The jobs are there, more than in most years. I’d guess there are two or three spots up front and a couple on defense that are available. There’s a window of opportunity here, before Evan Bouchard and Philip Broberg arrive, for some really good prospects to establish themselves in the NHL.
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 Athletic, we are celebrating our 2-year anniversary this week. To mark the occasion, you can get 40% off subscriptions until Sept. 19 here.
- New Lowetide: Can Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith stop enough pucks for the Oilers?
- Lowetide: Shutdown success by Darnell Nurse and Adam Larsson is a key for the Oilers in 2019-20.
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Even if he’s unsure about his return, Oilers’ Connor McDavid looks and sounds like his old self
- Lowetide: RE 19-20: How can the Oilers’ bottom six close the gap in goal differential?
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Kailer Yamamoto and Tyler Benson address respective highs and lows as Oilers rookie camp begins
- Jonathan Willis: Riley Sheahan is a prudent signing by the Oilers in more ways than one
- Jonathan Willis: Did Milan Lucic take a shot at Connor McDavid’s leadership?
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers’ defensive hopes will rest on the new shutdown pair of Darnell Nurse and Adam Larsson
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: With Evan Bouchard as the headliner, here are the players to watch at Oilers rookie camp
- Lowetide: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and the configuration of the Oilers second line
- Lowetide: Connor McDavid’s 2019-20: Pushing for 50 goals while Dave Tippett loads up the Oilers’ top line
- Lowetide: Estimating reasonable expectations for the 2019-20 Edmonton Oilers: A difficult journey
- Jonathan Willis: How much money will Darnell Nurse make on his next NHL contract?
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s measured summer leaves Oilers outside playoffs.
- Corey Pronman: Oilers No. 9 farm system.
- Lowetide: Is Riley Sheahan an ideal fit for the Oilers as their No. 3 centre?
- Lowetide: Oilers coach Dave Tippett might have to take drastic action in order to find a second outscoring line in 2019-20
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: What the 2021-22 Oilers might look like after their steady build toward contender status
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Ken Holland puts his stamp on the Oilers with first big move in Lucic-Neal trade
- Lowetide: Oilers top 20 prospects summer 2019.
WE’RE UNDERWAY
There are prospects playing already and it’s probably time we wrote down what’s going on.
Ilya Konovalov (KHL) 2, 5.34 .859. MacT’s KHL career is off to a slow start but this is a quality goalie prospect. Expect a recovery from some ugly early stats.
Philip Broberg (Champions League) 4, 0-0-0. He played well, finished -1 but the scouting reports were good. He’s a sublime skater, big curio now is offense.
Maxim Denezhkin (MHL) 2, 1-0-1. Plays for the MHL Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, same team as Konovalov but at a lower level. Pronman ranked him, a nice writeup is here.
Patrik Siikanen (Intl Jr) 7, 0-1-1. Siikanen hasn’t played any Sm-Liiga games but has gotten into some international competition.
Jesse Puljujarvi (Champions League) 4, 2-2-4. Impressive showing in the pre-season tournament, he’s clearly quality.
Filip Berglund (Champions League) 4, 0-2-2. He showed well in the tournament, and faces a vital season as an Oilers prospect. If he has a good season in the SHL, he could get a contract.
CERTAIN OILERS (18)
I think the forwards are mostly complete, there are two openings and those probably land with Haas and Nygard, with Benson, Jurco, Currie and Gambardella lurking.
Lots of talk about Neal playing RW and Benson getting the No. 2 LW job, I’d love to see it but let’s see how this plays out. There’s just so much we don’t know, and perhaps someone rarely discussed (Jurco?) surprises. There’s always such a rush to form an opinion and take credit that I believe much is missed about how the sausage is made. Let it come to you. It’s better.
There are also two spots open on defense and that’s probably where most of the conversation will land in preseason. There are some nice prospects pushing, based on media reports Jones and Lagesson may have the inside edge. Here’s the thing about defensemen: You never know.
UNCERTAIN OILERS (15)
My five additions to the list above are Caleb Jones, Joel Persson, Gaetan Haas, Joakim Nygard and Colby Cave. For the record, I suspect all of these names will play in the NHL this coming season. I expect Evan Bouchard will start the season in Bakersfield but once he’s recalled there won’t be a return trip. He’s bona fide.
DISTANT BELLS (19)
Among the distant bells, I’ll count Samorukov, Manning, Starrett, Malone, McLeod and Puljujarvi as distant possibles. I’m going to be watching these goalies closely in 2019-20, Edmonton needs at least one to emerge.
ALEX VOLKOV
Rumored ask for JP (along with a pick coming to Edmonton) via Elliotte Friedman’s latest podcast. He has good speed and a range of skills, would be a plug-and-play or close. Corey Pronman likes him here.
- NHLE at 17: 5.2 (MHL)
- NHLE at 18: 9.5 (MHL)
- NHLE at 19: 10.1 (MHL)
- NHLE at 20: 23.0 (AHL)
- NHLE at 21: 24.9 (AHL)
Tyler Benson’s NHL at 20 (37.3) is superior, Kailer Yamamoto’s at 20 (25.6) is in the range. I think he’s more ‘middle six’ than ‘top six’ based on the math.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A busy morning on the Lowdown, we start at 10 TSN1260. Jonathan Willis from The Athletic will pop by to talk about Oilers training camp and some of the big roster battles. Andrew Peard will touch base on Oil Kings preseason battles and the season ahead. Jeff Krushell will join us to talk about Dave Dombrowski and these pennant races in mlb. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
Dillon Dube is the flames version of Benson – he shone as expected.
Yeah I knew the AHL has on ice goals, thought they might have shots as well. Zero question 10X more events in your data would be an improvement.
Agreed the bias is likely impossible to remove. I was thinking since commenting though. Potentially it would be possible to introduce some kind of correction factor that could improve the error on the upper lower ends if the error is somewhat consistent (if eTOI underestimates TOI on the low end of the population as a whole for instance).
If one was so inclined they could use NHL GF-GA data to test the eTOI model and potentially estimate errors in the population data. Or that might not help at all! Even without any methodological changes your data should improve the estimates a ton.
All-time Oilers stats:
12. Nugent-Hopkins: 382 points – another 69 (!) point season will push Nuge past Horcoff, Tikkanen and Lowe to 9th overall. He needs 65 to catch Horcoff, 54 to catch Tikkanen and just 1 to tie Lowe.
14. McDavid: 372 points – he’s just 10 points aft RNH, so the players listed above are history this year. McDavid can also catch Hemsky (105 points needed), but will have to wait until the next season to move up to Doug Weight’s #7 spot, as he’s 205 points distant. Smyth (6) and Coffey (5) should fall in 2021-22 as they’re 259 and 297 points ahead, respectively.
20. Draisaitl: 312 points – 16 points back of Hall with 30 games in hand (!) means that Hall is an easy target for November. This season Draisaitl should have no problem vanquishing MacTavish (19), Marchant (31), Simpson (53), Huddy (56), Eberle (70) and Lowe (71), too. Whew, that’s a lot of movement – all the way up to 13th!
21. Gagner: 305 points – didn’t know he was so high, but he can catch Hall (23) and MacTavish (26) this year given a healthy season. It’d be nice to see him close in on Marchant (38) too, but that’s probably too much to hope for.
Taylor Hall is becoming a footnote in Oilers history.
There are no other current players in the top 50. The next bunch:
56. Klefbom: 122 points
81. Nurse: 88
94. Kassian: 77
122. Benning: 53
128. Larsson: 52
130. Russell: 50
140. Khaira: 42
147. Chiasson: 38
148. Puljujarvi: 37
The source data can’t be SF-SA or anything similar because there’s no on-ice data for individual players publicly available from the league. That’s why my estimates would be better, it’d be going from on-ice goals + penalties and game/period totals of shots and and the rest of the trad stats to the much higher event CF-CA
The bias I think just has to be lived with, just like how deployment needs a little qualitative review when it comes to shift starts and d-man change-ons because I don’t have that either. I remember speculating that Farabee was a low-event killer because his eTOI was below one of Jaxon’s thresholds despite all the press and scouting saying he was playing a hard all-situation deployment (and I though he was playing both special teams).
That’s one of the luxuries of tracking – the eye test is baked in to the work in a distinct fashion. I have a really bad sports memory but I tend to take a lot of notes because you have to always be pausing the film. Generally not going to miss many quirks in deployment
Connor McDavid is 6th on the all-time list for P/GP in the NHL. If he has another season like last year he’ll easily overtake Marcel Dionne for 5th, with a career rate of 1.34 to Dionne’s 1.31.
http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?aggregate=1&reportType=season&seasonFrom=19171918&seasonTo=20182019&gameType=2&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,200&sort=pointsPerGame
Yeah. That was awful.
Apropos nothing, here are the even strength boxcars for the prospect D last year:
Bear: 52, 5-15-20 +14 / 0.38 P/GP
Day: 64, 4-19-23 +14 / 0.36
Lagesson: 67, 8-16-24 +25 / 0.36
Jones: 50, 3-13-16 +16 / 0.32
I had no idea Lagesson had so much goal-scoring ability. Jones’ numbers are a little shy, although he had the best PP numbers of the 3 that got significant PP time:
Jones: 3-10-13
Day: 3-8-11
Bear: 1-10-11
I suppose Bouchard will probably log the lion’s share of PP minutes this year, so this is somewhat a moot point, but I’m surprised Bear only had 1 goal with that shot of his.
Lagesson was the only player of the 4 to log any short-handed points, with 2 assists to his credit. I could see him and Adam Larsson forming a shutdown pairing in Edmonton a year from now.
By memory, I believe you’re correct. Shots or corsi or something like that. Wilde can be much, much more accurate if he has a shift count.
Funny you should say that. One thing that REALLY bugged me was the presser where TMac kept referring to recently acquired Ryan Strome as “Dylan”. Like he couldn’t even be bothered to learn his players names. As a business leader (manager?), that really, really pissed me off.
Goal scorers generate offence.
Passers recieve assists.
How did they explain zooming.
Do not care about points WOWY.
Evg WOWY is we’re the truth lies!
Just watched the Tippett avail from yesterday. Very impressive how prepared (like Holland) he is. Really clear the time and effort he’s spent getting to know near all he can about the players he’ll be coaching. I’m really liking him and Holland, and it’s easy to see how they’re a good match.
One little thing that struck me in the interview was when talking about Nygard and Haas he said: “and they’re not 20 or 21 year olds, these guys are 25, 26, 27 – and I put Persson in that same group…”. Kinda impressed he knew all of their ages, and was like, oops, gotta include Persson to get them all correct. Not trying to diss but I don’t feel like McLellan would have known their exact ages or had a handle on their game before seeing them in camp.
Another notable moment for me was when asked about Klefbom’s partner. It was a bit of a joke answer, but also zero endorsement or positive words about anyone specific. What kind of partner would you be looking for for Oscar Klefbom’? Tippett: “A good one. (pause where people laugh) Right hander preferably. If you come up with one in camp let me know. (another pause) We’ve got some candidates”. A great opportunity to talk about Benning and/or Persson but he didn’t.
Watched the first two periods from the Saddledome tonight. That was all I could take.
The Flames played like the game mattered and the Oilers did not except for Benson who ended up with two penalties for his troubles. That was about all he accomplished.
Agree with OP that Safin upped his stock but that was about the only real positive I saw other than Rodrigue making some really nice saves after he settled down.
Rookie games mean nothing to Benson and Marody, except to get through them without injury. They are like regular training camp for NHL veterans. They probably both wish they had a minor injury like Yamamoto.
An extension and Dementor pay.
It is California. But it is also the Dementor.
Wasn’t it just individual on ice SF+SA (or GF+GA??) as a proxy of TOI share? If he was using goals then for sure you’d be able to improve on that a lot with your data.
Any thoughts about how one could reduce the bias in this kind of methodology? It seems obvious that strong offensive players would generally have more events occurring with them on the ice. And “high” and “low” event (both ways) players seem to exist in the NHL. In either case their eTOI numbers could be quite skewed compared to reality. I’ve got nothing, but maybe there’s an innovative way to improve the estimates.
And again, very cool the hard work you’re putting in and the data you’re producing with your tracking project.
We come here cause we are Oiler fans.
But we all know how important it is to try and raise children who are not a drain on the rest of the community.
That is one thing I work for charity wise in life.
That every kid get a fair chance!
Bouchard was the only one I noticed , he seemed to have the puck a lot in the 15 mins of the 3rd I watched
From what I saw, Bouchard looked good offensively but made some questionable defensive decisions. His skating was better than I thought.
Rodrigue was solid.
I’d suggest people need to curb their expectations of Sammy.
Benson, seemed a little slow to me, but he may play better with better players at the NHL level?
Most of our forwards looked like they do not know what penetration of the HD area is.
A couple who repeatedly looked like they know how important the HD area is for open HD sh density.
They were great goal scorers in CHL last yr.
One (18yr)
One (20yr)
The perimeter play by the AHL players disappointed me.
I saw no Eberle tough.
Bouchard was the only prospect of note that really showed his plus skills on a consistent basis but he also showed his deficiencies and why he simply shouldn’t be in the NHL right now.
Safin was the biggest arrow up – maybe only arrow up.
Didn’t see the game but I don’t think you can blame this one on Manson, Prof.
Can barely watch this grainy reso . Sad thing is its a big improvement from years past webcasts lol.
So, what are our thoughts? Good? Bad? Very on either side of that spectrum? Improved from the previous game?
Helter Skelter?
Empty net goal – at least the Oilers were the better team in the 3rd period – in particular Bouchard.
Bouchard has been unreal good in the first 6 minutes of the third – a number of rush break ups, calm transitions, stretch passes, high end keep at the blue line, shot through on the PP for a goal.
No miscues so far either.
The Safin play drew a PP – Starrett won the PP draw and Bouchard gets a wrister through that hits something and goes in.
I credit Safin for the goal even though he was on the bench – his play the shift before was fantastic.
What a play by Safin – beauty puck retrial off the skate in the neutral zone, against the line and a fantastic cross-seem diagonal pass to a streaking player – right on the tape – for a quick break chance.
Best play by an Oiler through the 2 games.
Yes, I know. I was just going off of Lowetide’s projected lineup saying that he’d be out.
He’s been paired with Deharnais all night.
I guess that period was better than the first but not that much. First 10 minutes the Oilers had some chances and pressure but the last 10 minutes the flames took over again.
Rodrigue has been the Oilers best player.
The “bubble kids” have been very disappointing through 5 periods.
A bit better tonight but both Marody and Benson have been non-impactful. These games mean nothing but players that we are reasonably projecting as Oilers, an middle 6 Oilers, this season, should be at least showing flashes.
Bouchard has been directly responsible for 4 or 5 high danger chances against through 5 periods. He consistently shows his plus skills out there but he’s also showing exactly why he should spend some material time with Manson.
Guys like Haas and Jurco are going to be raring to go come the weekend and the exhibition games, Benson and Marody better pick up their games.
Wait, De Jong actually is playing?
Samorukov steps up at the blue line and lays out a flame with a big a clean check.
I see Evan Bouchard as a sort of lactose-tolerant Tom Poti.
Oilers just don’t seem assertive enough tonight, on forecheck or defensive zone. Play mostly going the Flames way.
Fantastic pass by Safin on a quick break 2 on 1 to set up Iacobellis but Wolf with a nice save.
Safin looks fast out there and he’s got the skill. Ostaf will re-establish himself a real prospect.
They just might be targeting Benson.
Wait. The Oilers player was clearly going to win that race by 10 feet. Why call it icing?
Samorukov with a panicked dish around on an exit, its kept in but he makes up for the poor breakout with a good shot block.
Sounds like you are raising a fine young man … keep up the good work, Ricki.
Nice zone entry on the PP, Benson with a slick little pass to Marody who tries a fancy toe drag and the flames get an easy clear.
Cooper continues to struggle.
Posposil continues to be a shit disturber – he now knows that hitting from behind = 2 minutes, even against the Oilers.
Oilers on a 4 on 1 and Lavoie’s easy back pass is off miserably and they bungle it.
They just don’t have it tonight – individually and as a group – so far.
Awesome.
Volunteering in the community, learning and knowing a wide range of skills ( construction back grounds are a huge asset) and working well with others is essential to being a firefighter. All the best to your son and his journey. The sky is the limit for him.
McLeod had a nice playmaking sequence there. Good awareness with the back pass. Wolf also with the save.
51 wins and .930 SV% over his two years in Everett? Not bad at all.
Day with a nice transition pass to send Vesey in on a partial break but Wolf with the save.
Top line and top pairing out there – can’t get out of own zone and give up a 2 on 1 down low.
I just saw that. I have absolutely no idea how someone crosschecking you in the face, with you doing nothing even in retaliation, can result in you getting a penalty and then nothing.
Why are the refs never called out? Something needs to change in this “culture”.
The fact that Maksimov has not been on PP1 in these two games makes me think he won’t be in Bakersfield (unless Benson/Marody are up) which would be disappointing to me.
Day on PP2, no Samorukov.
Day took a bunch of PP minutes last year, even playing ahead of Bear for much of the year.
Nice job on the PK by the Oil and Starrett with a partial break – taken down and draws a PP.
Good play by Beau who has has had a really tough period prior to that.