Yesterday I wrote the following: “Holland needs a third-line center and a scoring winger. He isn’t done. Right?” and a few hours later the Edmonton Oilers had a sniper. What’s more, the secondary pieces of the trade are completely reasonable and Holland dealt away a monstrosity of a contract plus helped the coming expansion draft list. Oilers fans, after years of experiencing acid reflux after trades, weren’t quite sure what to do as we headed to press.
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: Oilers’ acquisition of James Neal could add badly needed scoring to the top two lines.
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Ken Holland puts his stamp on the Oilers with first big move in Lucic-Neal trade
- New Jonathan Willis: Ken Holland ends an ugly situation for the Oilers by trading Milan Lucic for James Neal
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Potential free-agent options for the Oilers in 2020
- New Jonathan Willis: Which Oilers defencemen can make an outlet pass?
- New Kent Wilson and Lowetide: Why the Flames and Oilers would (and wouldn’t) trade Sam Bennett for Jesse Puljujarvi
- New Lowetide: Looking ahead to Oilers training camp: 35 players for 23 jobs
- New Jonathan Willis: What the Oilers’ 2020 cap situation suggests about Ken Holland’s master plan.
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: With free agency all but over, Oilers’ Ken Holland has tough work ahead on the trade front
- Jonathan Willis: Josh Archibald won’t fix the Oilers’ biggest problems, but he’ll help with some key issues.
- Lowetide: Will the 2019-20 Bakersfield Condors be the Oilers’ best minor-league team ever?
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: The Oilers have a new amateur scouting director. What can we learn from Tyler Wright’s track record at the draft?
- Lowetide: The Oilers are finally recovering from the wayward 2014 Draft
- Lowetide: Projecting Darnell Nurse’s next contract and possible trades
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: A missing mom, aching feet and looking for Kevin Lowe: A week in the life of Oilers prospect Raphael Lavoie
- Lowetide: What to do when Connor McDavid rests: The Oilers’ ideal No. 2 line for 2019-20
- Lowetide: Adding a scorer will be Ken Holland’s first big move as Oilers GM
- Jonathan Willis: How often do goalies like the Oilers’ Mike Smith rebound?
- 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: Oilers top 20 prospects summer 2019.
PROJECTED FORWARDS ROSTER 2019-20
The roster has far more clarity now than yesterday. Neal should be the fourth best offensive forward on the roster in 2019-20, and should easily lead the team in total shots. What is reasonable? I can tell you that my RE estimate (before allowing for deployment) is 68, 16-15-31. Intuitively, that seems low, but last season was a major elevator shaft. Now, about that No. 3 center.
HOLLAND’S BIGGEST TRADE SINCE..
This is a big trade for Holland, likely the biggest summer trade involving players on each side since the Dominik Hasek trade in June 2001 (it cost Detroit Vyacheslav Kozlov and a first).
CAP SITUATION
Edmonton now has 23 players at a total cost (all in) of $79,066,999 according to CapFriendly. That leaves $2.4 million in room, with Holland stating he likes to have $1.5 million in walking around money and another $1 million for the Smith bonus. Meaning the team is done. I wondered if they could grab Riley Sheahan but he’d have to come in around $1 million.
50-MAN LIST (50)
There are two slides (Broberg and goalie Rodrigue) plus Jesse Puljujarvi remains unsigned. Edmonton could add a player but I think it would be a JP trade at this point. Sam Bennett and Joel Eriksson Ek have been discussed over recent weeks as options, but at this point money’s too tight to mention.
THE TRUTH
Offloading the Milan Lucic contract isn’t a small thing, in actual fact it is THE thing in this trade. If one fell swoop (underused phrase these days) Ken Holland bought freedom for his future Oilers teams. There are still issues, and the price on freedom came at a cost, but getting out from under the Lucic contract is a major part of this summer’s business.
Trades: 1 (Lucic for Neal)
Buyouts: 1 (Sekera)
Draft picks trades: 1 (conditional)
Free agents signed: 7 (Logan Day, Joakim Nygard, Alex Chiasson, Markus Granlund, Mike Smith, Tomas Jurco, Josh Archibald)
Roster players extended: (5) Joe Gambardella, Brad Malone, Shane Starrett, Patrick Russell, Jujhar Khaira
Exiting the system, goodbye: (12) Braden Christoffer, Colin Larkin, Tobias Rieder, Ty Rattie, Anthony Stolarz, Alex Petrovic, Ryan Stanton, Robin Norell, Mitch Callahan, Tyler Vesel, Al Montoya, Kevin Gravel.
We’ll chat about Holland’s summer in the coming days, but for me yesterday’s trade is a massive positive. In fact, the only move this summer that rivals it (imo) was the hiring of Dave Tippett as coach. Freedom! That Lucic contract was a giant hockey albatross, making this a brand new day.
Ah cool
Todd was indeed a mixer – and after McDavid expressed how he was hopeful he would have some consistent linemates.
Then, of course, Hitch came in and made McLellan look like a guy with patience with the lines – Hitch was the biggest line blender I’ve ever seen.
Revolved,
– so it was you who pulled that up: nice.
– One of the frustrations that strome amd rnh mentioned was consistent linemates.
Bulging Twine,
– I don’t know about Tippetts take on this but Todd was very much into shuffling lines.
– His oilers players had the least amount of time together in the league was the findings I recall reading.
– So yeah give pool 17 minutes a game with RNH and see how he does for 25 games. Not staple him to the bench when he isn’t where he should be for 2 seconds on a 45 second shift.
– Players by the way always know this instinctively. The first thing they all look it when they are handed their past game stat sheet is TOI
– Bit it’s a cool find that 17 minutes is a necessary requirement to score 20. I wasn’t meaning to dismiss this.
I think that’s right – Lucic has to score 10 fewer goals than Neal.
If Neal scores 23 and Lucic 14 then no 3rd is paid.
If Neal scores 23 and Lucic 12 then the 3rd is paid.
At least that’s my understanding
Looking forward to seeing your results
As noted, the only way to get players 17 minutes a game is consistent line mates and opportunity. Before last season I showed that McLellan blended his top 6 more than any other coach.
I will run the numbers for this year today, but that is one thing I hope Tippett puts a stop to. Three top lines with balanced TOI leaves the best players fresh for a push at the end of the game. It would also give nine players the opportunity to show who is on any given night.
Would you have him fake an injury after he scores his 20th goal? That was the text I was responding to.
me too
He may hate SJWs but I think he would be:
Dustin Penner – Pancakes
What you sometimes see is a player has a declining year, then a bounce back season, and then the final continuation of the decline. Sedins did something like this. Picked up Daniel cheap in my draft during his bounce back season. Just like development, decline doesn’t always happen in a straight line.
The other day, Side posted:
Well, apparently Dustin Penner did Ricki a solid last night on Twitter, going after SJWs while tweeting lyrics from Manic Monday. What a time to be alive.
GMs value players that can push back. They overreact (or the ownership does) to failure. Teams as part of the sport process over estimate their chances.
It is awesome that the Oilers finally were on top of one of those moments.
I also agree that the cash implications were a big part in this. The Oilers are very fortunate to be a top revenue team and have an owner that spends. Previously nobody could cash those blank cheques.
Even if Neal isn’t awesome he’s a far better fit for what the team needs. They have 3 others that will drop the gloves and are credible against anyone other than Lucic and Reaves. But the option remains to walk away and that should be done, to maximize the value of the trade – The Flames get a fearsome guy who can’t ply his trade at will anymore.
I can’t wait for the next deal. It’s great to think other good things might happen after so long of knowing any move would likely be dense.
I’ve been trying to say ten or fewer than Neal. But it seems like every time I read the conditions I come up with a slight variation. That last clause is vague and poorly written.
Per CapFriendly:
I think it means:
a) Neal must score 21+ goals
AND
b) Lucic must score at least 10 or fewer goals than Neal if he does hit 21. So Looch @ 10-20g, Neal @ 21.
I’m probably reading this wrong and complicating the issue. Would be nice to get some clarification.
So, Looch has hoist his anchor and sailed on. Should be good vibes in the oiler room and here’s hoping Neal can be a fit in there.Some familiarity with Tip, Smith and McD hits some fine intro notes. Looch and Neal have similar stats the last 3 years so the deal looks like a wash, if one outperforms the other significantly, many cheers will be raised on their behalf. I doubt this will happen.
Neal……………………………………….Lucic
16-17 NSH -10, 41pts……………..16-17 EDM -3, 50 pts
17-18 VGS -11, 44pts……………..17-18 EDM -12, 34pts
18-19 CAL -5, 19pts……………..18-19 EDM -9, 20pts
…………….. -26, 104pts…………………….-24, 104pts
Three bad years for both of them, with Neal moving every year for poor performance and alleged character issues. Where will he stick for more than 1 year, will he be here that long?
Well, the deal is done, Looch is gone, Mr. Katz is down 10 million crowns,everyone is happy.
Make no mistake, this IS egregious. JMO
Edit: Bad chart skills, 🙂
So 21 goals is a success but 20 goals is not a success? I agree with the other poster; I’d rather him get 20 goals and we keep the 3rd rounder (even though there is less than 5% chance that the pick becomes an NHL regular, even in a so-called deep draft).
Of course, if he gets 21 goals I won’t be upset, especially if he has it by the all-star break.
Just an awful awful perspective. You would actually sabotage the success of a player for a third round pick?
Obviously at some point you reach players who do not have the skill, but I do think that more players then we would assume could “break out” offensively if given a sustained opportunity.
So much fun to read Lames blogs today especially this comment…
“The Flames got the best player in this trade, the conditional 3rd rounder…”
Three things re: the rumours of his partying in Calgary
1. I won’t address the rumour itself, I have no idea, that said
2. Playing means Neal makes $5.75m a year for four more years ($23m)
3. Getting bought out means Neal makes $1.917m a year for eight years (~ $15.34m)
Athletes with long careers have usually made a pretty penny or so, but $8m is a pretty pile of pennies, big enough to command attention and affect behaviour in most cases.
I am looking forward to seeing our new(ish) roster in action next year. I wasn’t able to say that 2 days ago.
Lucic has scored 10 or less in each of the last two seasons with his most common linemates being:
Puljujarvi
McDavid
Nuge
Drai
Him scoring 10 or less may be the reasonable projection?
With that said, I don’t think the condition is 10 or less goals, I think its 10 less goals than Neal, isn’t it?
LT and many of the regulars posting on this site put a lot of emphasis on math, and from reading this article, the math that Calgary has put the most emphasis on in this trade is reducing the financial impact. Moving out Neal for Lucic after the Oilers have paid his bonus this season means that Calgary lowered their actual cash outlay by $10 million over the remainder of the contract.
Yes, they also made the deal because Neal did not fit in the locker room and they think having Lucic skate on the 4th line will deter guys from running Johnny Hockey, but the fact is that what is most important to Calgary’s ownership right now is reducing their financial obligation. The other “hockey arguments” seem to be straw men.
Giggleplex,
Agreed! If we send the pick it means we’ve had a good season.
But my point was simply that there is another factor involved in sending the pick than people are saying. Lucic has to score ten or less than Neal AND Neal scores 21+ to send the pick.
So, very unlikely. And even if it does occur, we’ve done well in the transaction.
That’s a good question. Would be interesting to dig into that if I get some time.
For sure
But what we see as we look at the 20 goal scorers over the years is that we are surprised who can score 20 goals if given the ice time and implied in the icetime is top 6 linemates.
Abdelkader, Komorov (19 in 67 games), Chiasson, Blake Coleman, Karlsson, Haula etc
We may be surprised who if given top 6 minutes with top 6 linemates would score 20 goals on the Oilers.
Here’s what we do know: if you don’t get the ice time, you aren’t scoring 20. How many 20 goal scorers do you want? You aren’t getting that many if you aren’t giving that many the ice required.
Ya line juggling. Man!! Wait do you mean Tippett? Is he an outcoacher of himself, I mean, line juggler?
I think you’re forgetting that games are only 60 mins long. You psychically have more forwards playing 17 mins without that time coming from somewhere.
Geoff Ward who was an assistant coach to Julian in Boston is an assistant coach to Peters in Calgary.
Lucic will be in a responsibility free enivronment in Calgary.
He will likely play better. He wilted under the responsibility of leadership in Edmonton.
But 88% of forwards who played 17 mins a night scored 20 goals…
– I think that is cause and effect. It’s self selection.
– Simply playing 17 minutes a game does not give 88% chance of scoring 20 goals.
– If all you had to do was play FWs 17 minutes there would be a lot more 20 goal scorers.
– But yes it would be nice if we gave our top forwards the chance to play with skill for lengths of time.
– I recall some numbers about coach doing the most line juggling in the league.
For whatever it’s worth, I think this is one of the most enlightening idea’s i’ve come across in awhile. And it’s incredibly simple to do.
Does the ratio scale down? As in when injures hit and you are unable to play a player 75+ games, can the next guy up score at the same pace if left in the role?
With regard to what on earth the Flames were thinking, this is pretty good:
https://theathletic.com/1086246/2019/07/20/in-salvage-mission-flames-hope-milan-lucics-physical-presence-is-better-fit-than-james-neal/
(apologies if someone already posted it)
Lots of quotes from Treliving about Lucic: big body, physical presence, will give our players space, most fearsome reputation in the league, our coaches will get him going …
My translation: nobody from the Flames has seen him play for three years, despite the fact that the Oilers and Flames have gone head to head once or twice in that period.
Another interesting remark by Lucic about leadership, but I’ll respect LT’s 24 hour rule and not quote that.
77% of FW’s who played 16+ minutes/game for 75+ games scored 20+ goals
If Neal scores 21+ goals I’d gladly send them the third.
88% of the FW’s who played 17 minutes/game for 75+ games scored 20+ goals
If Neal plays right wing and IF Benson is ready, a Nuge, Neal, Benson line would result in many Neal goals. Having Nuge and Benson setting him up… if he still has his shot he would fill the net.
Lucic has had 10 and 6 goals the last two years – during that time he has averaged 1:44 per game on the PP and his most common linemates:
Puljujarvi
Nuge
McDavid
Leon
Neal may not hit his part of the threshold, although he very well may, but Lucic certainly is likely to do his part.
Lots of talk about Neal scoring 21 and sending the 3rd round pick to the fLames, but keep in mind that Lucic also has to score 10 or fewer goals than Neal for the conditions to vest (so, 21-10 = 11 or less).
I’m thinking the chances we send the conditional 3rd is very slim.
Lessons learned from the Vegas Expansion.
Here is one.
The Oilers are looking for a top 6. All teams want a top 6. How can you find a top 6? Vegas got a top 6 in one off season.
Who were their top 6?
Based on ice time per game:
William Karlsson
Reilly Smith
David Perron
Jonathan Marchessault
Erik Haula
James Neal
Smith, Perron, Marchessault (Florida – what were you thinking), and Neal all had experienced success before arriving in Vegas. That’s 4 out of 6. How about the other two?
Karlsson and Haula were revelations.
What was common about the 2?
The year prior, on their former teams they got 13:23 and 13:49 ice time respectively.
With Vegas they played 18:43 and 17:22.
All 6 played more than 17 minutes/game
5 of the 6 scored 22 +
The other, Perron, missed 12 games, scored 16 and had .94 pts/game
Maybe a team doesn’t need to spend $6 M year in free agency to find 20 goal scorers maybe they just need to play 6 players – top 6 ice time.
It is very difficult to score 20 goals without getting the ice time.
Last season 121 FW’s scored 20+ goals – 13 of them played less than 16 minutes. 10.7%
meaning:
89.2% OF 20 GOAL SCORERS (FW’s) PLAYED MORE THAN 16 MINUTES/GAME
94.2% OF 20 GOAL SCORERS (FW’s) PLAYED MORE THAN 15 MINUTES/GAME
conversely, only 5.8% of the 20+ goal scorers played less than 15min/game
97.5% played more than 14
The Oilers had 4 players play more than 16 minutes/game last year and all 4 got 20+ goals. No one else played more 15 minutes/game and no one else scored 20.
Same the year prior (Maroon was on pace before traded).
There are lot’s of players in the league and elsewhere who would score 20 if given 16 + minutes.
Now we just need to get Jesse under contract.
Adding Neal and Jesse and options in the top 9 and not having to try and fit Lucic in changes the entire dynamic of the forward group.
Sure, Neal may prove to have indeed fallen off the cliff and Jesse may continue to stagnate, however, maybe the opposite proves true – if nothing else alot of skill is added to the group.
Indubitably, old chap.
You missed out on a lot then the last few years. The Oilers MSM voicebox make Miss Piggy look bad.
Up until the last few months of Chiarellis reign of terror, they were working day and night to defend his every move, finally saying enough is enough after the Koskinen extension. Once the Oilers media turn on you, you know your days are numbered.
ah yes, “tentative deal” was reached – subject to vote Monday
https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/calgary-flames-reach-tentative-deal-city-new-arena/
Eric Francis, Kent Wilson and others trying to justify the trade is humorous, if not pathetic.
Here’s a gem from Darren Haynes:
“Neal is costing $6.5M if you factor in the salary retention to get him — and his only dimension is as a goal scorer. How many goals does he need to average? 30?”
This was my response:
No, Neal is costing 5.75. Oilers are paying 750K for Lucic to play against them as a divisional rival. This really is a bad trade. No contract is untradeable, but relying on Seattle or Ottawa to take him is a poor bet.
He also justifies it by claiming that Dube now has a spot on an entry level contract. More faulty logic. Let’s remember this next time people want to crap all over oilers MSM, I’ve never seen them try this hard to put lipstick on a pig.
Or 3. “Cocaine’s a helluva drug.” – Rick James
With the pitch that Calgary allegedly made for Lucic to waive, including getting Iggy to call him up all “Hey, Connor. You gotta see this!” style, I’m leaning towards the first train of thought: they genuinely believe that Milan Lucic makes them a tougher team to play against.
If they didn’t have the entire organization pitch in on Lucic, I’d think they were prepared to flip him to LA or Boston. And maybe they are? Who knows. But as it stands right now it really is a head scratcher.
As Oilers fans, we should know this by now.
So, Holland isn’t a total bum then?
Great, great post. Going one step farther, it’s imo likely that the Flames, having fallen ass over tea kettle into the brilliance of Elias Lindholm’s performance on the top line, kept shuffling Neal around instead of finding a spot for him to find his way. They received a gift, and then punished Neal for it. Strange.
– Kinger Hot Take:
1) % that Neal and Conner have chem like that all-star game and Neal pots 30+ and team dynamic fundamentally altered allowing secondary scoring line to cascade down with Drai and RNH as Cs with other wingers on different lines : 4%
2) % that Neal gets his 21 goals and is Maroon +/- as a winger for CMD and Drai: 17%
3) % chance that Neal gets 12- 20 goals on a secondary line: 18%
4) % that Neal does better than last year and better than Lucic in goals but clearly over the hill : 28%
5) % that Neal is as done as Lucic is and bought out next year 33%
– I think this is fair. And a deal worth doing. The small chance of it really working out huge was not there with status quo and if he’s still crap this year less pain for buy out than if Lucic is still crap this year.
– The two big signings from the Chia era, both disappointments, are gone. That’s GMing 101.
The deal hasn’t been approved by council – I think its heading to council on Monday.
People who are expecting Neal to be a top 6 saviour are probably going to be dissapointed. Having said that, I am trying to look at this trade from Calgarys point of view, and I still don’t get it.
I think it illustrates 2 flawed pieces of thinking that may be present in all of us.
1. Knee jerk reaction to poor playoff performance. The verbal is that Calgary got intimidated out of the playoffs so they needed to add some muscle. I don’t think that’s true at all. They simply got outplayed by a superior team. What if Calgary really wasn’t as good as their regular season record last year? What if their playoff performance was closer to their true talent level? A playoff team, but not an elite one? This is a more plausible explanation to me.
2. Verbal is that Neal was bad last year and feuded with the coach. This may all be true, but then why not just buy him out? Is it simply because buying him out after 1 year looks worse on Trevilings resume than trading him for Lucic? A bad decision, just to save face?
These are the best explanations I can come up with for Calgary doing this trade. A bad decision fueled by faulty reasoning?