The first Oklahoma City Barons team Todd Nelson coached featured seven significant rookies—and they all made it to the NHL. Jeff Petry is a bona fide NHL defenseman, Mark Arcobello and Chris VandeVelde are past 100 NHL games; Teemu Hartikainen (52) Colten Teubert (24), Phil Cornet (2) and Milan Kytnar (1) all saw playing time in the world’s best league.
The 11-12 Barons held some promise but were derailed (Tyler Pitlick has another concussion btw) for various shortcomings le hockey. The 12-13 Barons had some legit talent, including Justin Schultz (203 NHL games entering the season), Anton Lander (132), Martin Marincin (85), Brandon Davidson (12) and Taylor Fedun (11). That’s probably going to be a better rookie crop than the 2010-11 edition.
The 13-14 Barons had another good defenseman in Oscar Klefbom. That’s three good prospects in a four year span (Klef, Petry, Schultz) and suggests the Oilers system is productive in at least one area. From 13-14, Klefbom (77 NHL games entering the season), Andrew Miller (9) are David Musil (4) working on establishing themselves. The 14-15 Barons rookies looked like this:
- C Bogdan Yakimov 57GP, 12-16-28
- D Jordan Oesterle 65GP, 8-17-25
- L Josh Winquist 46GP, 8-11-19
- D Dillon Simpson 71GP, 3-14-17
- F Kellen Jones 49GP, 5-10-15
- C Connor Jones 41GP, 4-6-10
- C Jujhar Khaira 51GP, 4-6-10
- L Mitchell Moroz 66GP, 5-4-9
- D CJ Ludwig 28GP, 1-4-5
- G Laurent Brossoit 53GP, 2.56 .918
Last year three of these men played in the NHL: Jordan Oesterle (6 NHL games), Bogdan Yakimov (1) and Laurent Brossoit (1). If any of these gents is going to have an NHL career, the time to step up is now, this season. The rookies of 2014-15 are all shy offensively (Yakimov, Oesterle and Winquist have some offensive promise) and the physical players like Jujhar Khaira simply couldn’t deliver enough with the bat. This season, Khaira has two points in four games (both at even strength) and part of the spike could be TOI. We don’t know of course, and his college and junior numbers suggested he would be shy offensively, but we’ll see how things go. Yakimov and Moroz have scored and Brossoit is the starting G in Bakersfield.
BAKERSFIELD’S ROOKIES 2015-16
- C Leon Draisaitl 4GP, 0-1-1*
- L Braden Christoffer 4GP, 0-1-1
- C Kyle Platzer 4GP, 0-1-1
- D Darnell Nurse 4GP, 0-0-0
- D Joey Laleggia 4GP, 0-0-0
- G Eetu Laurikainen 1GP, 4.02 .818
*Leon Draisaitl isn’t a rookie but we’re going to follow him here because, at not yet 20, he remains a prospect under my definition (under 50 NHL games). We should also see Ben Betker, Greg Chase and possibly Anton Slepyshev added to the list over this season.
McDavid on the Oilers being 0-4-0 to start the season 😂 pic.twitter.com/ERLilenlYi
— The Hockey Gods! (@HockeyGods) October 16, 2015
Now that the Oilers have won two games and McDavid had his first big night, I’ll post this item. I laughed so hard when it first appeared on twitter, lordy that’s funny. I’ve seen that exact photo for decades, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Frank Mahovlich. That’s a great trick, taking a 50-year old image and making it fresh and funny. Well done.
@Condors @EdmontonOilers @CondorsHolty No question, Darnell Nurse has been The Man for Bakersfield so far in 2015… pic.twitter.com/xg08ZEMMPr
— Mark I Williams M.D. (@CameraGuyBakoCA) October 16, 2015
NURSE
We’re counting down to the Darnell Nurse recall and based on speed issues in Edmonton I can’t see this taking half the season. If we’re honest about the six men who will play tomorrow night on defense (probably) there are at least two men who are shy in terms of speed. That’s a better number than one year ago but we’re basically waiting for a trade or injury to get him here. In the mean time, there is much to learn.
- Gerry Fleming: “He has to be patient, let the game come to him, work on his reads (against puck carriers).”
- More Fleming: “He’s going against the other team’s top lines every night and there’s some pretty good players in the American Hockey League. He’s been strong on the cycle, killing lots of plays there … his positioning, gap-control, stick work, all good. He’s good in front of our net and he’s played on the power play and the penalty-kill. I use him in every situation.”
- Source
I have Nurse playing 50 NHL games this season. Barring a trade, and that could happen, a strong showing (as above) over the season’s first quarter should get noticed. After that, Nurse should have passed all tests and be ready to help. I think he’s one of the six best defensemen in Edmonton’s employ as we speak.
LINES AND PAIRINGS
The Oilers are back to work today, suspect we won’t see much in the way of change. I think Andrew Miller might get a look on the Nuge line, he worked well with Hall a season ago in a quick look-see. Jordan Eberle’s ETA hasn’t been mentioned of late, but Todd McLellan has auditioned a few options over these weeks and Miller is an interesting addition.
If the Oilers decide to look outside via trade—McLellan may like a gritty winger for the Nuge line, even when Eberle gets back—we could see some movement in that direction soon. It’s tough to make a deal, though.
- Jarmo Kekalinanen: “There’s nothing available that fits out plans, or the price is so steep that … you can’t do that. Misery loves company, right? So you talk to teams that are in a similar situation and try to work something out, but it’s not easy.” Source
As we know, this is a tough time of year to make deals. Edmonton is more than willing to unload Nikita Nikitin or Ben Scrivens, and I do think Mark Fayne could be in play. Could they help Columbus? Fayne could, but I’m not sure the Jackets should do anything beyond finding out what the hell is wrong with Bobrovsky.
For the Oilers, you probably wait 20 games. Auditioning guys like Andrew Miller isn’t a bad plan until Jordan Eberle returns, and Darnell Nurse could be a helluva upgrade in the season’s first half. Leon Draisaitl could be a second half help and maybe the Oilers don’t need to make an addition from external forces. I don’t believe that, Edmonton’s cap room next season is going to mean some team comes calling with an attractive option.
WAR-ON-ICE SLEDGEHAMMER
We don’t have the Vollman’s yet, but I thought it might be cool to get an early look at the blue bubbles and usage. McLellan (remember our discussions from summer) did assign harsh ZS’s to the Vlasic pairing but wasn’t a ZS madman with the forwards. Let’s have a look.
Plenty of road games in here so McLellan’s hand in terms of competition is limited. He does in fact show a tendency to push the McDavid line into Ozone starts, but that’s just good business. The top two lines look fantastic here in terms of possession, suspect the tweaking up front comes from the 6’s and 7’s and 9’s (plus a Ryan Smyth if they can find him). I’d love to see an in-house, Nurse type solution but Jujhar Khaira isn’t ready and may never be ready. Hurry up, young man!
Haha. Man, that’s funny. Okay, well Sekera—Fayne and Klefbom—Schultz are getting the toughest minutes and zone starts and that’s about as close as you’ll see two pairings. Colors are good, too. The third pairing is in the soft parade part of the graph and the color is not good. Nurse!!! Man. This is a George Carlin level giggle graph. That’s basically comical.
(Courtesy Rex Libris)
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A busy morning on the show, 10 on TSN1260. Scheduled to appear:
- Jonathan Willis, Cult of Hockey and Oilers Nation. The season so far, McDavid in Calgary and what to do about that third pairing.
- Guy Flaming, Pipeline Show. We’ll talk NHL rookies, Oil Kings and NCAA underway.
- Scott Cullen, TSN. McDavid, Jays, CFL.
- Open Line. Jays! McDavid! You name it, 11:25.
10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. Talk soon!
wheatnoil,
Cool idea. I’ll see what I can brew up.
I would say he’s a marginally less skilled Whitney that actually knows his way around in the D zone, and uses his body a bit more. And not as good a passer as Ol’ Barbaro.
Would agree Reinhart has an awkward skating style. He rarely seems to bend his knees. I haven’t found Griff’s speed and quickness to be as painful to watch as Barbaro Version Whitney though. He’s just average, for the most part.
G Money,
I was thinking something like this:
Shift starts:
Connor McDavid – OZ 6 NZ 4 DZ 1 On Fly 9
Edit: That would give proper context to the zone start data, especially if we’re using zone starts to give context to the CF%.
Tanner Glass on waivers… I wonder if Tambi is still scouting for the Ducks?
That’s what would be interesting to see. The key here is data volume. The whole reason for working up the goals->shots->Fenwick->Corsi chain is the enormous jump in data volume as you go.
The idea here is to work up that same chain for zone time (not possession time mind you – zone time. Same contrast as ZS vs Corsi).
Faceoffs represent typically (by eye) about 25% of the data in the pbp. What you’d be doing is moving up the chain Faceoffs->All events and you basically quadruple the data volume you’re assessing.
I have all that data already – I have to parse out every individual shift in order to generate TOI for pairs, lines combos, etc. Printing it out would be dead simple. BUT! That’s a huge amount of data to add to the stream.
For example, here’s the shift chart for McDavid from the Calgary game. Now imagine repeating that for every player. Or were you thinking of something else? Maybe I should summarize shifts for each player (count, average, max).
Connor McDavid
Shift # 1 1 0:50 1:32
Shift # 2 1 2:56 4:05
Shift # 3 1 6:48 7:16
Shift # 4 1 9:27 10:14
Shift # 5 1 11:51 12:25
Shift # 6 1 14:23 15:11
Shift # 7 1 16:05 16:31
Shift # 8 1 18:34 19:32
Shift # 9 2 1:23 2:12
Shift # 10 2 4:23 5:11
Shift # 11 2 7:13 7:59
Shift # 12 2 10:21 11:19
Shift # 13 2 13:51 14:36
Shift # 14 3 0:27 1:21
Shift # 15 3 2:39 3:38
Shift # 16 3 4:14 4:55
Shift # 17 3 7:04 7:58
Shift # 18 3 10:11 10:46
Shift # 19 3 13:07 13:19
Shift # 20 3 15:17 15:30
Shift # 21 3 16:13 16:37
Shift # 22 3 18:01 18:36
Shift # 23 3 19:34 20:00
Shift # 24 4 0:30 1:07
Reinhart kind of reminds me of broken Whitney. Just maybe a bit less skilled with the puck.
Has he had ankle problems at all? Or is that just his skating style?
NHL used to track zone time but stopped in 2002. I looked at a couple dozen game sheets like this one & in general it seems like 20-25% of time was played — or should I say, recorded — in the neutral zone. About 4-5 minutes per period in other words.
Irresistible forces and Immovable objects aren’t going anywhere fast when clearing and locking the porch.
I’ve liked Reinhart so far this season. He reminds me of Draisaitl in a sense. Neither of their games is particularly flashy, but you find yourself multiple times throughout a game thinking to yourself, “Damn that was a nice play.”
Draisaitl obviously has the bigger wow factor, but the simple idea of earning your space, using the time you create, and putting your linemates in a position to make a play applies. If Reinhart turns into Karl Alzner, which is not a distant chance, I won’t much care if Barzal turns into a top-6 C.
I would’ve preferred a more seasoned D with those picks to be sure, but we certainly got something of value out of that trade.
Not his fault, he’s too slow to move. 🙂
Are you talking about that time Reinhart wasted in Edmonton, not developing? Apparently he’s done nothing but spin his wheels for the past three years.
How many years before a D-man drafted with that pick makes it to the NHL? How many years before that pick actually becomes a top 4 option in the NHL?
Nurse was drafted 8th. He’s the real deal, we agree? Did he make into a top 4 spot the year he was drafted? Did he make it 3rd pairing the year he was drafted?
Time has intrinsic value, too.
Would that give you more useful information than just straight shot attempts as a proxy for zone time? I doubt a lot of time is spent in the neutral zone anyways and even the time spent there is perhaps less important than the events that happen there (zone transitions, takeaways, giveaway, etc.)
Edit: That said, I’d find it interesting to have a list of shift starts that include shifts on the fly in your post-game Nerd Alerts. (Note: I am literally sitting and drinking coffee while I attempt to create more work for you… however, I would think it to be interesting and may give more insight into McLellan’s usage.)
The work done by Megan Richardson during the 2014 Memorial Cup final was basically an advertisement for it.
or Eva Mendes
I vote for a new picture of Scarlett Jo everyday,
Hmmm, now that I mull on it further, we have the following pieces of information:
– every player shift timing
– every recorded play by play event (hits, faceoffs, shots, penalties, give/takeaways) with zone recorded
So in theory, you *should* be able to estimate actual zone time by simply tallying up the number of events in each zone for each player as a percentage of the total.
There are typically 200 to 400 events recorded in a game, so in essence you are sampling the game for zone occurrence on average every 10 to 20 seconds.
You’d think that would give a more accurate estimate of zone time than ZS would.
Anyone know if this has been tried?
Might be worth an experiment.
Yes, you can mine that out of the play by play and shift information. The pbp information has every faceoff time in it, and the shift information tells you the start and stop time of every player on ice, so it should not be difficult to calculate the intersection of the two and be able to say with certainty which shifts had faceoffs (and how many), and which shifts were purely on the fly.
This is a very good description of Reinhart’s style.
the best milestone puck photos feature an old fashioned hockey smile.
JDï™,
It certainly does imply a thing or two. He seems like quite a thoughtful and articulate person and his tact now is admirable. One regrets his bad luck to have fallen into the arms of franchise whose dysfunction was a profound as his off-ice problems. O’Sullivan must have felt like a drowning man looking for aid from a sinking ship . I hope that this was the extreme case but how many potentially useful players have the Oilers lost because they couldn’t or didn’t do much to help. That is damning.
We won’t know on Reinhart for at least another two years, defensemen take longer to develop. I’d consider him on the cusp of being ready, like Marincin last year. The concern is burning more ELC in development years, as its likely he gets expensive just as he gets really useful.
Re: Shattenkirk, if they were interested in moving him, the Blues would want Nurse, likely also Draisaitl and a high pick. Would any of us do that deal? Nobody is giving away first pairing defensemen.
Either FA, pre-FA trade or development is how we’re getting our first pairing D. All three require some patience. Nurse could be one if we don’t throw him into the deep end too early.
Sophia Loren, finally a topic worth fighting over!
To think all her photos are pre-photoshop era, crazy. In fact, just walked out of a restaurant in Rome (the one that invented Fettuccine Alfredo) and the signed snapshot of her eating there looks like a magazine cover.
Adam Wu,
9 years of futility have conditioned we Oilers fans to overvalue draft picks.
That is something we all must keep in mind when trying to judge these trades.
***********************************************************************************
Agreed. I would hate to see us use one of those overvalued draft picks for D-men….
UFA scrap heap is the way to build the D….
G Money,
Is there any way to track how many shifts for a certain player start on the fly, and how many start with a faceoff?
Would you trade for? Or sign? Seems unnecessary.
Edit* this is why the oshie trade doesn’t make any sense to me. Hitch wanted a more North/south team, yet they’re willing to let backes walk.
I think Remenda may be confusing the statistical value of zone starts with the actual nature of zone starts.
There is lots of working floating around the fancystats world suggesting that ZS doesn’t have as big an impact on scoring and the Corgis as perhaps we often assume it does.
“Not as big an effect” of course is not the same as “No effect”!
In the actual game, ZS’s are quite important. The flaw is in the statistic (both in the way it is calculated, as well as the fact that shifts starting with faceoffs represent less than 50% of shift time for most players).
I find the same is true with Quality of Competition, which matters a great deal in-game, but our measurement ability for QoC is weak. Another flawed statistic.
I think it is too soon to say. IMHO it was a good trade. Let’s give Reinhart 50 games before we say it was a dreadful trade.
I think with time we will see that it was not an overpay.
The Blues will choose Shattenkirk over Backes. One of the main reasons Armstrong and Hitchcock moved Stastny to #1C this year. They are transitioning to post-Backes already.
The Blues have Berglund on LTIR and Sobotka stashed in the KHL, and Fabbri on wing. They also have Gomez and Brodziak. They will let Backes test the free agent market, and they might even trade him in season if they get an offer they can’t refuse.
Adam Wu,
Brayden Burke (not drafted) is performing about as well as Barzal to date in the WHL. Obviously it’s early, but it highlights the point that impressive Junior numbers can be over valued.
Kudos to LT for picking Burke in his mock draft by the way. He would have been a real steal for a late rounder. If he keeps this up he’ll go this year for sure.
9 years of futility have conditioned we Oilers fans to overvalue draft picks.
That is something we all must keep in mind when trying to judge these trades.
Having got past the Sophia Loren photo,……. I have always been surprised that the stats guys have not input more into the Reinhart deal. I always liked the deal once the initial shock passed and I like what I have seen of the player. From a stats perspective a second round pick has a 25% chance of playing 200 games; a mid tier first round pick 63%. GR will definitely play 200 games; meets a need now; and has upside – IMHO a better return than magic beans drafted by the Oilers scouts. (Ultimately we won’t know for a few years if it was a good trade, and even then we won’t likely know who the Oilers would have picked at 16, but still good to debate).
Self-censorship.
In terms of Reinhart, I think the trade is ok, even if the 2nd was perhaps an unnecessarily high throw in. Griffin will continue to grow and should be a nicely solid contributor to the D over the next few years, although not top pairing potential in my book. I don’t lose sleep over Barzal. Perhaps a trade where both teams get something they want?
kooler,
His left shoulder might be sore.
Ca$h-McMoney!,
How do you say “true dat” in Russian?
dustrock,
G Money,
I’m sure it was the 3rd period collision with Prust…he stayed up but maybe a bit sore. He walked straight to the dressing room after that hit.
Most definitely.
Saddest part, was when I read that he doesn’t talk to anyone in his family any more.
Whether he has been passed by other D in his draft class (which may or may not hold true in 2 years) is irrelevant to the trade. Relevant to his draft position for sure. The post-development was a plus. This team was/is in need of young D prospects now based on the forward cluster. D take longer to develop and paying a premium based on the overall make of the team made sense and had value. Is he going to fall into Ducey’s list of D? No. Would trading for Reilly, Lindholm, Trouba or Dumba been better? Yes. But you aren’t getting Reilly, Lindholm, Trouba or Dumba for the price that Chia paid for GR.
The team did not need a centre at #16 and I’m not sure what D left on the board there will be better than GR. What are the odds on a 33rd panning out? 35%? I agree BPA over drafting for need, but you can’t simply ignore need either. Behind Nurse there are a whole lot of wishes and prayers that one of them will turn into an NHL regular within 3 years, let alone bat higher than 7. The alternative is to keep shopping in the FA pool which is dicey and costly.
Straight up I’m sure it would be easier to find better trades, but in the context of what the team had – McD, Nuge, LD, Lander, Hall, Yak, Ebs, Poo, up front – and what was on the back end – Klef, Nurse and crickets it was a good trade for the club to make.
Best part of that AMA..
Q: “Worst chirp you’ve heard on the ice”
A: “Alex Burrows is a guy who thinks he’s clever but he’s not”
It’s always fascinating to watch two bright people disagree. But sometimes one of them keeps talking and you realize that’s not what’s happening.
Seems like a great guy though. Likable.
I see the Lebowski meme got taken down. Made me laugh to beat the band anyway.
I don’t love the Reinhart overpay. I think CO is clearly right that paying a premium for development that hasn’t gone great. The best way to justify the deal is the premium was paid for need.
We got something we needed.
I think slippery Lou said it’s never an overpay when you get something you need. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll agree it’s not a catastrophic loss.
I’ve liked the kid so far.
I have come to the conclusion that Justin Schultz is in possession of photos of Mr. Katz performing a Dutch Rudder on Klowe with MacT sitting in the corner awaiting his turn.
I did! In August! 🙂
https://lowetide.ca/2015/08/17/re-15-16-darnell-nurse-please-please-please/
You’re kidding right? That there were only two packages available for a first rounder in that draft? Come on…
And we could seriously debate whether Reinhart has “high upside”, but that’s another story.
I cant remember where I read, but I’m sure it was Hitchcock who said one of the ways he measured successful teams was having a combined PK and PP of over 105.
I assumed that. Isn’t this kind of a big deal? Coach views JS as part of the leadership group of this team. That certainly wasn’t the assumption from this part of the world. More “predictable” choices would have been Fayne, Pouliot or Purcell and I’d have guessed even Lander, Letestu or even Gazdic before Schultz.
As Bruce mentioned the other day. There’s a disconnect on this player; we view him differently than the coaching staff (staffs now) do.
I am glad you have come around to my position 🙂
This doesn’t even make any sense. Out of all the stats to pick on, this is what you go for?
stevezie,
I think Remenda doesn’t coach anymore.
Could anyone who had fun truly be said to have lost?
Yes. Yes they could. Alexandre Ovechkin taught me that.