What should we expect from the new arrivals in Bakersfield this winter? I’m not talking about what one is hoping for, or what we could create as an outer marker, but rather, reasonable. It’s a more difficult discussion than one might think on first blush. Photo by Rob Ferguson.
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: Connor McDavid and optimal line chemistry: The Oilers need to abandon enforcer fixation and add a skill winger
- Lowetide: Jesse Puljujarvi’s biggest hurdles: Bad timing and the indifference of the Oilers.
- Lowetide: Projecting the Oilers 2019-20 Opening Night Lineup
- Lowetide: Revisiting the Oilers’ 2016 draft and the opportunities missed
- Lowetide: Examining the potential waiver-wire opportunities at hand for the Oilers
- Lowetide: Cooper Marody’s utility gives him an edge for an Oilers roster spot in 2019-20
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s roster construction options for the Oilers over the next seven months.
- Lowetide: Kailer Yamamoto has the talent to win a job with the Oilers on merit, if he’s healthy.
- Jonathan Willis: Jesse Puljujarvi still has upside and the Oilers’ patient approach is the right one
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Q&A: Dave Tippett on rounding out his coaching staff, fixing Oilers’ special teams and using Connor McDavid
- Lowetide: Handicapping the Oilers’ young defencemen and their chances of replacing Andrej Sekera
- Lowetide: Is Kirill Maksimov progressing as the Edmonton Oilers’ next great hope for a true homegrown sniper?
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers ease pressure on crowded defensive pipeline by trading John Marino to the Penguins
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: What the 2021-22 Oilers might look like after their steady build toward contender status
- Lowetide: Joel Persson is ideally situated to win an opening night roster spot with the Oilers
- Jonathan Willis: Projecting the Oilers’ opening night lineup, line combinations and more.
- Lowetide: Oilers’ acquisition of James Neal could add badly needed scoring to the top two lines.
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Ken Holland puts his stamp on the Oilers with first big move in Lucic-Neal trade
- Jonathan Willis: Ken Holland ends an ugly situation for the Oilers by trading Milan Lucic for James Neal
- Jonathan Willis: Which Oilers defencemen can make an outlet pass?
- Lowetide: Looking ahead to Oilers training camp: 35 players for 23 jobs
- Jonathan Willis: Josh Archibald won’t fix the Oilers’ biggest problems, but he’ll help with some key issues.
- Lowetide: Oilers top 20 prospects summer 2019.
DEFINING REASONABLE
I see reasonable (“RE”) expectations as finding a math ‘line in the sand’ that we can all agree is baby bear’s porridge. It’s like buying a 60-watt bulb and a 100-watt bulb. You can be confident that the number reflects reasonable.
Now, and this is always contentious, it does not mean I hate your favourite player, or that I’m off the grid in love with the future of the player you know in your heart is cross-eyed and brainless.
If a player I estimate at 20 goals in 68 games scores 20 in 40? Music! It’s a great story. That’s the premise. Finding the portion of the estimate that is plumb. Not a half bubble off, just plumb.
2011-12 OKC RE (AND RESULTS)
Below is a post-season sample of previous AHL ‘reasonable expectation’ projections (in this case from 2011-12):
Jeff Petry: His RE was 50 games in the NHL, rest in OKC. Petry kicked the daylights out of it, spending 73 games in the NHL and 2 with the Barons. He’s now an NHL player, and on the verge of a big raise and high expectations.
Taylor Fedun: RE for him was “playing a regular shift and surviving” and he was unable to survive without injury. Fedun was a big story early in training camp and into the pre-season, and who knows what might have been? After his horrible injury, we can cheer for him but counting on a return would be foolish.
Mark Arcobello: I put his RE line in the sand at: “I’ll say 20 goals” and he was certainly on pace (73, 17-26-43) and he led the club at even strength scoring (14-22-36). A little surprising he didn’t get a cup of coffee in the NHL.
Chris VandeVelde: My RE for him was “an ability to deliver more offense” and he did, although it is unlikely he’ll ever have enough of a bat to play as an NHL regular. VV’s even strength totals (68, 5-13-18) were the worst among regular centers on the team. Having said that, VV is a player coach Nelson relied on and there is still a small window (Belanger looks on the outs, Lander is unready) of opportunity. I think he slightly improved his NHL chances this season.
Teemu Hartikainen. Hartikainen was on pace for 20+ goals despite injury and callup, and he closed well enough to have earned strong consideration for the NHL next year. Jim Byers (OKC pbp man) told me yesterday the Big Finn was Paajarvi’s equal based on performance.
Magnus Paajarvi. Lost in the NHL shuffle and losing confidence, he embraced the demotion and played his best hockey in the final 10 games of the playoffs (10, 2-8-10). Very dangerous because of speed and with good passing skills, Paajarvi’s shot and release will need work if he’s going to play on a scoring line in the NHL.
2019-20 BAKERSFIELD RE
Shane Starrett. He was a major part of the Condors success last season, it’s reasonable to expect him to build on that and (at some point) make his NHL debut. Dylan Wells and Stuart Skinner have the same RE: Emerge as a legit starting AHL goaltending option. It’s unlikely both will emerge (and extremely unlikely Ken Holland will pull a Steve Tambellini and believe it).
Evan Bouchard scored eight points in eight AHL playoff games, but didn’t play big minutes. Reasonable should be top 4D minutes in Bakersfield, a feature role on the power play and a point-per-game during the regular season. I also think NHL time is a reasonable expectation.
Dmitri Samorukov had a breakout season in the OHL, so finding reasonable is difficult. I’m going to say that establishing himself as a solid AHL regular, with a positive even-strength goal differential, is reasonable.
William Lagesson had an outstanding AHL debut season, so I’ll suggest an even better goal differential at even strength than he delivered a year ago. Plus NHL time. I’m not sure how many games to list, because the competition is going to be strong.
Ethan Bear needs to stay healthy and deliver the same level of quality, although Bouchard (or Persson) may impact his power-play boxcars. I’m going to suggest expecting some NHL time is reasonable.
Cooper Marody rocked the casbah in year one, I think reasonable expectations should include 25+ NHL games and over a point-per-game in the AHL.
Tyler Benson should increase his point total and demonstrably improve his goal total in Bakersfield. I’ll say 25 AHL goals over an entire season, and 25 NHL games, too.
Kailer Yamamoto might be the most interesting player in this group. He scored 10 goals in 27 games a year ago, I think 25 goals based on a 68-game season in reasonable. No NHL games expected, if he earns them that’s a positive arrow.
Ryan McLeod has terrific speed and two-way acumen, so his emerging as an AHL regular is reasonable. Offensively, 25+ points over 68 games seems reasonable (assuming he gets a regular shift).
Kirill Maksimov is a terrific goal-scorer and Jay Woodcroft’s ability to unlock rookies was a key to Benson, Marody and their seasons. He’s a scorer, but overestimating goal scorers is the easiest mistake in reasonable expectations. I’ll say 20 goals in 68 games for Maksimov. That’s a handsome rookie total and 25 percent more than Benson, who was projected to score 14 by NHLE metrics (he scored 15).
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
At 10 this morning, TSN1260, we finally get our in-studio chat with Steve Lansky. We’ll talk media, major stories and family. Jason Gregor will also pop in just after 11 to chat Eskimos and more. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide twitter. See you on the radio!
^^^ Georges Laraque ***
Anyone else hearing brassard to the oil on a 1 yr? George Laramie just tweeted about it
I’m not saying defending does nothing. I’m saying the results of defending are reasonably well reflected in shots against and scoring chances against. The consistent delta in Russell’s CA vs. SA shows that he is doing something (blocking shots and reducing shots on net relative to how much the other team has the puck).
I agree that tracking data will improve on what we have today, but Ricki is off hand dismissing all shot and scoring chance data because it doesn’t measure open shot density. IMO that isn’t at all reasonable.
What I do know is that a defenseman’s on ice SV% is not a repeatable stat. It should be if defenders are affecting shot quality, but it is not repeatable.
I think this is the original article I was confronted with: https://hockey-graphs.com/2014/07/07/defensemen-still-have-no-sustainable-control-over-save-percentage/
I didn’t believe the conclusions of the article at first so I repeated a similar analysis last summer. When you look at NHL defensemen across 2 seasons, and normalize their on ice SV% to team overall SV% (to try to remove team and goalie effects), there is literally zero correlation in SV% for a defenseman from year to year. None. (R squared was something like 0.014, I’d need to check the actual number). I was honestly shocked that the effect was zero but it’s real and I’m convinced.
I suppose there is still room for a few outlier players to exist who do affect shot quality, but if so they’re very rare. It’s actually difficult to find player statistics that literally don’t correlate at all year to year. I don’t know what else to conclude other than defensemen (or at least the vast majority of them) do not control on ice SV%.
By the way this discussion for me started with talk of Faulk being a target to acquire last year. I looked at his 5 straight -20 seasons and chronically low PDO and thought he MUST be responsible for that. Well guess who miraculously became a plus player and who’s PDO corrected to 1. Or maybe he suddenly learned how to play defense.
jp,
Then why bother defending if it’s all the goalie.
Just because it’s not easily quantifiable now doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
In 5-10 years we’ll look at shot quality much differently and something like CF% taken from a team shot total with 10 skaters affecting it – distilled down to a number to claim value for one player will be looked upon as +/- is today.
The effect of coverage on opponent shot quality would be one of the first things I’d study from tracker data, as that could show wide “Moneyball” levels of inbalance, and who wouldn’t want your goaltender to save considerably more shots if a correlation can be shown, as many suspect.
It’s a circular argument I guess. If a player has low open shot density they have high on ice SV% and low GA. Do they have the high SV% because they were lucky? Or is the SV% high because of something they did on ice.
I don’t have access to your open shot density data. And I also believe that shots and scoring chances ARE correlated with goals (they are, really). League wide defensemen do not control on ice SV%. That’s a fact. I highly doubt forwards do either.
Yes, Archibald can score some goals. Granlund too, but 10EVG is not a 2nd line LW. Jurco is a massive stretch as a significant scorer. Why aren’t you quoting his years of 0.18 and 0.20 EVG/60?
Trade Q: would you trade Klefbom for Laine 1-for-1? Assuming Laine is unsigned at the time of the trade.
Conditions: the trade must happen this month, it cannot wait until we find out about the LHD prospects.
Thanks. And this is really interesting stuff.
Dom has the Oilers finishing 27th this year:
https://theathletic.com/1147590/2019/08/20/down-goes-brown-why-the-ten-worst-teams-according-to-the-numbers-may-actually-be-good/
All those 1-year contracts may be a boon at the TDL… although I’m not sure Holland has ever presided over a TDL fire-sale and Keith Gretzky was unwilling last year. I’m thinking this team will be out of contention by February and can then sell off all the “assets” they acquired this summer, getting a bunch of late round picks and lots of NHL playing time for the prospects.
Go back and re-read the post you were replying to.
1) LT asserted that Archibald and Granlund are established bottom-6 players.
2) I replied “They are cast-offs too though.”
3) You chime in “I don’t see what your cast offs point has anything to do with someone being a bottom 6 forward or not. One can be a bottom 6 but also be a cast off from the team they were on.”
4) I’m thinking you missed the word “too” in my reply to LT.
The arrogance here is in assuming that I don’t place any value in the player when I haven’t said that at all.
JP:
All I need to know about your analysis.
Is you you said his shot against rates.
Regress to ………
Unless you break out the non scorable shots.
Closed shots.
how are you going to understand the real open shot density the forward PK pressure is helping to establish.
You cannot Know what the regression will be.
Up or down.
Archibald was the
Mid 2 Nd line total evg RW in18-19
17-18 #58 RW .66 evg/60
18-19 #33 RW .89 evg/60
Granlund was
#60 LW with 10 evg in 18-19
#24 LW; #20 RW with 16 evg in 16-17
14-15 #50 LW .73 evg/60
16-17 # 26 LW .98 evg/60
18-19 #66 LW .79 evg/60
Jurco
13-14 (20) .87 evg/60 #33 LW
15-16 (22) .62 evg/60 #70 LW
17-18 (24) 1.02 evg/60 #20 LW
Top 2 Nd line LW at 20
Mid 3rd line LW at 22
Mid 1st line LW at 24
Their are 2 assists for 1 goal scored.
Their is 1 goal for 1 goal scored.
The most accurate reflection of winning offence generation is Goals.
Goals mater.
I stated time and again.
41 even goals from bottom 7.14 man season games
7.14 x 82 = 585 games.
14 fwds played those 585 games to generate 41 evg.
41evg/7.14 = 5.74 evg per bottom forward.
Top 5 fwd were 31, 31, 19, 14, 13 evg
I would suspect Neal, Archibald, Granlund, Jurco, Nygard, Khaira, Brodziak, Haas
generate well above 65 Evg that is +24 evg or better.
All 8 forwards would have to play 73 gm to eat up 585 games.
Holland went out and got direct shooters for the bottom 7 forward spots.
Do not care about the points from assists if we see 25-35 more evg from the 585 games that got us 41 evg last year.
Just listened to Oilers preview on SiriusXM. They interviewed Tippet. Without a doubt he’s playing McDavid and Drai together. Not even a hesitation from the coach. He did say he might break them up, depending on the circumstances in a particular game.
This is dumb, but I’m curious how the Oilers did in the 13+ group.
I’m guessing this is not the path to the ‘balance picture’.
I was going to reply to another of your posts earlier but didn’t have time. This is a perfect segue to what I was going to say though.
First, to answer your question. No, I didn’t say they weren’t keepers. It may have been implied, but my comment simply noted that there’s no reason to think Holland expects them to be keepers since he gave them 1 year deals.
More to what I was going to comment on earlier, I don’t actually see Granlund and Archibald as keepers. My issue is that you’re picking the peak results of these players in a lot of cases, not their normal or established levels. A few examples:
Granlund “mid 2nd line EVG RW”. He was that once in his career, 3 seasons ago. His EVG the last 3 seasons were 16, 4, 10. The 4EVG is a 4th line/13th forward number, the 10 is a 3rd line number, as is his 3 year average of 10.
Jurco “1.02 evg/60 17-18; #20 LW of 350+ EVTOI fwds”. This is literally the only time the kid has scored in the NHL. He had 6 EVG in 29 games that year. He had 13 in his previous 172 games (0.44EVG/60). There’s no way 1.02EVG/60 is representative, and his career EVG/60 is borderline 3rd/4th line.
Chiasson “#44 RW 13 evg”. Similar thing, he’s a 3rd line EVG scorer if you look at his last 3 seasons.
Archibald “top 20 PK”. This is technically true, but the man hasn’t yet played 150 career minutes on the PK. Plus his shot against and scoring chance against rates are about league average, so the current sparkling results most probably aren’t real.
I’m optimistic that many of these guys can repeat what they did before, but it isn’t reasonable to EXPECT them all to replicate their career best results.
I completely agree with your overall point that it’s important to block the young guys with competent NHLers until they’re ready, but these guys really are more “decent filler” than they are “keepers” IMO.
Yeah, I agree for sure. This one deal is enough to cement his first summer as success. I mean, frick, can you imagine coming to a team (wage aside I suppose) that just let a soon to be fired GM sign that Koskinen contract. Holy shit.
This is fantastic stuff and are the kind of stats I like to read. So fun.
Georgexs,
That’s interesting. Last time the Oil went to the Cup Finals, they did it on the back of a deep team that could saw off in the Top 6 and win the bottom 6 matchups. Much like the Blues look there.
Holland is a dinasour not an innovator but then he came up with one of the most innovative deals of the off-season to rid the organization of the worst contract in the league without even given up a draft pick except upon the vesting of a 100% innovative condition – the trade also has the reasonable potential to add a legit, albeit still overpaid, top 6 goal scorer.
That deal, with the team’s historic biggest rival, should show he is not stuck in the old ways.
There are some mitigating factors with respect to the Wings. Still Holland is more dinosaur than innovator. At the end of the day, he still signed some truly terrible contracts regardless of the underlying reason. At some point, you develop a past.
Holland played it relatively safe with the only egregious unforced error being the Chaser contract. He went walkabout on Broberg and time will tell.
The Lucic trade was his master stroke.
Mostly Holland rearranged the deck chairs. In fairness, there may not have been better scenarios than that and certainly there are others far worse.
Unless Tippett has Smith and Koskinen standing on their heads this is not a playoff team.
Georgexs,
Going out on a limb here and betting that Holland has fixed at least some of this.
(in reality it would be very difficult to repeat 30, 31, 31 unless one actually tried, so any credit for a rebound may not lie with Holland)
??
Jesus.
True.
Devils’ advocate, Gagner was 5th on the team in P/60 and, his recent history shows he should be a decent bet for apx 40 points.
Go Marody!!!!!!
Ryan,
Holland has done well not to commit and cap hit with term that could hurt his stated goal of building a championship. He certainly could have signed a Nyquist or a Connolly with a material increase in the term and/or AAV they received I’m sure but has used to the current off-season to start the processing of setting the team up for the ability to make more material acquisitions.
A material segment of the fanbase wanted “more now” and he could have done that with damage or risk of damage to his main goal (and most of the fanbases). He has not made moves to appease the fanbase, the Broberg pick over a forward with a likely quicker impact at a position of more immediate need is a clear sign of that.
The Wings of the last 5-8 years were in a different place than the Oilers – their issues started with an owner mandate to keep the playoff streak alive – without that, I doubt their cap situation would have become so dire (and, comparatively, its not that dire).
Nah. As has been pointed out multiple times, we got a multiple-Stanley winning GM for “stability” and “savvy” because, apparently, he could go to work straight away, using that huge roladex and the the favours he’s built up in 30 years of GMing like a gangsta.
If anything, his resume means he gets waaaaay less slack than a Dubas would.
Colour me underwhelmed with the body of work so far. Except the Lucic trade. That was good.
Still, not my circus, not my monkies.
Granlund-Strome-Archibald could have been a fine 3rd line
Outside of Edmonton, I wouldn’t say that there’s a prevailing attitude, but certainly a strong sentiment that the Oilers basically hired a GM who put his previous team in cap hell to get themselves out of it.
Now before I’m accused of fabricating this argument, we turn to the athletic:
https://theathletic.com/1123303/2019/08/08/the-2019-nhl-front-office-confidence-rankings-fans-weigh-in-on-how-each-team-is-doing/
“For the public, it’s hard not to see Holland as more of the same though seeing the damage he has done to the Red Wings over the past decade, signing some of the worst contracts in hockey. That the Red Wings confidence has sky-rockted without him attests to that. Holland is a member of the old boys club and that doesn’t present much of a change from what Chiarelli was offering.
And if the problem goes deeper than just the GM as most likely see it, then changing a figurehead doesn’t do much to inspire confidence in the current Oilers’ front office. More needs to be done to earn that. Much more.
Other than the unfortunate contract given to Chaser, I wouldn’t say Holland’s effort appears languid. He’s certainly maintained a phlegmatic disposition during the Leto gate saga.
At the end of the day, teams rarely improve by shuffling the deck on the bottom of the roster. It’s more a matter of adding impact player and eliminating weak links.
This doesn’t sound all that great for the flames:
https://www.thescore.com/news/1815402
Matthew Tkachuk’s agent, Don Meehan, said his side gave the Calgary Flames parameters for a new contract two months ago.
“We took an approach whereby we would be really proactive and progressive with Calgary,” Meehan told TSN. “We started early, and we set a position. We didn’t really have to wait. We formulated a position that we thought would be fair, and we gave that to Calgary probably in the early part of June.
“We’re involved in negotiations right now, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s not a waiting game. We’ve made a decision in terms of what we think is fair and relevant for the player, and we’re working with Calgary now.”
Nice interview with Benson here. Nothing earth-shattering but always good to hear from the players:
https://twitter.com/EdmontonOilers/status/1163632996487819264
Marchant was a cast-off from Edmonton
Marchessault essentially a cast-off from FLA given who they protected
Maroon all but a cast-off from ANA
Dubnyk a cast-off from a number of orgs – cleared waivers a few times before the Wild signed him
Castoffs put in the right position can have value. I had two castoffs in Vietnam that made us a very effective team. Many Oiler castoffs have went on to have very good NHL careers. One mans trash can be another mans gold. Just saying.
Steve Staios was a castoff from the Atlanta Thrashers. Sometimes the smartest men in the room… aren’t.
Valid. I trust you to be as willing to give credit to the organization if it works out well. I have no problem with your questioning because that has value.
“Too”
Archibald spent 33 percent of his five-on-five icetime against elites, according to Puck IQ. That ranked him No. 6 among Arizona forwards. His Dangerous Fenwick was 49.60 percent, -2.6 rel. His on ice goal diffeential five-on-five versus elites was 11-10. His overall points-per-60 was 1.32, ranking him No 8 among Arizona forwards.
I think that’s a useful player. Not a top six forward, and I don’t think he’ll see 33 percent against elites, but this is a worthy investment.
Granlund spent 26.6 percent of his five-on-five icetime against elites, according to Puck IQ. That ranked him No. 11 among Vancouver forwards 150+ minutes (they’re a mess, so many moves). His Dangerous Fenwick was 47 percent, +5.0 rel. Meaning he was getting caved against elites, but doing much better against those elites compared to other Canucks. His team was outscored 6-11 against elites, and his overall points-per-60 was 1.11, ranking him No. 12 among Vancouver regulars.
I think that’s a player Edmonton can use, and if the club can find a solid two-way center Granlund’s possession number should be solid (implied by his rel number).
As for what the season brings, we wait. I sure didn’t think last year’s third line wingers on opening night (Khaira and Puljujarvi) or fourth line wingers that night (Rieder and Kassian) would struggle so much (Kassian aside).
I agree every year bottom 6 forwards are playing musical chairs all over the league some have a damn fine year on a show me contract.
I don’t disagree with the SHL description, however, this guy led that league in ESG and 20 GM’s were interested in signing him. To not see the value in an ELC contract to a player coveted by 2/3 of the managers in the league is fairly arrogant I would think, no?
I don’t see what your cast offs point has anything to do with someone being a bottom 6 forward or not.
One can be a bottom 6 but also be a cast off from the team they were on.
I can’t get on board with calling either Granlund nor Archibald established bottom 6 players.
We have no idea the inner workings of the Canucks or Coyotes that led to them not being qualified – various factors likely play in in addition to recent on-ice play.
Granlund is established, its fairly easy to see that.
Archibald, scored 12 goals last year and is a plus PK guy – there is clearly a reason he wasn’t qualified that doesn’t have to do with him being an NHL player.
TSN – The Colorado Avalanche have signed forward Valeri Nichushkin to a one-year contract for the upcoming 2019-20 season. According to multiple reports, the deal is for $850,000.
Yeah, thats me in a nutshell. However, I am essentially never hungover. Three beers after work and 2-3 drinks before crashing so the buzz doesn’t continue all night. Weekends a bit more but not much. Camping and holidays takes great focus not to overdo it though. I can easily drink all day f I could.
From the coach’s own mouth, he is doing exactly that.
Wait a second, does this suggest that the Oilers goaltending is a huge plus for the coach?
Now, I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic on the due but we are talking about a 38 year old with a history of groin and knee problems coming off a career worse year with some of the worst regular season stats in the league and a 31 year old that has never actually seen success in the NHL over the course of a season (but only in short stints).
It might seem to look less absurd because most of our projected/hopeful lineups have multiple players above their established levels, which is absurd, and we are now used to it?
I watched a couple handfuls of London games and all the AHL playoffs and, yes, Bouchard has this uncanny ability to get his shot through and, not only that, once it gets through, it tends to give the goalie trouble and create rebounds.
He has the ability to change angles quicky and get a solid shot through with varying degrees of wind-up and skate positioning.
This isn’t “Shultz scoring on a couple wristers from the point and there being an exaggeration verbal for years thereafter about his shot” – this is real and substantial.
I think it’s disingenuous to suggest that Jethro (or myself) is not giving Holland a chance. We are. Nothing, however, precludes us from commenting on his body of work so far. And so far, the roster appears to be lacking in the same manner as before.
You kind of hit on exactly what made me make my post.
I remember all that comp two years ago and the great talk about how its going to lead to great battles and improve the team.
Then, of course, last year, the talk was about how the previous year didn’t allow for actual “gelling” and “chemistry to build” and how only a few roster and lineup spots up for grabs will lead to a better start.
Now we are back to where we were the previous years.