a middling defensive forward relative to his teammates. Half the Oilers’ forwards are better and half are worse.
As fans, we watch only what the cameras show us. We don’t fixate on a single player and watch his every move. Because of that, I don’t have the knowledge or confidence to answer the questions I posed above. One failed back-check may suggest a pattern; a pattern that needs to be checked with thorough analysis. Or it may be simply a mental error that the player rarely makes. In this case, it turns out to be a goal and an opportunity for Kelly Hrudey (on Hockey Night in Canada) to rant about Eberle’s failure as a complete hockey player.
Wow, I go to bed and all is well in the land of hockey. I wake up to see a million blogs and podcasts talking about PK Subban and how he’s the problem with the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs are struggling and it’s all his fault because he slipped and coughed up the puck vs. the Avs and they scored a GWG off of that mistake.
The problem with the Canadiens is no more PK Subban than it is Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher, Tomas Plekanec or Alex Galchenyuk. It’s Michael Therrien. He’s lost his team. Plain and Simple. Penguins fans know what’s happening here. And if you think that Geoff Molson (Habs Owner) is going to OK a trade of the guy he just went to bat for, you’re insane. Not to mention the fact that Subban just donated $10 Million dollars to a children’s hospital in Montreal. They have to fire Therrien before jettisoning ANY of their players, let alone their best player at the moment.
I guarantee you that if Carey Price is healthy this is all for naught.
Now with all of that said and as I mentioned before, I listened to a few Oilers related podcasts and radio shows today already and I’ve gleaned over the most notable Oilers blogs mentioning this PK Subban nonsense. Let me lay down some quotes for you so you don’t have to travel the oilogosphere searching.
Edmonton is in a position to move fast, even if other teams aren’t. Edmonton has numerous pieces that could be moved for Subban, essentially anyone on the team not named Connor McDavid. This also includes Edmonton’s first pick in the 2016 entry draft, an outstanding trading chip.
Most likely Subban will stay in Montreal and those aligned against him will be moved out.
Outside of Connor McDavid, there isn’t a player on the Oilers’ roster who would be more important to the team than P.K. Subban if Subban were magically to appear in the system.
If he legitimately becomes available—and I’m skeptical that he would—the Oilers would need to make a legitimate offer, with no player other than McDavid absolutely off-limits, including people like Taylor Hall, Leon Draisaitl, Oscar Klefbom and Darnell Nurse.
You know it’s got to be a trade you look at and say we (Montreal) win.
I think the only way they’d ever trade him is if the deal is so good that your fans would have to say, “You know what? We really hate to lose this guy but that’s a heck of a deal.”
Nobody is untouchable but I do think that some players are close to untouchable and he’s (Subban) one.
I’m not convinced you guys (Oilers) could offer enough.
You are not getting out of this without (offering) at least two of Hall, Draisaitl, Nurse, and Klefbom.
I like Klefbom and Nurse but do they have Subban’s ceiling?
If I was Bergevin I’d ask for both of them (Klefbom and Nurse) and Hall or both of them and Draisaitl.
If I was the Edmonton Oilers and I got the 1st overall pick. Boy, I’ll tell you, I’m not sure if I’m dealing that for PK Subban.
You’re losing 8 years and you’re adding $9 million onto your cap. You might look at it now and say that’s a good deal (1st overall for Subban) but in five years are you going to be looking at it, as good as Connor McDavid is and what you’ve already go there, are you going to be looking at that and saying, “Boy, we really gave up an Auston Matthews in his prime?”
So there you have it. Some notable names in the Oilers media/blogging community have had their say. The conclusion: Go get that Mad Hatter.
What Does BLH Think?
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I think IF the Oilers could strike a deal to get Subban, you do it. Now would I pay the suggested price that Elliotte Friedman is suggesting?… I don’t think I would do that unless a Hamonic deal was in place as well. Losing Klefbom and Nurse is a big hit. Losing Hall, I’m not so worried about that.
Here’s my thought train on the Oilers roster going forth.
This year’s draft is chalked full of elite wingers in the top 5, where the Oilers should be picking. If the Oilers can snag Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujarvi or Auston Matthews, that to me makes Taylor Hall expendable, thus freeing up $6 million dollars in cap room. I’d much rather keep Ryan Nugent-Hopkins than Taylor Hall at this point. I feel that center depth is infinitely more important than depth on the wing and what has been the biggest complaint for the last 5 years say? If you said the Oilers defence you win!!!
So the Oilers should be a team moving forward to rebuild it’s defence and re-tooling its makeup. Chiarelli did it with Boston, so there’s no reason to believe that he won’t do it in Edmonton. With the pieces he has, surely he’ll get the job done. I think if you ask most folks how many players the team is away from becoming a true competitive team, they might say two or three but the caveat being that those players be on defence. The rest would probably say that the team has too many skilled players and not enough meat and potato guys.
Jordan Eberle is seemingly clicking with McDavid, as is Pouliot and I think it’s pertinent to keep them and keep them together. Scoring is hard enough as it is. With that being said, Hall is on another one of his weird droughts and I’m not sure if Draisaitl is suffering from that or is also in a slump. To me, Hall is another Rick Nash, Marian Gaborik, Ilya Kovalchuk, or even Tyler Seguin but the difference is The Oilers will survive if they move on without him. Having McDavid, Draisaitl, and RNH down the spine could ensure that the way Thornton, Couture, and Pavelski did in San Jose or to a greater extent and often exhausted example, Crosby, Malkin, Staal did in Pittsburgh.
I will probably die a lonely death on this hill but I will go down swinging nonetheless. I believe that the Oilers will find success when at least two of Hall, Yakupov, or RNH are playing on another team. And in my own ignorance, I find Nugent-Hopkins to be more of a keeper than the other two.
I just think you can’t pilfer off your best two-way center, a potentially elite winger (1st rounder in 2016), a struggling former 1st overall, and your best defenceman to get Subban.
The Oilers cannot go into the 2016/17 season with two centers under the age of 21 leading the march. There must be depth and the 2016 FA crop isn’t looking promising in that regards unless you feel like making a pitch for Stamkos, Staal, Backes, or Sam Gagner…
As Friedman said, you mustn’t give up 8 team controlled years of an elite prospect for 7 years of $9 million dollars per season.
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I reckon you take your greatest bargaining chip, put it forward and do your best with that. The Oilers player with the highest value is Taylor Hall.
Would I trade Taylor Hall to the Habs for PK Subban? I would. I would’ve done it years ago when Subban was going through his rocky contract negotiations. Would I add to the deal? I would. I would give them ONE of the either Klefbom or Nurse because they’d have to get a defender back. If I was pushed on Yakupov I’d be willing to move him but something would have to come back. A 2nd round draft pick possibly. The armchair GM in me would ask for Charles Hudon, Nikita Scherbak or Mike McCarron but that seems too much in this case.
Now I’m sure you’re already saying I’m nuts and there’s a solid possibility you’ve already closed the page but consider this. PK Subban is arguably the best defenceman in the league and if he’s not the best, he’s in the top three. Taylor Hall isn’t in the top three of left wingers in the game right now. He might not be in the top five or the top ten depending who you ask.
I think the lingering question with the Oilers is, where would this team be if it was healthy? Would we even be considering trading our young stars if this team was in a competitive spot in the standings? And considering that all of our young scorers, apart from McDavid, have gone through considerable scoring slumps, how important are they really?
But the most important question for you as an Oilers fan to ask yourself is when these rumors come along is… Would the Oilers have a better chance at the playoffs with player A or with player B? In this case insert the names of PK Subban and Taylor Hall.
![The Best of P.K. Subban [HD]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/6a9E87mlWaA/hqdefault.jpg?w=474&ssl=1)
![The Best of Taylor Hall [HD]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/xxfusMGjyTQ/hqdefault.jpg?w=474&ssl=1)