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Armchair GM, Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Rumors, Trades

The Day After: Looch, Goose, and the Nuge

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I remember all those years ago when we’d bitch and moan that we didn’t have a guy like Milan Lucic on the team. Now we do and I can’t be happier. To put it in context, I as happy that Lucic is an Oiler as the fanbase was sad that Taylor Hall was traded. Honestly, it’s game f*cking on in Oil Country and I truly hope that the rest of the teams in the NHL are ready for the juggernaut that is about to roll through the league come October.

FREE AGENCY DAY ONE

Signed:

  • Milan Lucic – 7 years at $6 million per year
    • The thing I dig about this contract is that is front loaded. In those final three years, the ones that the stats community are worried about, he makes an average of just over $4M per year.
  • Jonas Gustavsson – 1 year at $800k per year
  • Mark Fraser – (2-way) 1 year at $575k per year
    • This is a two-way deal. Some are suggesting it’s cover in case of injury but I have to wonder if it’s something more than that. He’s a leftie and the Oilers quite simply have too many left-handed shooters on D right now. I wonder if there’s a trade in the works to move a prospect like Griffin Reinhart, Dillon Simpson, or David Musil…

I love the Lucic signing and see him as the Semenko to McDavid’s Gretzky. The Gustavsson signing I’m not too sure about. He doesn’t have the same pedigree at backup goalie as Talbot did before the Oilers traded for him. I’ll have to reserve judgment on Fraser as I have no idea if he’ll even play a game next year for the team. He’s a big guy, not afraid to muck it up and isn’t the worst defenseman to sign.

The Oilers are still left with the task of finding a right-shot puck moving PP defenseman and possibly a third line centre who’s also a right-shot. They have a shade over $8 million left in cap room, so if they wanted to they could add another substantial contract. They’re also only sitting at 43 contracts out of 50.

THE OILERS DEPTH CHART TO DATE

L1: Lucic – McDavid – Eberle
L2: Maroon – Draisaitl – Yakupov
L3: Pouliot – RNH – Puljujarvi
L4: Hendricks – Letestu – Kassian
Extra: Lander, Pakarinen

D1: Klefbom – Larsson
D2: Sekera – Fayne
D3: Nurse – Davidson
Extra: Reinhart, Fraser

I think there’ll be a few of you that will ask about the forwards being lined up as such. I believe that the days of the traditional line set up is over. There’s no scoring line 1, scoring line 2, shutdown line, checking/energy line. Now each team must have three lines that can contribute. That is why I have Puljujarvi with RNH and Pouliot. He’ll need to be insulated in his first year or two at least. You can’t throw him to the wolves and the top line of Lucic, McDavid, and Eberle is a bona fide top scoring line in the NHL. You could toss Yak up there and see what he does but I reckon Ebs is firmly entrenched there for the time being. The Draisaitl, Maroon, Yak line could be taken advantage of by the opposition as it’s not the fastest or the most defensive.

THE COLORADO AVALANCHE

The Avs are going to move a defenseman, it’s not a matter of IF but WHEN. Yesterday that added left-shot Fedor Tyutin (recently bought out by Columbus) and fancy stats darling and right-handed shot Patrick Wiercioch. So the Avs D corps. looks like this right now:

Erik Johnson – Nikita Zadorov
Francois Beauchemin – Chris Bigras
Fedor Tyutin – Tyson Barrie
Eric Gelinas – Patrick Wiercioch

I don’t get this team. I loved Sakic and Roy as players but they’re bending this roster over and going in dry with the way their treating its stars. Are they seriously thinking of taking Tyson Barrie to arbitration? For real? They must be a sucker for losing because Barrie is going to wipe the floor with them in that case.

Edmonton needs to get on this and if you follow Ryan Rishaug on Twitter you’d think the deal is already in the bag.

I couldn’t tell you what the return might be here. I think if you’ve got your ear to the ground you’d probably say Eberle or Nugent-Hopkins but I have to wonder if Chiarelli will try to sell Colorado on Yakupov or Reinhart.

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

The Day Before

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On this Free Agent’s Day Eve I’d like to talk about some rumblings going on in the Oilogosphere. Potential free agents we haven’t talked about, trade rumours making their way across the Twitter machine, buy outs, and fan reaction to the Taylor Hall trade including my own.

POSSIBLE FREE AGENT ADDITIONS

Stauffer started off the show today talking about the Oilers taking on a “reclamation project” in free agency. A player that was a former 1st rounder with ties to Peter Chiarelli that can play the right-wing and can kick in some offence. Who might that man be?

Brett Connolly – unqualifed free agent

Peter Chiarelli traded two 2nd round picks back in March of 2015 for Brett Connolly. At the time Chiarelli had this to say about the former Prince George Cougar:

“He’s a straight-line player but he makes plays and he can really shoot the puck,”

Connolly’s flashy junior/AHL game has never really translated to the NHL but he’s found a niche in the middle six role and if the Oilers are to move off of Jordan Eberle, not that Connolly would replace Eberle, or Nail Yakupov; I think that would make sense. The other thing is, he’s a natural righty.

Another player that has just landed on the free agent market due to being bought out and would definitely have a place on the Oilers is defenseman James Wisniewski.

After only playing just under 1 game for the ‘Canes, the Carolina Hurricanes are buying Wisniewski out of the final year of his deal worth $5.5M.

He’s not had the most health-consistent career to date with the most games played in a season was 75 in 2013-14 when he was with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Subsequently that was his best year statistically with 7 goals and 44 assists. According to the right-shooting 32 year old’s HERO chart from 2015, he makes his linemates much better and he generates shots. Something that the Oilers are looking for, no?

Could he go the Christian Ehrhoff route contract-wise? Accepting a one-year deal to rejuvenate his career? Of course Ehrhoff didn’t quite cut it after he was bought-out, who knows with Wisniewski?

WHAT IS GOING ON IN COLORADO?

The Avs are set to make a move here eh? Gabriel Landeskog, the Avs captain, is on the market now! He’s the last guy I would’ve thought the Avalanche would move and at this point it sounds like Roy and Sakic are alienating some major names in the Mile High City.

But for shits and giggles, lets say that Lucic decides on Dallas or Detroit instead of Edmonton. That would put the Oilers in a small bit of trouble right? Would you move on Landeskog at that point? Or would you prefer Duchene and/Barrie?

Gabriel Landeskog is a beast of epic proportions and if Lucic landed somewhere else, I’d like to see the Swede in an Oilers uniform. Question being, what would the Oilers deal to get him? Nuge and who else?

WHY YOU CAN’T DEAL NUGE AND EBS

I just want to go over this one more time.

  • Nuge is the most experienced centre on the Oilers at this time. McDavid and Draisaitl haven’t the experience to be given the no.1/2 centre spots alone.
    • The Oilers could very well take a flyer on a centre like Eric Staal or Frans Nielsen and that would soften the blow of losing a player like Nugent-Hopkins but you can’t deal him before you’ve got one of those veteran centres signed.
  • Eberle is a right-handed sniper who is a consistent goal scorer. A veteran to boot.
    • Lose him and the team is left with Yakupov (8 goals last year), Puljujarvi (not one NHL game yet), and Zach Kassian on the right side.
    • The Oilers would be forced to sign or trade to fill for Eberle which is fine too but the team shouldn’t be put behind the 8-ball.
  • The Oilers finally have depth at nearly every forward position. LW is still a problem until Lucic is signed and if not Lucic, then someone else.
  • Lastly, I believe there’s a plan to move one of Leon Draisaitl or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to the wing akin to how the San Jose Sharks use their forwards.

THE HALL TRADE

I knew it was coming and if you listened to Bob Stauffer he said countless times that he thought the fans should be prepared because they might not like the deal the Oilers make to improve the roster. For me, the deal was lopsided. I won’t say they lost the deal because it’s asinine to say that right now. We don’t know how Larsson is going to affect the roster going forward. We don’t know if Hall is going to put up more than 65 points a year in New Jersey either.

I love that Chiarelli went out and got Larsson. He’s just started to blossom as a defenceman and I reckon Chia got him at the perfect moment. My mind salivates at the idea of a healthy Klefbom being paired with a fellow countryman and becoming one of the league’s premiere shutdown tandems.

I asked my man in Sweden what his thoughts were on Larsson and he said this:

“When Adam Larsson started to play in SHL as a 17-year old he was one of the most talented swedes I’ve ever seen. He played like 22-23 minutes as a 17-year old.”

The other thing about Larrson is in his draft year he took Skelleftea to the SHL finals for the first time in 35 years!

He didn’t have a good start in NJ. DeBoer and Lamoriello didn’t cut him any slack and he suffered there. I fully expect Larsson to be THAT piece on the back-end the Oilers have been looking for all these years. By the numbers he’s a top shut-down defender. He was an offensive defenseman in Sweden but that wasn’t going to fly in NJ unless your name was Neidermayer.

Give Larsson a chance to show his worth. That’s all I ask.

On a more serious note, I’m extremely disappointed in some of the fanbase and even some of the people covering the team online and in the media. We had years of watching Oilers GMs doing absolutely nothing! Now we’ve got a guy in Chiarelli who’s not afraid to make a move to improve the roster and it’s like Gretzky was traded again. It’s whiny baby bullshit the way that some of the fanbase and media are acting.

We cheer for the logo on the front NOT the name on the back. 

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In Search of a Right Hand Man

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The Edmonton Oilers have one, count it, ONE right-handed defenseman under contract going into this summer and the trade options are becoming fewer and fewer as we get closer to the draft. Justin Faulk and Tyson Barrie have been pulled off of the shelf, Travis Hamonic wants to stay in Brooklyn now, Sami Vatanen just signed a new deal with Anaheim that makes him the highest paid blueliner on their team. So what are the Oilers left with?

DO NOT TOUCH WITH CHARA’S STICK

  • Dan Girardi (NYR) – Bad contract and the arrow are pointing south.
  • Cody Franson (BUF) – What happened to this guy? Looked to be developing into something of a beast.
  • Tom Gilbert (MTL) – Need I explain why?
  • Dennis Wideman (CGY) – The refs have been pretty inconsistent in Oilers games… Better not though.

UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENTS

  • Jason Demers – 6’1″ 200lb – He’s the best of the bunch and will be no.1 UFA target on a lot of lists. Would you pay north of $5M per year for this two-way defender?
  • Luke Schenn – 6’2″ 230lb – Would offer a definite physical element and his age is preferable but his skating and mobility isn’t.
  • Zach Redmond – 6’2″ 205lb – Redmond is climbing the ranks on UFA lists everywhere. He seems to be a lesser version of Demers. Could possibly fill a third pairing role well.
  • Roman Polak – 6’0″ 230lb – Nooooo. Unless Nurse needs a sparring partner. Completely exposed in the Finals by Pittsburgh’s speed and relentless forechecking.
  • Dan Boyle – 5’11” 194lb – At 40 years old, is this the kind of player the Oilers should be targeting? I can’t see it.
  • Brian Campbell – 5’10” 192lb – He’s three years younger than Boyle but I’m not sure if he’d like to spend his twilight years playing in Edmonton. I’ve read Chicago and Florida are his preferred destinations. I don’t blame him either.

OFFER SHEETS

  • Tyson Barrie (COL) – A top point producing dman with an edge.
  • Hampus Lindholm (ANH) – Tracking to be a top pairing dman.
  • Rasmus Ristolainen (BUF) – Incredible size and offense. Bad possession numbers.
  • Radko Gudas (PHI) – A freight train on ice. Can play over the line but has some offense.
  • Jacob Trouba (WPG) – Mean MF’er. Has trailed off since being stuck behind Big Buff and Tyler Myers.
  • Connor Murphy (ARI) – Quiet and effective two-way defender.
  • Seth Jones (CLB) – Smooth skater whose offense is a tad better than his defense at this point.

I don’t go into what each brings to the rink because you’re already aware of that but players like Barrie, Lindholm, Ristolainen, Jones, and Trouba would need to be signed in the $7M plus per year range in order to have a chance and at that point the compensation would be a 1st, 2nd, and a 3rd round pick. For a team whose pipeline isn’t a point of pride, I’m not sure if the offer sheet route is the best way to go.

With that being said, Radko Gudas intrigues me a lot and Philly has some nice pieces coming up through their system, most notably, Ivan Provorov. Sam Morin is towering beast of a dman and Travis Sanheim is another. I do wonder if a deal could be made here with the Flyers to acquire Gudas’ rights.

LITTLE KNOWN TRADE TARGETS

  • Josh Manson (ANH) – Dave’s son is a bit better technically than him but I don’t think he’ll even be starring in the NHL’s Hardest Shot Competition anyday. Not that it isn’t hard, I just don’t think offense is his game. Shut down defense is where he carves his niche.
  • Dougie Hamilton (CGY) – Think Calgary would move him to get to no.4?
  • Matt Dumba (MIN) – I can’t see him being worth the price. He looked lost at the World’s.
  • Anton Stralman (TB) – Would Tampa be willing to move Stralman for cap flexibility in order to be able to sign Hedman, Kucherov, Johnson, etc?
  • Kevin Bieksa (ANH) – If the Ducks do sign Hampus Lindholm, that defense is going to be very expensive. Might they be willing to eat some salary to rid themselves of Bieksa?

What do you think? What route would you like to see the Oilers take? Let me know in the comments below!

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

Dealing Down at the Draft

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I’ve been talking about the Oilers standing pat this summer and not doing a whole lot with regards to dealing out a big core piece but I haven’t talked about the Oilers trading down in the draft as much yet.

Today I’d like to present a scenario to you and you let me know in the comments below if you think that it is a realistic possibility. So here goes nothing!

You might’ve read Jonathan Willis’ latest post over at Oilersnation wherein he goes into depth framing a picture where the Oilers and Sabres could very well be excellent trade partners for each other. Read it here.

Basically he talks about the Oilers having too many LHD and the Buffalo Sabres having too many RHD. Willis also hypothesizes at a possible swap that could include the 8th overall pick and Zach Bogosian to the Oilers for Griffin Reinhart and the 4th overall.

To me that sounds fine. It could give the Sabres some reprieve cap-wise and a top 5 pick to which they could use to draft Matthew Tkachuk. It would alleviate some of the logjam the Oilers have on the left side of their defense and it would give them a legitimate shut-down defender at a great age (25yrs).

So for me it wouldn’t just stop there. I’d take that 8th overall pick and move it to the Avalanche plus Eberle or Yakupov for the rights to Tyson Barrie and the 10th overall pick. Elliotte Friedman talked about the Avs wanting a dman in return for any deal including Barrie on Friday’s Oilers Now but I have to wonder how much the relationship between Barrie and the Avs has deteriorated. Perhaps other pieces are included to make a deal work.

I think the Avs would love to get their hands on the left-shooting right-sided dman from Russia, Mikhail Sergachev and Edmonton could very well use that pick to take the gigantic Logan Brown, swift skating Jakob Chychrun, Johnny Gaudreau 2.0 Clayton Keller, or uber-intellect Tyson Jost. Patrick Roy loves his Russians but it’d open up a major hole on their D but is Sergachev NHL-ready? If so, that might ease the Avs’ worries.

If you really wanted to go all blue sky, they could use that pick (#10) and deal it to Anaheim for Sami Vatanen…

Imagine that. Peter Chiarelli picking up Barrie, Bogosian, and Vatanen and thus solidifying the Oilers defense for the next 5-7 years. Wouldn’t that be something.

Klefbom-Barrie
Sekera-Bogosian
Davidson/Nurse-Vatanen

Now THAT is some serious wishing.

What do you think? Do any of those scenarios make sense to you?

 

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Of Course He Did…

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Yesterday Travis Hamonic took back his trade request. I’m not surprised one bit either. I’ve been saying for some time now that fans of the Oilers should be prepared for an underwhelming summer. Now that Hamonic is off the market, I’m one step closer to being right. Not that I’m writing this to validate my assumptions and jack up the ego or anything. To be honest, I’d much rather be wrong about this one but Chiarelli’s up against the wall this summer and he’s going to have to pull off a helluva deal to get out of this predicament.

Hamonic

Something doesn’t feel right about this Hamonic situation… Check out this quote that came right after the rescinding of Hamonic’s trade request that was captured by Peter Botte of the New York Daily News:

“I love it here & want to be here & want to win a Cup here. I never wanted to leave here and couldn’t be happier to stay here.” – Travis Hamonic

He never wanted to leave and couldn’t be happier to stay there? Come again? That doesn’t sound like a person who wanted out. Arthur Staple seconded the quote on Oilers Now yesterday as well… Was there even a trade request or what? Does this have anything to do with the Islanders ownership shuffle? On July 1st, Charles Wang won’t be the majority owner anymore and it wouldn’t be irresponsible if there were major speculations going on with that whole organization.

Trade Requests

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On the note of trade requests, the players making them are not batting well. From off the top of my head Jonathan Drouin, Kerby Rychel, Travis Hamonic (apparently), and Nail Yakupov are all batting goose eggs. Which leads me to believe that Yakupov will be an Oiler for at least one more season.

Remaining Targets

So getting back to the summer of underwhelming, the remaining targets are as such:

Justin Faulk (CAR) – I don’t care how much Bob Stauffer pumps this guy’s tires. Nuge for Faulk plus because Rod Brind’Amour is tied to Nugent-Hopkins seems a read to me. Faulk is leaving Carolina like Shea Weber is leaving Nashville. Sure the ‘Canes need a top line centre but that young defense needs at least one more season to show that they’re capable of… Chopping wood and carrying water… HA! The wildcard coming out of Carolina might be the 32-year-old right-handed offenseive dman, James Wisniewski.

Tyson Barrie (COL) – I think it would be a HUGE mistake for the Avs to move this guy. But their 10th overall pick and Barrie for the Oilers’ 4th overall is a deal that appeals to me but I’m not sure how much it appeals to the Avs. There’s just as much a chance they could get a dman at #10 than #4 IF that is in fact the way they’d like to go.

Jason Demers (DAL) – He’s a solid no.4 for me with potential to be a no.3. An older less-skilled version of Travis Hamonic. A good shutdown defender but I’m very wary of paying him over $5 million dollars per year on a long-term deal. Also, I reckon the Stars will let Alex Goligoski walk and re-sign Demers. The value of the right-handed dman prevails. But the one hope or nail in the coffin to the Jason Demers to Edmonton scenario is Todd McLellan who coached him in San Jose.

Sami Vatanen/Hampus Lindholm (ANH) – These are the guys that make more sense to me despite being in the same division. Anaheim won’t be looking to add salary so that, in theory, could take Nuge and Ebs off the table. Perhaps this is an instance where Yak or Pouliot could go in a deal and of course that would depend on if McGinn and Pirri sign in Anaheim.

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Down on Nuge?

Lastly, Nuge didn’t have a great year last season and now he’s on the block… A bit premature, no? But now he’s on his way out-of-town? As we know, players do not develop in straight lines and RNH has just had his first down season but surely that is no reason to trade him and he seems to be coming up in proposals more and more recently. The team finally has depth at centre and now everyone wants to show him the door?

Unicorns?

Check out what the Penguins are doing with their unicorns… Crosby on line 1, Malkin on line 2, and Kessel on line 3… If Pittsburgh wins this year, will that be “the model” going forward? I mean if we take that and apply it to the Oilers, do you think it would be effective?

Line 1 – Pouliot/McDavid/Yakupov
Line 2 – Hall/Draisaitl/Eberle
Line 3 – Maroon/Nugent-Hopkins/Caggiula
Line 4 – Hendricks/Letestu/Pakarinen

Extra: Kassian, Lander

Caggiula is a leftie, that much is true, but surely he’ll be given every opportunity to make the roster at any position. Chiarelli did say he’ll have to learn the pro game and learn to control his emotions, so perhaps his spot will go to Kassian or Iiro or who knows, maybe Anton Slepyshev, Matty Tkachuk or Pierre-Luc Dubois will be there…

The Defense

I’m not convinced that a healthy Oilers defence needs a mindblowing upgrade. I believe it only really needs one piece. A puck mover for the second pairing. Maybe that’s Sami Vatanen but the onus should be on adding quality hockey players whether they be left-handed or right-handed. At this point, can the team afford to be picky? Davidson, Reinhart, Oesterle and Sekera all played their off sides last season.

1st Pairing – Klefbom/Sekera
2nd Pairing – Davidson/Vatanen
3rd Pairing – Nurse/Fayne

Extra: Reinhart, Gryba (If re-signed)

Can’t Give Up Now

I think the team has eaten shit for too long to just up and trade the pieces collected for being terrible for so long. They made up 40 goals in their scoring differential last year from the season previous and that was with a banged up roster and a disappearing act from Taylor Hall and Leon Draisaitl for the last 30 games.

This team can and will do better because it has the pieces to do it. Not only that but the young players are a year older, stronger, wiser, and healthier. Nurse will be a much better player next season as will Yak. So don’t be surprised if Chiarelli isn’t pressured into making a bad deal because he wants to see what he’s got as a whole before tinkering with it or he’s waiting to see what the salary cap landscape looks across the league before picking his spots.

If there are some deals to be made, I have to wonder if they’ll just be the type to change-up the team chemistry a bit.

“The reason why he’ll play is that his hockey sense and his GRIT and when you combine those ingredients with skill, these guys find a way to play.” – Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli on Drake Caggiula

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