This is my favourite time of year. I love the fall, the cool air and the beautiful colors in the river valley. The coffee in the morning tastes better, minestrone Saturdays can begin (we spend the late afternoon and early evening drinking wine and making soup—pretty damned amazing), it’s apple crisp season (picked crab apples yesterday) and soon there will be turkey and hot chocolate and pancakes with bacon and people saying things like “let’s Irish that baby” with abandon.
The dog walks are brisk, Mrs. Lowetide and Ziggy in tow, rolling their eyes in unison when I mention my latest Oilers trade idea. It’s a time to remember the olden days, with my Dad & Grandpa, later with my Father-in-law and now with my kids. The seasons have clicked over and come up hockey. I remain madly in love with this beautiful game.
THE ATHLETIC!
The Athletic made some big additions this week, including Daniel Nugent-Bowman joining the Edmonton staff. Daniel, Jonathan Willis, Minnia Feng, Pat McLean and me will deliver prose all winter long and there will be tons via the national desk from Tyler Dellow, Corey Pronman and Dom Luszczysyn. Special offer is here, less than $4 a month! Also, don’t forget to join us later this month (September 24, The Rec Room south side) for a get together and general merriment. I’m thrilled to be part of this group, hope you join us.
- New Lowetide: For Oilers young forwards, it’s what you create versus what you leave.
- Lowetide: Ryan Mantha’s injury and uncertain recovery.
- Lowetide: Oilers rookie camp roster offers options and balance.
- Corey Pronman: The most intriguing prospect to watch at camp for every NHL team.
- Jonathan Willis: Three different KHL stars, three different paths to NHL success.
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Bringing something different to the Oilers beat.
- Dom Luszczyszyn: 2018-19 season preview Edmonton Oilers.
- Lowetide: Who will win the McDavid-line lottery?
- Lowetide: The 2018-19 Oilers and what may come.
- The Athletic Cross Canada Tour Will hit Edmonton!
- Lowetide: The 2015 draft and what was lost
- Lowetide: Projecting the 2018-19 Oilers opening night roster
- Lowetide: Where will Tobias Rieder land on the Oilers depth chart?
- Lowetide: No. 1 prospect—Evan Bouchard.
- Lowetide: No. 2 prospect—Kailer Yamamoto.
- Lowetide: No. 3 prospect—Ethan Bear
- Lowetide: No. 4 prospect—Ryan McLeod
- Lowetide: No. 5 prospect—Cooper Marody.
- Lowetide: No. 6 prospect—Kirill Maksimov.
- Lowetide: No. 7 prospect—Tyler Benson.
- Jonathan Willis: No. 8 prospect—Caleb Jones.
- Lowetide: No. 9 prospect—Filip Berglund.
- Jonathan Willis: No. 10 prospect—Dmitri Samorukov.
OPENING NIGHT ROOKIE LINEUP, ONE YEAR AGO
- Ostap Safin—Joe Gambardella—Kailer Yamamoto
- Davis Koch—Chad Butcher—Kirill Maksimov
- Brandon Saigeon—Lane Bauer—Trey-Fix Wolansky
- Evan Polei—Austin Glover—Steve Owre
- Caleb Jones—Ryan Mantha
- Ziyat Paigin—Ethan Bear
- Dmitri Samorukov—William Lagesson
- Dylan Wells, Stuart Skinner
Opening night last season featured first-round selection Kailer Yamamoto along with the three kid blue who were going to turn pro together. Edmonton wanted to break them in with the Condors along with three veterans, so William Lagesson was loaned to a Swedish team in the SHL. As things turned out, the four men had wildly varying winters and only three men return—with different stories than a year ago for each player.
OPENING NIGHT ROOKIE LINEUP, THIS AFTERNOON
Reid Wilkins had the lineups for day one of rookie practice, we’ll assume this to be the lineup until further notice (I’ll tweak if we get an update).
- (45) Joe Gambardella—(65) Cooper Marody—(56) Kailer Yamamoto
- (49) Tyler Benson—(70) Ryan McLeod—(53) Tyler Vesel
- (68) Nolan Vesey—(55) Luke Esposito—(72) Kirill Maksimov
- (41) Evan Polei—(61) Dave Gust—(54) Colin Larkin
- (78) Dmitri Samorukov—(74) Ethan Bear
- (82) Caleb Jones—(75) Evan Bouchard
- (88) Jake Kulevich—(89) William Lagesson
- Stuart Skinner, Dylan Wells, Olivier Rodrigue
It’s a better, deeper and more balanced roster of rookies this year compared to last for the lid lifter. The two first-round picks will get much of the attention over the next five days, I’m also fascinated to see how these defensemen shine. Bouchard has the highest pedigree and might be the most NHL-ready among the group. The great thing about the blue is the sheer number of kids who can be projected into the AHL as regulars and then possibly into the NHL. In a recent article for The Athletic, Jonathan Willis wrote “between 2005 and 2011, 137 defencemen were able to play at least 20 AHL games in their 20-year-old seasons. Of those 137, by age 27, 52 would go on to play at least 100 NHL games (52 percent).” Edmonton had two men play 20 games in the AHL (Bear and Jones) last year at age 20, the percentages favor one of them playing at least 100 NHL games.
Lagesson is the other fascinating blue to watch in pro this coming season, there’s a chance he will pass one of the more prominent prospects. At The Athletic, we rated Bear and Jones inside the top 10 prospects (links above) with Lagesson at No. 15. That could change this winter. Samorukov doesn’t get a lot of mention but this is a quality prospect. He can scoot, has two-way ability and possesses a dynamic offensive facet to his game. He’s a quality prospect. Individual sweater numbers via Flames Nation, Ryan Pike does a great job profiling the Flames side for today’s game.
Up front, Yamamoto and Marody will be the feature players offensively, with Gambardella and his speed/experience also chiming in. It should be the most threatening trio today, Jay Woodcroft having kind words for Marody so far in camp.
The second group features Benson and McLeod, this is the area of the roster that needed (and has received) an upgrade. If you have two players pushing (Yamamoto, Bouchard) but the second rounders and below are JAG’s, then there isn’t much to be gained. Maksimov on the No. 3 line can also be included in this group. Ostap Safin (hip flexor) is out and may miss the rookie camp games.
Gambardella and Vesel playing feature roles is a good tell, those college guys getting a shot tells us the organization sees them as worthy of a push. No certainty on goalie, although Stuart Skinner was mentioned somewhere (possibly NHL.com) as the likely starter.
I won’t re-post tonight, but will cover the game with my thoughts in tomorrow morning’s post. I will also update this article with any roster changes. IF the Oilers release their main roster today, I will have a new post up around 5pm. I hope you enjoy the day.
The NHL needs to send McPhee and Gallant a nice Edible Arrangement or something. I thought the expansion fee price of 500 mil was pretty steep but seeing it’s up to 650 mil for Seattle. How many teams are worth 650 mil?
And if Seattle expanded at the same time I don’t think we are even having this conversation. Vegas has a lot of leverage and benefits that help them, McPhee or not.
Not a fan of Tartar but that’s a crazy haul for a one year rental for an ageing player that wants to get paid
Exceptions but there is the law of diminishing returns for players on canadian teams. It starts having to overpay in $$ and term to sign them initially. Price is going to be really interesting to watch.
Rob Rossi @Real_RobRossi
Have to admire Vegas approach from Expansion draft to now. Gamed other GMs to get decent-to-great players AND assets, and turning assets (including cap space) into better players. #NHL
This sums up my thoughts as well. If you contrast how McPhee has done compared to the talent leeching trades of Chiarelli, you can see how much our GM has set back the organization. The only saving grace is that the Oilers have drafted well to replace some but not all of the lost talent.
Shamelessly copied from another site:
Also put into perspective how Vegas got Suzuki and the 2019 2nd. Columbus sent the 2017 1st (Suzuki) 2019 2nd (just traded to habs) and Clarkson to Vegas in exchange for selecting William Karlsson. Vegas did trade a lot to get Tatar (1st, 2nd and 3rd round picks). So overall perspective heres the trade:
To Vegas: Pacioretty, Karlsson, Clarkson
To Montreal: Tatar, 2017 1st (Suzuki) 2019 2nd
To Detroit: 2018 1st (#30 Valeno) , 2019 2nd, 2021 3rd
To Columbus: expansion draft considerations
Gotta say Vegas comes out well. Not overly a big loss considering how they received the assets from Columbus and how many draft picks they acquired during the expansion draft.
Chris Johnston @reporterchris
Montreal retained 10% of Max Pacioretty’s contract in the deal with Vegas. The Golden Knights retained 9.34% on Tomas Tatar — giving the #habs a $500,000 AAV savings for the two seasons beyond this coming one.
This makes more sense. The Habs gained a bit of cap space even though they took on the larger cap hits.
How are you feeling about the results? If you feel like sharing.
Yeah the original cost for Tatar was very high.
The total tally for Pacioretty (I think) was 2017 1st, 2018 1st, two 2019 2nds, 2021 3rd.
They have money to re-sign him though I guess.
There goes my off season plans for the Oilers..!…:)
Is he?
Looks like he traded a 2017 first, a 2018 first and a 2019 second for 1 year of Pacioretty.
Seems a little steep to me.
Basically, if you consider it as a one year rental of Pacioretty for a 1st (Suzuki) and a 2nd round pick, it would have been an okay deal for both sides considering how badly the former Habs captain needed to be dealt.
Tatar was negative value being overpaid at $5.3 M for 3 years and projected to produce ~40 pts or less. Roughly overpaid by about $2 million. Montreal can use the body since they’re on the cusp of a rebuild but they should have gotten more for giving Vegas more room to move under the cap.
VGK are better today than they were earlier today.
PuckPedia @PuckPedia
Vegas trades Tatar ($5.3M 3 yrs) & Suzuki (925K 3 yrs) & 2019 2nd round pick to Montreal for Pacioretty ($4.5M 1 yr then UFA). Vegas reduces cap total by 0.8M excluding Suzuki. VGK w/ $10.8M Cap Space w/ 22 on roster & Theodore to sign.
Vegas gets a top 6 scorer for one year AND reduces their cap by ditching cap anchor in Tatar? All for just the cost of a prospect and a 2nd rounder?
McPhee is a genius.
Dammit. That really solidified the Knights. They will be a much better team.
via Montreal Canadiens Twitter:
The Canadiens have acquired forwards Tomas Tatar and Nick Suzuki, and a 2nd round pick in 2019 from the Vegas Golden Knights (Columbus’ pick previously acquired by Vegas), in return for Max Pacioretty.
I’m not sure that would be the classy, “bigger man” or proper thing to do.
OriginalPouzar: Thank you – I appreciate that.
You should see the follow up e-mail he sent me – it was much worse.
You should Cut & Paste it here
Benson has great edge work, can’t really speak to his north-south skating ability.
I didn’t see Benson slow at all – quite the contrary – found his skating to be powerful.
Hello million dollar smile!
Saw Yamamoto cycle and puck retrieval very good. He also found a soft spot to get a get chance on goal.
Ryan saw Benson slow, I saw that quite different.
– no problem keeping up withYamamoto
– skated himself back into the play more than 2 times to get goal side on a Flame
I thought that was Samorukov?
Raiders fans must be enjoying what Mack is doing to the Packers
Anyone who really needs nine games should get it. Everyone needs to be told what they need to work on and go have fun. Game ones in pre-pre-Season mean little and results are mostly luck. It matters little how ready a player is, there is a need to actually play games to “perfect” your timing. That’s why there pre-Season.
Just saw the “Sick of Losing” article about McDavid.
I shudder, as I remember the last Oiler to publicly announce his distaste of losing and how that ended…
I think it was a Jones who was caught flat-footed with the puck on his stick at the blue line for the turnover leading to the second goal against.
Some slick passing from Benson was on display. Looked a little slow skating…
Yamamoto was fairly invisible.
Bouchard has a nice point shot. One of his slap shots was particularly sonorous. He looked lost on the PP with Bear while playing on his off side.
A real hockey player is now born
Oh, it was Benson – I heard Woodcroft talking about it in the post-game but couldn’t hear who it was.
Poor Tyler.
I guess that probably means he won’t play on Wed in Red Deer.
A grade of A for each of you.
Thank you – I appreciate that.
You should see the follow up e-mail he sent me – it was much worse.
I would agree with most of your assessment although I didn’t think Yamamoto did much with the puck – he was effective on the forecheck but I didn’t think he made many plays.
I though Maksimov had a couple of plays, a few rushes but was quiet in between those.
McLeod was fairly non-existent for me. I saw him at the summer showcase and today and I haven’t seen this speed I keep reading about.
Guys Benson lost several teeth with a run-in with Parsons in the 3rd.
Unbelievable
By the way OP, I think the shot RB took today at ON was way offside. Writers at ON have a lot of legit gripes about the dialogue in the comments section, but what you did is perfectly fine. I have no idea why he would even care about someone cutting and pasting their own words. The internet is weird place sometimes.
Just returned from the game. It’s only first game but my takeaway is none of the Oiler rookies will crack the Oiler roster this year. Even Bear threw the puck away a couple of times in the first. Bouchard has a knack of getting his shot through traffic. Typical Oiler D always hits shin pads or misses the net but he gets it through. Yam Marody line worked hard, one really good shift in the first but a lot of their attackswent no where once they crossed the Flames blue line. Many Oiler rushes ended with a pass to no one in particular into the middle of the ice. Probably due to nobody having played together. As others have said Oilers goaltending did not look good. Parsons was very good. The first half of the game was pretty even but the last 30 minutes the Flames took over.
I just got home from the game – some thoughts
Skinner was brutal and that was the difference.
Mangiapane, Dube, Pollock, Valimaki and Parson were real contributors.
Oilers have 3 really strong dmen.
Bear, Jones and Bouchard in that order for me. Bouchard looked good going north, but was pushed off the puck a little too much for my liking.
Benson, Yamamoto, Gambardella, Marody in that order. Benson and Yamamoto were too much for the Flames top line. Benson’s leadership on the bench was noticeable, he was definitely into the game. The balance of the forward we ineffective.
He is such a smooth passer and thinks the game at a high level.
Because we’ve yet to see him take the ice in any of the four camps over the last few years, I think Oilers fans might forget how skilled he is – he was considered for exceptional status and that is a big deal.
All true but no! Their team is bad and they should feel bad.
Let’s see … how about a push to select goalies in each and every round of the 2019 draft? After all, the game is called GOALIE … right?
How did I do OP?
I’d be excited about Pettersson. LT and I were very high on him his draft season. He is going to be good.
One of their few wins this year. Let them celebrate
I dunno but the Nucks fans were certainly overreacting to beating the Jets 8-2
leadfarmer,
Nvmd, just looked at weather in Edmonton this week. Got 70s-80s and sunny all week here. Ill join you guys in a few weeks
We’re all still outside sharpening our pitchforks in the nice weather.
Ah well, the Leaves also lost their game and they’re slotted to win 4 cups this year as per TSN.
Only caught the last period but Benson’s skill level appears higher than I previously thought. Might be in the top 9 sooner than we think.
I started watching about mid way thru the first, some thoughts:
Goaltending obviously weak. I guess that’s why we got a bunch of them.
Yamamoto quiet, but I remember him starting quiet last year too. Didn’t make glaring errors or anything.
Marody about as expected, solid all around game, looks pretty polished.
Vesel showed better than Gambardella in the battle of the 24 year olds, I’m not high on Joey D.
Benson looks like he wants to play in the NHL this year, the best forward.
Maksimov quiet. McLeod showed skill and kept up for a guy just drafted – the scouting reports seem accurate.
Esposito didn’t hurt his case for an AHL contract. The fourth line guys ran around a lot.
Samorukov, you can see potential but he’s not there yet. Day seems like a more offensive player. 81 (Wilson?) looked a bit out of his league.
Jones with a good all around game. Bear showed like a guy with NHL experience, though was hit and miss in the D zone. Bouchard is extremely calm with the puck, buddy is pure offense. High ceiling, no idea how much he’ll improve in the D zone and how much you can teach ‘battling’ but his size isn’t bad so it he improves it he could be a #1.
How bad is generally on-edge Oil Country going to over-react to this score of this game (which wasn’t even really indicative of the play)?
Although I haven’t seen Lagesson play, I think Bakersfield is in good hands this year in terms of their defense. Jones and Bear looked great, more polished from when I last watched them play.
Benson looks like he can handle top line minutes in the AHL.
Does anybody else think Yamamoto will benifit learning to play against men in the AHL for a year?
I think that’s the lead story for sure, along with strong showings by Caleb Jones and Tyler Benson. Lots of good moments by Bouchard and Bear on the blue but some defensive work to do for sure. Parsons was the story for the Flames, I think the Oilers were the better team through two.