Starting in 2015, I began ranking 120 players per draft based on math and a few other things I believed. Beginning that year, I started back drafting my list against the Oilers selections. It’s interesting, if not terribly revolutionary.
THE ATHLETIC!
The Athletic Edmonton features a fabulous cluster of stories (some linked below, some on the site). Great perspective from a ridiculous group of writers and analysts. Proud to be part of the group, here’s an incredible Offer!
- New Lowetide: Ken Holland’s roster moves clear the way for Oilers top prospects Tyler Benson and Kailer Yamamoto.
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: A deeper look at Mike Smith’s comments after signing with the Oilers
- New Jonathan Willis: Oilers GM Ken Holland promises long-term rewards for an approach light on short-term improvements
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Trade market now most likely place for Oilers to find scoring winger
- New Lowetide: Oilers add free agent Markus Granlund, creating a crowded depth chart at left wing
- New Jonathan Willis: Tomas Jurco is a nice little reclamation bet by the Oilers.
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: How re-signing winger Alex Chiasson impacts the Oilers
- New Lowetide: Oilers add Mike Smith to an uneasy goalie depth chart for 2019-20
- Lowetide: Oilers buy out Andrej Sekera, look to a more dynamic free-agent frenzy.
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘He comes as advertised’: Philip Broberg’s skating makes him development camp standout for Oilers
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Oilers plan to skew younger on defence could open the door for Evan Bouchard, Dmitri Samorukov
- Lowetide: Taking stock of Oilers prospects ready to graduate with a clear shot at an NHL job in 2019-20
- Lowetide: Oilers top 20 prospects summer 2019.
- Lowetide: Are these Jesse Puljujarvi’s final days with the Edmonton Oilers?
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Ranking the Oilers’ trade assets from the high-priced diamonds to those needing fresh starts
- Lowetide: Oilers GM Ken Holland is shopping for 20-goal scorers on a budget. What will he find?
2015 DRAFT
The Oilers scouting department has the edge four years later, having drafted three NHLers, including Caleb Jones. My final four picks are not matriculating, although Tkachev had a couple of fine seasons in the KHL (faltered in 2018-19). John Marino may join McDavid, Jones and Bear from the Edmonton side. Despite multiple traded pick, Oilers scouts did well.
2016 DRAFT
My list wins because DeBrincat. I do think math could have helped in this draft, because DeBrincat’s numbers (the only CHL player close to him was Matt Tkachuk) were overwhelming. Abramov isn’t a high end prospect, but Vehvilainen has been outstanding in the Sm-Liiga. Tough draft for Edmonton, a lot going sideways, but Benson looks close to NHL-ready and should have a career.
2017 DRAFT
Too soon to know, but the arrows are in Edmonton’s favor. Yamamoto has been passed by Samorukov as a prospect, and Maksimov plus Kemp are all trending well. Tolvanen is a quality prospect, and Lodnia is worth mentioning, but Oilers scouts are likely to beat my list handily.
2018 DRAFT
Too soon to tell, I like both lists. I can’t wait to see Ty Smith as an NHL player, suspect Bouchard will get there first but Smith has all kinds of good things on his resume.
2019 DRAFT
Again, both lists are solid, I prefer my list but it’s early days (actually the days haven’t started yet). Broberg and Kaliyev are excellent prospects who have their detractors, Lavoie and Robertson are quality second-round picks. It’s going to be a fun five years.
OILERS PICKS RANKED BY VARIOUS SERVICES
It always take some time to suss out a draft, and the 2019 edition felt like Ken Holland had a major impact on it. The picks that fit the Gretzky-Green ’17-18 drafts to my eye are Lavoie, Blumel, Mazura and Denezhkin. Those names align nicely with the skill family of Yamamoto and Maksimov. I think Holland impacted on the Broberg and Konovalev picks, based on observing this team for decades. The one question I’d love an answer to? If Buffalo doesn’t take Cozens, do the Oilers? I think they would have liked him a ton, but don’t know if it would have been enough to take him over Broberg.
PROJECTED OILERS OPENING NIGHT ROSTER
Leon Draisaitl — Connor McDavid — Zack Kassian
Tyler Benson — Nuge — Alex Chiasson
Markus Granlund — Jujhar Khaira — Joakim Nygard
Milan Lucic — Colby Cave — Sam Gagner
I wrote this morning about the need for skill on the top six. In my opinion the next big chore for Holland is upgrading the complementary pieces around McDavid, Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins on the top two lines. Kassian, Chiasson and Benson have the roles on my projection above, and I think Kailer Yamamoto and Cooper Marody should get consideration from coach Dave Tippett. The article I wrote for The Athletic shows there is a possession drag with less skilled wingers and that’s a problem.
Based on Holland’s July 1 moves, I think we’ll see Tippett fade the top-six minutes of Kassian, Chiasson and Lucic, while giving more time to Benson, Marody and Yamamoto. The skill on the bottom six (Gagner, Nygard, Khaira, Granlund) may also get an opportunity, but those moves are unlikely to be successful.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A fun show this morning with several fabulous guests. We get started at 10, TSN 1260. Bruce McCurdy joins me from the Cult of Hockey at the Edmonton Journal to discuss the Oilers in free agency and the work that needs to be done before training camp. John Horn from ESPN, WTA, MLB Network, TSN and myriad other media outlets will pop in to talk Wimbledon. Kris Abbott from OddsShark will talk about odds on Kawhi’s destination, early Stanley Cup odds and where to put your mlb money. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
A) yes
B) Holl, to the Marlies
C) n/a
Holl sent to the AHL Toronto adds his $675k salary to their existing cap space of $3.765M and Horton’s $5.3M LTIR amount for a grand total of… wait for it… $9.74M – dead on the projected range of Marner’s contract. Easy peasy.
It looks like Marner doesn’t have much leverage right now. And Original Pouzar, if the Leafs don’t want to use off season or training camp LTIR they can trade Horton’s cap hit – it’s only 1 more year and likely insured. Even if it isn’t insured the amount owing is just $3.6M, meaning it will cost less to divest than Marleau’s did.
I think it remains squarely the fault of the people who are getting snippy with each other. Must be the hot weather, or the lack of high profile signings. We should be able to regulate ourselves. Sometimes it’s best just to drop things and realize you can’t really win an argument on the internet and what would be the point of winning one anyhow. Thanks for still providing this forum for us long-suffering Oilers fans.
Maybe I’m overvaluing 2006 Pronger? I don’t view Drew Doughty right now as being in the same class in terms of overall game, and that could be my mistake.
If Marner gets $11.5M, they’ll need to dump about $8.45M to get under cap, if the replacements only make $700k:
Forwards
RW/C Nylander $6.96M 5 years to UFA at 28
C/LW Kerfoot $3.50M 4 years to UFA at 28
LW Johnsson $3.40M 4 years to UFA at 28
RW Kapanen $3.20M 3 years still RFA at 25
LW Hyman $2.25M 2 years to UFA at 29
D
RD Ceci $4.50M UFA in 1 year at 26
LD Muzzin $4.00M 1 year left
RD Barrie $2.75M – a bargain for 1 more year to UFA at 28
The good news for them is that these are all very tradable assets that they should get good prospect/picks returns on.
I doubt they git rid of any D as they are not deep there.
Rielly – Ceci
Muzzin – Barrie
After that top 4, it is fringe players and AHLers with potential.
Dermott/Harpur/Marincin – Liljigren/Holl
Sandin/Lindgren/Gravel – Holl/Duszak
I doubt they get rid of Nylander who is signed long term.
That means they’d need to dump 3 forwards.
Kerfoot, Jonsson, Hyman make the most sense as they will be UFAs after their current contract.
What kind of picks would you give up for those 3 players if you had the cap space?
Or am I missing something? Will Marner sign for significantly less than that? He shouldn’t as he is arguably the best player on a team that pays the other two top players $11.63M and $11.00M.
Can they trade IR Nathan Horton’s $5.3M salary (10 team NMC)
Kapanen and Horton would get to $8.5M. Are their cap floor teams who are willing to spend that would take that on?
This thread got out of hand. My fault. I’ll make good in today’s.
The Leafs are fine. They’ll re-sign Marner and no one will have to leave.
They’ve solved their cap problems.
This is me also.
Leafs re-up Kerfoot and Ceci
Ceci $4.5 x 1
Kerfoot $3.5 x 4
Leafs have $3.75 million in cap space
Lets start a pool
a) does Marner get signed
b) who leaves if Marner gets signed
c) where does Marner go if he isn’t re-signed
I’ve never once claimed to be a paragon of civility or good manners. You’re still living in a fantasy land. “Gross misrepresentation of my argument”. And you still need to brush up on your latin.
Just yearning for the good old days with no hip hop and where men settled things like men.
Responding to the following from HTJoe:
I actually didn’t realize Lupul had scored so many goals the year before.However…
– The second 1st round pick was because the Ducks made the Stanley Cup finals the next year… in part because Pronger was so good.
– In terms of the 3 draft picks and drafted D-man (Smid), they either panned out or were years away from helping the team compete… Eberle didn’t play in the NHL until 4 years after the trade.
Pronger was easily among the top 5 d-men in the entire league.He just had the most dominant playoff performance by a blueliner in many years, and he was signed at reasonable term for 5 more years.Does Pronger even have a comparable right now… being so dominant throughout those playoffs?
I want to play revisionist history, not to be a jerk, but to try to reframe the trade a bit… imagine we’re back in 2017 and the Oilers just made the playoffs.Maroon just had a 27 goal regular season (vs. Lupul in Anaheim, 28 goals).Consider this trade:
– Oilers trade for Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman, but a very mean iteration of Victor Hedman (with 5 years left on the contract)… – Patrick Maroon – 2018 1st round draft pick – 2019 second round pick – 2019 1st round pick if the Oilers make the 2018 Stanley Cup finals – a blueliner drafted 2 years earlier, top 10 (the closest comparable is Werenski from Columbus, drafted 8th overall)
If Tampa is willing to walk away from its Stanley Cup window, they take that trade, but I don’t think they do that unless the (scoring winger + 2018 1st round draft pick) is replaced with a legitimate (but lesser) #1 blueliner.
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I understand your point but a similar trade today would be something like Drew Doughty to San Jose for:
– 1st round pick
– 1st round pick (conditional)
– 2nd round pick
– Timo Mier
– Ryan Merkley (he was drafted 19, I believe Smid was 10)
I just realized that koskinen and pulljujarvi have the same agent…wonder if the deteriorating relationship with chia had an effect on the koskinen negotiations…maybe not but things don’t happen in vacuum.
Ken Holland has been on the job for almost 2 months.
He inherited a mess of epic proportions from the buffoon known as Chiarelli that will take years to undo.
He has few assets on the club to really work with. He has just about nothing in terms of cap space in which to work with.
He hasn’t made any moronic trades that have set the club back. He drafted someone who could very well turn into a gem or turn into a 4-6 usable D-Man.
I know it’s just the beginning of summer but let’s all relax a little and realize the big job this guy has ahead of him. He’s not going to change this club and their fortunes instantaneously.
Given that Holly has been scouting him for a while Holly must have a pretty good feeling for where he could fit in at nhl level. Perhaps starting at 4C with potential to move up to 3C.
Should be an interesting camp for the bottom 6!!
Speaking personally – I am so tired of the “smartest man in the room” argument. First as OP suggests there is little evidence that Holland acts this way. Is there actual evidence that Holland ignores input from others? Fails to properly assess current needs, current available resources?
Second, do you not want someone with confidence? Someone who has experience, a plan, a direction when attempting to improve the team?
To me Kevin Lowe had some good moves, some bad but the entire front office at the time was composed of ex glory days hangers on.
I don’t know what Holland has been in on and missed and neither does anyone else here. I’m willing to see how things play out though cause I’m an Oiler fan.
My experience is similar, except I always logon via safari on my iPhone.
I log on 2 to 4 times a day and on all of them I have to:
1) open a post
2) go to the bottom
3) logon
4) refresh the page if I think that’s the latest post; or
5) scroll back up and click the lowetide logo
6) click on the latest post to read it
As you say I do it every day because the content is so good, but it would be really nice to not have to!
Thanks BOP… you have a great night too!!
K. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. Not what i was driving at with the proxy question but interesting to hear what factors into your assessment of the GM.
Have a great night.
I know what the numbers look like, but I don’t know or have seen enough of Connolly to know if he falls under the “higher end winger” category.
– Buying out Sekera and no higher end winger signed: bad
– Buying out Sekera and signing Connolly for 4 years? I’d be revisiting the numbers, his age, and watching game tape before reaching a conclusion (but as per a previous post of mine, I would be erring on the side of pessimism if there was any doubt regarding the goodness of the signing).
*EDIT* He’s 27, so I likely would be unhappy. And before I’m accused of being angry whether or not Connolly was signed, that doesn’t consider my relatively improved happiness if Sekera hadn’t been bought out.
So Connolly in at $3.5Mx4 and you’re a happy camper?
Given the limited cap space what do you smart folks think about signing Vanek? He scored 21 goals and 46 points adjusteded for 82 games in Detroit.
I wonder if him and RNH as the centre pieces with a complementary speedster like Nygard or Jurco could be a decent second line for a season?
I don’t have a problem with Holland not signing a higher end winger.
I do have a problem with Holland buying out Sekera, presumably to free up cap space, and then not sign a higher end winger (while still dragging out dead cap space into the future).
As someone posted after the Eberle trade, Eberle was traded for Strome and Cap Space, and that Cap Space guy didn’t piss a drop offensively the whole season.
One thing I do that I forgot to mention…
– I used to fill in my login, then my password, and before I would have a chance to check the “remember me” box, the next page would load.
– Now, if I’m using Chrome, I check the “remember me” box BEFORE entering my name and password, and I have excellent success most of the time. Hope this helps!
Thanks… I often overlook this side of things… the NHL is likely much more of a “gentlemen’s club” than some other industries can be.
I actually didn’t realize Lupul had scored so many goals the year before. However…
– The second 1st round pick was because the Ducks made the Stanley Cup finals the next year… in part because Pronger was so good.
– In terms of the 3 draft picks and drafted D-man (Smid), they either panned out or were years away from helping the team compete… Eberle didn’t play in the NHL until 4 years after the trade.
Pronger was easily among the top 5 d-men in the entire league. He just had the most dominant playoff performance by a blueliner in many years, and he was signed at reasonable term for 5 more years. Does Pronger even have a comparable right now… being so dominant throughout those playoffs?
I want to play revisionist history, not to be a jerk, but to try to reframe the trade a bit… imagine we’re back in 2017 and the Oilers just made the playoffs. Maroon just had a 27 goal regular season (vs. Lupul in Anaheim, 28 goals). Consider this trade:
– Oilers trade for Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman, but a very mean iteration of Victor Hedman (with 5 years left on the contract)…
– Patrick Maroon
– 2018 1st round draft pick
– 2019 second round pick
– 2019 1st round pick if the Oilers make the 2018 Stanley Cup finals
– a blueliner drafted 2 years earlier, top 10 (the closest comparable is Werenski from Columbus, drafted 8th overall)
If Tampa is willing to walk away from its Stanley Cup window, they take that trade, but I don’t think they do that unless the (scoring winger + 2018 1st round draft pick) is replaced with a legitimate (but lesser) #1 blueliner.
Plus 1. Glad it’s not just me.
OriginalPouzar,
Have you tried writing your post as you did with this one, publishing it, then hitting reply on the intended post, copy all, and then paste that copy into the edit feature to see if it will do it? Lot of work I know,,,
Thought experiment.
If the Rangers traded Vesey to Buffalo, is it fair to assume that NYR would accept a similar return from any other team in the league?
Further, given the return the NYR received for Vesey, it is fair to assume that Ken Holland was presented with the same opportunity but failed to take advantage?
Finally, is it possible that the Rangers traded 1 year of Vesey to Buffalo, the original team that held his rights, because that was the preferred destination for the player and not necessarily the team offering the best return?
I thought Knighttown raised an interesting point with this trade in regards to it as proof of potential low cost scoring W options that Holland has failed to explore/realize.
The conundrum here is the underlying assumptions. Is it fair to assume the Rangers would accept a 2nd rounder from the Oilers instead? Is it fair to assume the Rangers even offered this to the Oilers? Is it fair to assume Connolly would sign with the Oil had they also offered a 4th year like FLA?
We seem to be judging GMs as if all potential transactions are vetted through all GMs like some open auction or peer to peer network.
I’m genuinely curious as to how everyone thinks about the underlying market assumptions that should be fair to assume as a proxy for GM evaluaton vs their peers?
For example, should every GM with the cap space and need be fairly criticized for failing to sign Panarin if that was their intent?
I am running Chrome and IE off a laptop… I usually only have to log in when I reboot but have the same issues as Side if I do not.*
Losing an intended post due to the poor servers is a bigger frustration. During the draft traffic the site really struggled. I mean who on this planet doesn’t like reading about cheese?
I’m hoping that GoDaddy is GoneDaddy at some point soon and the problems resolve. Although I suspect the log-in, missing posts issues are stemming from a misconfigured caching plug-in. But they could be from GoddamnDaddy too.
*Edit: actually this isn’t true… the site will randomly log me out from time to time.
I’m on a Mac and Firefox and have to login once every two weeks (or close, maybe a little less).
Posting also works right away with quotations, except on July 1, which I assume was due to the high traffic.
Haas sounds like an overconfident guy. Better than the opposite. It also sounds like if it doesn’t work there is a solution.
I have no idea of course of the plan but there is a lot of mature Euros coming. A lot more a better bet for the bigs other than the farm other than AHL tops.
Yea kinda comparable to Caps getting 5 first rounders for Stevens.
I browse LT from 3 devices. 2 different laptops and a phone.
‘Remember me’ doesn’t work on any of the 3 devices (I’ve tried Chrome and IE) so almost every time I close the window or browser I have to log back in. If I don’t log in there’s a chance I
A) don’t see the day’s article
B) can go into the article but see no comments
C) go into the article and see some comments
D) go into thr article and see all comments
Obviously I enjoy LT’s site enough to put up with the multiple logins and oddities. But not enough to flip my devices for Apple products. I may try Safari, though. Thanks for that.
Exactly
He is a person that surrounds himself with people that he trusts them to do their job
But it’s a lot more interesting to suggest otherwise
At the time there was no heat on Lowe or the organization they just came off a magical ride and Lowe and Mac T could do no wrong. I thought Lowe got what he could as quick as possible I definitely believe the NHL is a very elite Gentlemen’s club if you’ve earned it from one ex player to another. I would have done the exact same thing who knew nothing would turn out right with the trade in the long run. Then again what happened to Sheldon souray made no sense at all.
Responding to the following from Twinkle:
My fear was that Holland is always the smartest man in the room, in the same way as KLowe, or that they are far too many puck dinosaurs in the room whose words carry more weight than others, because they are all from the Mesozoic Era and the newboys can’t be heard..
____________________
From many accounts, Holland comes with essentially no ego and one great attribute is surrounding himself with good hockey people an listening to them.
I have zero log-in problems, like almost ever.
My issue is “no connection” when I hit post where I’ve quoted another – about 80% of the time.
If LT inferred disrespect by my posts, I apologize, not intended at all.
Perhaps you should reflect on your posts over the past few days. Quite frankly, I’m surprised our good host hasn’t asked you to take a little time away.
Give it a rest, deal with it directly with our host, or take a little time away.
PS, what is the point of mentioning you’ve offer to pay for something?
Responding to the following post from Joe:
I’m genuinely interested (i.e., there is no snark at all in this question)… do you think Lowe was right to do Pronger a solid?I personally think Lowe should have held on for dear life until a better trade materialized (i.e., another top pairing D-man +), but maybe there are alternative approaches with really good justification I haven’t considered.
___________________
A better trade than:
– 2 first round picks
– 1 second round pic
– d-man recently drafted in the top 10
– 21 year old winger who just scored 29 goals
???
Not picking on this post, but in general – why so much talk about a Larsson trade?
Who plays RD?
Great Post
Although Holland is not Chia, he is more like Tambellini, IMO.
My fear was that Holland is always the smartest man in the room, in the same way as KLowe, or that they are far too many puck dinosaurs in the room whose words carry more weight than others, because they are all from the Mesozoic Era and the newboys can’t be heard..
IMO, K Gretzky was more impressive during his short stint than Holland has been and I don’t like how he is trending. But was Sekera all on him? I also think Russell isn’t going anywhere, but Larsson still might be moved.
Anyway, moar Smithsons and Belangers will make this team better……right?
I’m genuinely interested (i.e., there is no snark at all in this question)… do you think Lowe was right to do Pronger a solid? I personally think Lowe should have held on for dear life until a better trade materialized (i.e., another top pairing D-man +), but maybe there are alternative approaches with really good justification I haven’t considered.
Wait, that’s still a problem? For what it’s worth:
– (Apple Laptop) Apple Safari – yes, I have to log in every time
– (Apple Laptop) Chrome – I log in once, and I don’t have to log in until a few days usually
– (iPhone) Safari – I log in once, and I don’t have to log in until a few days usually
Lowe did Pronger a solid and traded him as soon as possible instead of auctioning him off.
If smith wins us a 6th cup he’ll have cult status for generations.
Yes. I’ve also offered to fund the hosting of this site.
Really, though Katz should fund this site since his pockets are infinitely deeper than mine.
Katz should also give Lowetide NHL league minimum salary… a private server….
Checks Rolodex… I don’t have Daryl’s number. Anyone else?
This is a very well-considered and put together post, although I disagree with a lot of it.
Besides JimmyV’s point about the bidding on Connolly essentially being a silent auction from reports, which I think is a good point (and you have acknowledged it well), I would add…
We don’t know at this point whether Tallon “won” the Connolly sweepstakes. It remains to be seen whether Connolly delivers the value to cover that price point for that length of time. I’m sure you are aware of this,it’s pretty obvious… I’m simply raising it because it hasn’t been stated yet.
Lol
Exactly
See above as I tried to edit and failed repeatedly
Like Holland and the Oilers!!’
Uhh…
What?
I don’t agree because making a tiny effort helps give internet tough guys disincentives.
There is enough animosity, at least those willing to do something to comment think about things right or wrong.