Tag Archives: Leon Draisait

Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Oilers Post Game Report, NHL

Oilers/Devils: Five Things We Learned After Game 15

Wow, it’s been 11 games since I did up a post-gamer. I guess that’ll happen to a guy when he hits the road for 3 weeks!

I think the Oilers are starting to get their game together. I remember last season getting ridiculously anxious when the other team would get a lead because I was used to the Oilers simply shutting things down at that point in previous years but instead what happened was the 2016/17 version of the club started to come back and win games and take leads which were held onto for wins.

I’d like to say it was pleasing that Edmonton didn’t allow another ex-Oiler to score on them this time and still won the game. Hall was flying out there though. He could’ve put the game away a couple of times but Cam Talbot shut the door. So beers are on him!

Five Things We Learned

  1. Milan Lucic didn’t need a fight to turn it on.

    Is Looch the only player in the league that’ll go five-hole on a goalie on a 2v1? His contribution to the secondary scoring is picking up and that’s a huge boost to the Oilers. I love that he had a great game that didn’t require kicking somebody’s ass. He needed that game because when I watched him in October he was playing like trash.

  2. Nugent-Hopkins is making a statement to Peter Chiarelli, “Trade Me and You’ll be Fired!”

    Nuge turning those Devils inside out in OT was a pleasure to watch, it’s like that puck is tied to a string when he handles it. His hands are so silky smooth and now that the biscuits are going into the basket, you have to wonder about his future…

    I’m pretty certain at this point that Pat Maroon can kiss his Oilers career bye bye. Perhaps Kris Russell and/or Andrej Sekera as well. The Oilers are going to need that cap room to keep RNH on this team. And if Chiarelli deals RNH for cap savings again… Woof! I’ll be tuning out of Twitter and the Oilers call-in shows. Edmonton might start itself on fire if that happens.

  3. Adam Larsson hates on-camera interviews.

    Was it me or was he just waiting to get the hell out of there. I mean Gene Principe is the man and he’s wonderful at his job but no amount of trying to make Larsson feel more comfortable helped those intermission interviews… The least the Oilers could’ve done was run some game footage overtop of the audio…

  4. Todd McLellan is getting tired of players getting injured.

    If you listened/watched the post-game press avail, I don’t remember if it was Spector or Matheson that asked McLellan about Slepyshev but I was listening and I could feel the frustration through my ear buds…

    I feel for guys like Caggiula and Slepyshev and I’m not confident they’ll be Oilers next season but let’s remember how Oscar Klefbom’s career started out… If either player, or both, can figure it out and keep their body in one piece, the Oilers secondary scoring is that much better. Not only that but both of these gents aren’t afraid to get their noses dirty and that right there is one point in the Coach Todd’s good book for them.

  5. Leon and Connor are the most electrifying 1-2 punch in the NHL.

    Hands down! And I don’t care what Stamkos and Kucherov are doing down in TB. All their games have been vs. Eastern Conference teams.  McDavid and Draisaitl are making a mockery of the 3v3 OT.

https://twitter.com/OilersNation/status/928817410156589056

So there you have it kids! The Oilers are on a 2-game winning streak (two wins from .500) and are digging their way out of the basement of the NHL. They’re only, what, 4pts out of a wildcard spot and 5pts out of a playoff spot. The season is still young, lots of time to get back into the top three of the Pacific. 🙂

Things are on the up and up! Looking forward to watching Connor and the gang dismantle the Rangers and the Capitals next.

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Bakersfield Condors, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Rumors

Draisaitl for Anything Under $9M Would Be A Surprise says Dreger

This from Darren Dreger’s spot on the Neilson and Fraser Show on 1260 this morning. It isn’t really shocking news is it? If you listen to Ryan Rishaug when he’s been on Jason Gregor’s show lately, he’s described the negotiations between the Oilers and Leon Draisaitl’s agent, Mike Liut, as “knock ’em down, drag ’em out”…

So as we’ve been saying for months, expect the unexpected.

$9M per year is a shat ton of cash for Leon and as a fan, we’re probably going to come out two ways on this:

  • That’s too much, trade him!
  • We haven’t had a bonafide no.2 center here since the dynasty days! Pay the man!

Now, I’m getting tired of this drama already and we’re a week into free agency. I’d much rather have Leon Draisaitl than not have him and there aren’t many players that I’d prefer over him that would be realistic trade options to be honest.

  • I don’t see the risk myself. Draisaitl has improved each year in the NHL and has been relatively healthy whilst doing so.
  • Chiarelli hasn’t received dollar for dollar in any of his big deals yet and before you rip on me for that, in the Hall/Eberle deals, those trades were made out of a necessity to change the culture, save cap space, and fill needs within the team. I don’t see Chiarelli feeling the need to do any of that with a Draisaitl trade. Only reason to trade him is because he’d be pricing himself out or an offer sheet.
  • I don’t have any problem signing Leon to a 5yr deal and not having to deal with signing both him and McDavid in close proximity to each other time frame-wise.

I mean, if Ryan Johansen is reportedly going to be asking for $8.5M from Nashville, then Leon is right there with RyJo. The Oilers wouldn’t be getting Matt Duchene AND Tyson Barrie from Colorado for Leon, so forget that. But would Carolina pay Sebastian Aho AND Justin Faulk? Or maybe you try to pry Ristolainen out of Buffalo… I don’t know.

There’s a pretty big reason I want Draisaitl to stick with the Oilers and that being, he shows up in the playoffs. Yeah, I know, they’ve only gone to the playoffs once but you can’t forget what he did in Junior with the Kelowna Rockets, winning the Memorial Cup MVP on the losing team AND his performances against the Sharks AND carrying the Oilers vs. Anaheim while McDavid was nursing whatever injury that was that knocked him down a peg.

I believe that if the Oilers had made it past the Ducks that they had a very good chance to make it to the Stanley Cup Final where Leon would still have been driving the team’s offense and it would’ve been between him or Cam Talbot for the playoff MVP IF the Oilers won.

The record books will show us that didn’t happen but if you’d like it to be a reality someday, we should be hoping the Oilers sign Leon ASAP.

When you have a talent the likes of a Leon Draisaitl, you pay him and deal with the consequences later and if that means Milan Lucic, Kris Russell, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Andrej Sekera, Jesse Puljujarvi, or any other prized player from the Oilers to fit him in, so be it.

Don’t let anybody tell you that Leon can’t drive a line on his own and that it was all McDavid because Patrick Maroon had a big hand in it as well, as did Adam Larsson.

Chiarelli has shown us that he’ll do whatever it takes to build this team into a winner and I have complete faith in him because he’s done nothing but do exactly what he’s told us he would do when he was hired. You can criticize his moves all you want to and this IS a huge test for him, possibly the biggest one of his career, but he’s a winner and he’s brought that mentality to the team through player personnel additions and coaching additions.

I’ll say it one more time. This team is a better team WITH Leon Draisaitl than without and if the Oilers are to compete in the Pacific Division, they’ll need the big German!

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