Tag Archives: Vitali Kravtsov

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(11/26/2020) BLH Trade Rumors and NHL Speculation feat. Schwartz, Saad, Kravtsov, and More!

Coming from an Edmonton Oilers fan’s perspective, BLH comments on the latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation featuring Vitali Kravtsov, Jaden Schwartz, Brandon Saad, and more!

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  • Adam Gretz (NBC Sports): Believes if Brandon Saad has a good year and the Colorado Avalanche as well, maybe they’d re-sign the newly acquired winger. Gretz figures $5-$5.5M might be doable if the Avs let some free agents walk such as Ian Cole, Philip Grubauer, Matt Calvert, or PE Bellemare. GM Joe Sakic’s priorities will be getting Gabriel Landeskog and Cale Makar re-signed long term though. Also, Nazem Kadri and Andre Burakovsky will be out of contract next summer.
    • With Both Jaden Schwartz and Jordan Binnington slated to become UFAs next off-season, the St. Louis Blues have some tough decisions to make. Which one do they prioritize?

BLH’s Thoughts: With the Avs, I think they’re close but not quite there yet. The final piece that they need, a no.1 goalie. Could that be someone like Tuuka Rask or Frederik Andersen? Saad will be a nice complimentary piece who brings goal-scoring, speed, and championship pedigree to the club, but ultimately, I believe they’ll let him walk unless he’s willing to take a serious hair cut on his next deal. 

I’m not overly convinced that Jordan Binnington isn’t riding a Jim Carey-like wave here. The Blues were a great team but they’re going to take a hit in the goals against category next season due to Alex Pietrangelo moving on and Torey Krug isn’t going to be able to plug that up. They might be best off seeing what hits the market next off-season. I mean, would Mikko Koskinen make sense for them?

  • Sport-express.ru: Apparently over in Russia there were some rumors that had New York Rangers blue chip prospect Vitali Kravtsov heading to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

BLH’s Thoughts: The Rangers have some fantastic wingers right now and bubbling under. Kaapo Kakko, Pavel Buchnevich, Alexis Lafreniere, Chris Kreider, and Artermi Panarin will fill New York’s top-6 slots and then they’ve got Will Cuyle and Lauri Pajuniemi coming. 

I would deal Buchnevich before Kravtsov, but that’s just me. 

  • Edmonton Oilers: The Oilers have agreed to terms with defenceman Philip Kemp on a three-year entry-level contract through the 2022-23 season. The 21-year-old was drafted by Edmonton in the seventh round in 2017 & played for Yale the last three seasons.

BLH’s Thoughts: Chalk another one up for the Chiarelli regime!!! Ol’ Chia Pete is going to have his mitts all over the Stanley Cup should the Oilers win one in the next three years or so. 

In an interview with Bob Stauffer, Kemp said he idolized players like Dan Girardi growing up and if you watched him play, you could definitely see that he takes pride in being a defense-first d-man. 

He joins Evan Bouchard, Filip Berglund, and big Michael Kesselring in an ever-expanding pool of right-shot defenders in Edmonton. Maybe at some point, if his skating improves, he’ll be the Oilers’ new Adam Larsson?

  • New York Islanders: After numerous and extensive medical exams, New York Islanders defenseman Johnny Boychuk’s career has come to an end, due to an eye injury suffered during the 2019-20 regular season.

BLH’s Thoughts: Shitty deal that that eye injury did him in. He’s quite the story eh? Played over 400 games in the AHL and never really got his NHL career going until he was 25. Colorado gave up on him and let the Boston Bruins give him his shot. He never looked back. Congrats on a wonderful career are in order for Boychuk. 

  • TSN: TSN Hockey asked a panel of 12 international World Juniors experts to vote on the 25 best players in tournament history to mark the 45th anniversary of the event. #5 will be of interest to Oilers fans.

BLH’s Thoughts: Quite the list of players here. Did you know that Esa Tikkanen had 36 points in 21 World Junior Championship games for Finland in the early 80s? I had no idea… 

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

Reviewing the Latest Oilers Trade and Draft Speculation

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Happy draft week folks! The rumors are a flyin’, aren’t they? By the time the Oilers are playing their first game over in Europe they’ll be rid of Cam Talbot, Milan Lucic, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Andrej Sekera, Oscar Klefbom, and Jesse Puljujarvi but at least they’ll have a random guy in net, Torey Krug, Erik Karlsson, and Justin Faulk playing D and Jeff Skinner flanking Connor McDavid.

BRUTAL!!!

THE SPECULATION

https://twitter.com/NHLbyMatty/status/1006969977167941632

  • Jim Matheson has the Oiler talking to Ottawa about Erik Karlsson this week…

It’s not happening folks. The talks start with Leon and go up and the Oilers finally have a great 1-2 punch down the middle, they’re both young, and they’re both under contract for the next 7 years. I’m not dismantling that for a 30-yr-old Erik Karlsson who is on the last year of his contract. Not one bit folks!

  • The Fourth Period has the Oilers sending Cam Talbot and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to the Hurricanes for Jeff Skinner and Justin Faulk

WTF?! Seriously? What are the Oilers going to do in net then? Is Koskinen going to take over the reigns? We’ve seen what this team is like when it doesn’t get goaltending and I do not see them dealing for any all-stars.

That said, Lowetide and Alex Thomas were talking about Tuukka Rask over the weekend and that is probably a guy I would send a package that included Talbot for. Do you think Lucic would go back to Boston? What about a blockbuster sending Lucic, Klefbom, and Talbot to Boston for Krug and Rask?

Getting back to that TFP post… Skinner has one year left on his deal and I believe Faulk has two years whereas Talbot’s on the last year of his and Nuge has 3 years left IIRC. The money is a bit of a wash but I don’t believe the talent is.

Nuge is going to be a revelation on McDavid’s LW this season. Book it!

https://twitter.com/NHLbyMatty/status/1008330578427404290

  • Another player Jim Matheson has been tweeting about is Julius Honka.

I like this guy quite a bit and he’s at that age where a player’s game starts to become more refined. And to add to that, he doesn’t have to play for Ken Hitchcock anymore. He hasn’t put up a lot of points in his career so far (9pts in 60+gp) but I believe he’d be a fair bet to help the Oilers transition game if they acquired him. I mean, can you really see Dallas playing him over Johns, Klingberg, or Pateryn? Plus they’ve got Miro Heiskanen starting next year…

Honka’s on the way out and the Oilers should try to grab him.

  • Bob Stauffer has the Oilers having their pick of Ty Smith, Vitali Kravtsov, Barrett Hayton, or Adam Boqvist at #10 overall. His choices being Hayton or Smith.

Listen, Hayton will be a fine 3rd line centre. He’s a lunch bucket guy that Stauffer likes to compare to Bo Horvat for some reason (It’s ridiculous if you really dig into things). But ISS says that Hayton has excellent Hockey IQ and that’s something that if you’ve been listening to his show for the last couple of weeks he’s been saying that Keith Gretzky really likes…

I’m also not sold on Ty Smith. When I watched him I didn’t like his skating or his engagement in the games. Maybe I picked the wrong games mind you but Stauffer likes to bring up his locker room presence and how much his teammates like him as reason to pick the kid. Not good enough for me. Stauff also brings up the Kris Russell comparable and I love me some Kris Russell but not at #10 in the draft.

Vitali Kravtsov, scratch him just because he’s based out of Russia. For whatever reason, and I’m not saying Russians are bad players or bad people or whatever, a few of my favorite players growing up were Russian, they simply don’t turn out for the Oilers unless they’re brought in from other organizations. The only way I think the Oilers would take another Russian in the first round is if they made a deal with the Hurricanes for #2 overall and took Svechnikov.

So that leaves us with Adam Boqvist.

If the Oilers cannot find a way to draft Quinn Hughes (Paul Coffey 2.0 IMO) then they should be taking Adam Boqvist. His offensive upside is unreal. He’s right-handed. The way he works his edges and how well he rushes the puck is outstanding! Add to that the planet destroyer he’s got for a shot… He’s a MUST PICK at #10 if he drops.

People are talking about Boqvists injury history and to that, I say two things,

  • Have you seen Oscar Klefbom’s injury history?
  • I’d be surprised if none of the top prospects in any draft didn’t get concussed once before now.

I do want to say this though, I don’t think that Boqvist will be there at #10. He’s simply too good. Now, if that happens I could see one of Bouchard, Tkachuk, or Wahlstrom being available and that’s a very hard decision for me. I like all three for different reasons but it’d be hard for me not to take Tkachuk simply because his brother plays for Calgary and he’s not a perimeter player.

Stauffer has Zadina falling to #9 and if that scenario takes place, the Oilers best be doing their damnedest to trade up to pick him. Unreal if that guy dropped to #9…

We’ve got some pretty rad draft videos up at the Beer League Heroes YouTube page. Please, go check them out and if ya can, subscribe to our channel and that way you’ll be the first to know when a new video is up!

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