Tag Archives: Jason Demers

Armchair GM, Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, NHL Entry Draft, Prospects, Rumors, Trades

The Golden Scenario

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Ryan-Nugent-Hopkins-Faceoff

I was listening to Lowetide’s most recent Point/Counter-Point with Matthew Iwanyk today and the topic du jour was what to do with the 4th overall pick? The same old same olds were covered, ie: trade up, trade down, trade out to get a dman but Lowetide brought up a scenario to which Iwanyk called it “The Golden Scenario” and it went like this:

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  • Trade Jordan Eberle to the Islanders for Travis Hamonic
  • Sign Jason Demers
  • Trade down to the 7-9 range and pick one of Juolevi, Sergachev, or Chychrun, plus get a good forward prospect to replenish the cupboards in Bakersfield.

Personally I don’t think that Eberle is going to be enough to get Hamonic. That’s me though. I think the premium on defensemen is going to skyrocket this summer and the ask is going to be Nuge. Especially with Frans Nielsen being a UFA this summer and the Islanders not really having anybody in the system to take over Nielsen’s shut-down duties.

If you’re comfortable with signing Demers to a long-term deal over $5M per year, then we’re gold. But that’s going to be a tough contract in 2-3 years when Nurse, Draisaitl, McDavid, etc. start earning big dollars. And with the expansion draft coming as well. Is he a player you’d be comfortable with letting go in said 2-3 seasons if things got crowded as Ethan Bear developed or Caleb Jones?

The teams sitting at 7-9 are (tempting prospects in brackets):

  • Arizona – 7 (Christian Dvorak, Nick Merkley, Brendan Perlini)
  • Buffalo – 8 (…)
  • Montreal – 9 (Mike McCarron, Charles Hudon, Noah Juulsen, Artturi Lehkonen)

The Coyotes are about the only team I’m tempted with by their prospects. But I’m wondering if trading down even further and going for Ryan Suter 2.0 Charlie McAvoy would be the way to go though. The Oilers’ system is devoid of a number of quality RH dmen. Hence why we’re talking about trying to acquire Demers and Hamonic…

  • Colorado – 10 (Chris Bigras, Nicholas Meloche, AHL Co-ROY Mikko Rantanen)
  • New Jersey – 11 (Goalie Mackenzie Blackwood, Reid Boucher, Pavel Zacha, Steven Santini)
  • Ottawa – 12 (Colin White, Thomas Chabot)
  • Carolina – 13 (Sebastien Aho, Roland McKeown, Hadyn Fleury, Alex Nedeljkovic)

Can’t see anyway the Oilers would be getting a Rantanen or a Zacha here, Colin White would probably be a long shot too.

The way I see it, the Oilers are partially in the place they are because they drafted poorly after the first round or they traded their picks. Now if you take the option to draft completely off of the table then what is that doing for the future of the team. I’m of the belief that you MUST draft in the first two rounds every year, successfully albeit, so that the circle of life continues.

So I say trade down and get the McAvoy kid and a prospect like Aho, White, or pay a bit more and get Zacha. Let him (McAvoy) spend another season or two in the NCAA, sign him, send him to Bakersfield for 40 games and then bring him up if he’s developing according to plan.

Another Option

Not many people are talking about the possibility of trading up to grab Columbus’ pick. I think that’s because they believe that the fact that the Blue Jackets’ GM is Finnish and there’s a great Finnish player in Jesse Puljujarvi that will be sitting there at three for him to take but the reality of the situation is that the Blue Jackets have worked themselves into a shit situation with their horrible long-term contracts and are in dire need of some cap relief. Fact of the matter is, their GM won’t be in Columbus long enough to see his prized pick reach his potential. He’d be doing the next GM a huge favour. The only way he can get himself out of this pickle is to find a way to do some major open heart surgery on his roster.

Next season Columbus has $68M committed to 11 fwds, 7 dmen, and 3 goalies. If the salary cap goes to $74M next year they’ll have only $6M available to sign their RFAs, upgrade via free agency AND sign the 3rd overall pick. Not only that but the expansion draft is coming and correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t each team have to protect the players with no-movement clauses? The Blue Jackets have 5 players who are veterans on long-term deals with NMC’s. Scott Hartnell, Fedor Tyutin, David Clarkson, Nick Foligno, and Brandon Dubinsky are all weighing Columbus down.

Edmonton could offer to swap picks, toss in Yakupov AND take on one of those contracts (ideally Hartnell’s because it’s the shortest and he’s been quite productive recently) OR if Columbus said no, then the Oilers could offer-sheet Seth Jones to something like $5.5M for 6 years.

Either way the Oilers could be getting something of huge value to them. How could Columbus even match that without screwing themselves over? Of course the proposal is all predicated upon them not being able to move the veterans mentioned above.

In the end here, how urgent is it for the Oilers to make the playoffs in 2016/17? Is it even a realistic possibility? Who would the Oilers even jump over to make the playoffs? What would happen if they shot themselves in the foot by trading the #4 overall and Eberle, picked up Hamonic and Demers and then got hit by the injury bug again or those players struggled off the bat?

When you try to force things to happen, they rarely happen the way you want them too or they do happen with some undesired side-effects in tow… I reckon we just have to enjoy the process. The process isn’t fun to go through but when it is complete, everyone (mostly) is happy they went through it.

What do you think? Would you prefer to go the route that Lowetide and Iwanyk talked about or trade up to #3 overall and screw over the Blue Jackets? Let me know in the comments below!

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Armchair GM, Edmonton Oilers, Micah Kowalchuk, NHL, Trades

How Much Does a Right-Handed Defenseman Go For Anyway…

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So, at this point of the year, we’re left wondering with these two questions.  First, what is a quality Top-6 NHL winger worth, and second, what is the going price for a quality Top-4 right-handed defenseman.

In an effort to answer these burning questions while I wait for the snow to melt so I can start golfing, because, well, that’s what us Oilers fans do in the spring, here’s my best guess.

To do this, we can essentially just look at the deals for defensemen, there’s really only been 8 deals involving high-end right-handed defensemen in recent history, and here’s how they break down:

  • Jason Demers, originally a 7th round pick, had played parts of 6 seasons with the San Jose Sharks when he was dealt to the Dallas Stars for a 3rd round pick and Brenden Dillon. At that point of his career, he could safely be considered a 4/5 defenseman who has flourished in Dallas with more opportunity;
    • He was dealt for a defenseman who was younger and considered to have more upside at the time, and who was 6’3 225lbs.
  • Kevin Shattenkirk, in his first season with the Avalanche, was dealt along with a 2nd round pick and Chris Stewart, at the time considered a Top-6 NHL power forward, for Erik Johnson, a first round pick, and a depth forward;
    • Once again, we have defensemen going both ways in this deal as a balance, and both were considered quality young defensemen with high upside;
  • Matt Niskanen was dealt, along with James Neal, to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Alex Goligoski, who at the time was considered a potentially premier offensive defenseman;
    • Again, we see a defenseman for a defenseman swap, with the better defensemen resulting in the inclusion of a scoring winger;
  • Tyler Myers, along with pending UFA winger Drew Stafford, a pair of prospects and a first round pick to the Winnipeg Jets for Evander Kane and Zack Bogosian;
    • Once again we see scoring forwards to balance the deal in favour of who gets the better defenseman, but again there are defensemen moving in the deal;

Now, to look at the deals where no other defensemen were involved:

  • Brent Burns for Devin Setoguchi and a first. Now, it has to be noted here, Burns was as much a winger as a defenseman at this time, and therefore was dealt for another winger with an included draft pick;
  • Dustin Byfuglien (along with Ben Eager, Brent Sopel and Akim Aliu) for a 1st, 2nd, and a selection of depth forwards. Once again, Byfuglien was considered as much a power forward, and therefore his price was more along the lines of a scoring forward;
  • Seth Jones for Ryan Johansen. This was the most recent move, where a larger 1st line center was moved for a player who, although having potential, was a 2nd pairing right-hand defenseman on his team;
  • Johnny Boychuk for two 2nds and a conditional 3rd. It has to be noted that the Islanders caught Boston in a bad cap situation and was able to take advantage of it due to their cap space. This deal, although fans scream for the Oilers to make a similar one, was lighting in a bottle and is unlikely to be duplicated;
  • Dougie Hamilton was dealt for a 1st and two 2nd round picks when he didn’t sign his RFA deal;

So, to summarize, we can discount the Boychuk deal as a rarity, and we can consider the Burns and Byfuglien deals to essential be for forwards (at the time).  That leaves us with the various deals where they are essentially Best Defensemen in the Deal for Scoring Forward and Lesser Defenseman, and then the deal of a 2nd pairing with potential Defenseman for a Top-3 Center.  This shows us how much value is generally placed on a right-handed defenseman, and we can expect one of our younger left-handed defenseman will be going alongside any winger we deal to obtain such a right-handed defenseman.

Now, one can debate the quality of players such as Jordan Eberle, Nail Yakupov or Taylor Hall, but as becomes clear, no one deals a quality right-handed defenseman for a winger unless a secondary defenseman was included.  Goligoski for Niskanen and Neal are an example of this.  The only real exception would be the Burns scenario, which would still place a rough price of approximately Jordan Eberle and our first round pick to make that deal happen.  Essentially, any deal the Oilers do will probably have to include one of Oesterle, Davidson or even Klefbom along with a winger to get that quality right-side defenseman, or else our first-round pick plus a winger.  The only exception would be if the Oilers chose to deal Nugent-Hopkins, who may at best on his own fetch a right-handed defenseman with “potential”.

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Armchair GM, Edmonton Oilers, Micah Kowalchuk, NHL, Trades

Fixing up the Oilers Defense – Jason Demers

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So, in an attempt to find out if there is anything in the free agent market, I took a snoop at the best available right-handed defenseman, Jason Demers.

Now, at first glance, he’s a 6’1 200lb right-shit, 27 years old, good for .34ppg (28 points per year).  So, he looks like a decent option, but nothing spectacular at first, other than a good second pairing option.

As fans, the name everyone wants to see with the Oilers is Travis Hamonic, and we’ve seen many discussions of how he’d be a perfect fit here.  This, courtesy of www.ownthepuck.blogspot.ca, is how they compare:

What jumps out is that Demers is, without much debate, a better defenseman than Hamonic.  For that matter, his offense over 60 is even superior to Hamonic.  Although we talk about Hamonic as a shut-down guy, Demers does that better as well, and in the case of shot supression, far better.

Also, Demers posts these numbers on a run-and-gun hockey team that is always considered weak on the defensive end.  If Hamonic would be a solution for the Oilers, then there’s no question Demers would be one as well, and one that could easily play a top-pairing role.

Of course, the normal reply is “Well, there’s no way Dallas lets him go”, and that was the first thought that came up in debate.  However, when you look at Dallas’s cap next year…

With 27 contracts in place, Dallas has $56 million allocated to 9 forwards, 3 defensemen, and 2 goaltenders.  If the cap is around $71 million, that means Dallas has $15 million to spend on 5 forwards and 5 defensemen.  Out of that, the following positions must be addressed:

Vernon Fiddler – 4th line C

Patrick Eaves – 4th line RW

Valeri Nichushkin – 2nd line RW (RFA)

Alex Goligoski – 1st line LHD

Kris Russel – 2nd line LHD

Jason Demers – 2nd line RHD

Jordie Benn – 3rd line RHD

As well, Jamie Oleksiak is a pending RFA

That means Dallas has, as UFAs, 3 of their Top-4 on defense.  So, assuming Dallas gets Oleksiak and Nichushkin under contract for approximately $2.5 million each, we’re now at $10 million for Fiddler, Eaves, Goligoski, Russel, Demers and Benn.  Goligoski, as a top-pairing left-handed defenseman, can expect a contract of approximately $5 million.  That leaves $5 million for the remaining players.  If the Oilers were to offer Demers a 5-year, $6 million per year contract, it’s unlikely Dallas could match the offer.

Now, this would eventually leave the Oilers in a salary-cap situation as well, where one of the $6 million core would need to be dealt, however this should not prevent them from trying for Demers.  If the Oilers are looking for a defenseman such as Hamonic, Demers appears to be a better defenseman (if one that would be more expensive and a bit older).  If he can be obtained as a free agency, the Oilers have that many more assets to deal for present and future players.

 

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