The Edmonton Oilers are making decisions way up and down the line of the prospect pool these days. On Saturday, the team signed Raphael Lavoie and at some point in recent days may have made the decision to pass on signing defenceman Filip Berglund.
What does that mean? Lavoie is probable for Bakersfield in the fall and Ken Holland has a defenseman he likes more than Berglund. Unless Berglund’s contract contains an out clause that allows him to sign with Edmonton, the die is cast.
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, check it out here.
- New Lowetide: Oilers get good news from the farm as second-half performances spike
- Lowetide: Should Oilers prospect Philip Broberg play in North America next year?
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman and Jonathan Willis: Which former Oiler has the best argument to have his jersey number retired?
- Lowetide: Which Oilers veterans are in roster peril?
- Jonathan Willis: How good is Anton Slepyshev and what will an NHL return mean for the Oilers?
- Jonathan Willis: Peter Chiarelli wants to be a GM again. Has he learned from his Oilers mistakes?
- New Lowetide: Oilers’ challenge could be finding relief with a low cap ceiling
- Lowetide: Projecting Oilers prospects Raphael Lavoie and Kirill Maksimov
- Lowetide: What does Jesse Puljujarvi’s Liiga season tell us about his future?
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: How Oilers plan to help arena workers unclear with games postponed
- Lowetide: NHL season on hold might impact Oilers evaluations, summer plans
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman and Jonathan Willis: Key questions surround Oilers in wake of NHL’s coronavirus suspension
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Q&A: GM Ken Holland on Oilers’ playoff push, offseason plans and Hart thoughts
- Jonathan Willis: Evan Bouchard, Tyler Benson and more: 20 observations on the Bakersfield Condors
- Lowetide: Caleb Jones represents Oilers template for development success
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Determining Connor McDavid’s linemates remains a pressing and perplexing problem
- Jonathan Willis: Which players pose the biggest threat to Leon Draisaitl winning the Hart Trophy?
- Lowetide: Is the OHL still the Oilers’ primary resource at the draft?
50-MAN LIST (40)
If you look at the defense today, and assume Ryan Mantha won’t return, Edmonton has 12 men signed or RFA at this time. Even if the club signs Mike Green in free agency, the AHL club will need four more blue. That assumes Broberg comes over and there are no assurances.
No. I think the Berglund news tells us the organization is pleased with Bear and Bouchard for the NHL and have superior options for Bakersfield.
Anything internal? Philip Kemp has one more year of college but could sign. Michael Kesselring completed his first college season at Northeastern, it’s unlikely he’ll sign.
Markus Niemelainen and Graham McPhee are the two men who must be signed this summer or Edmonton will lose their rights (along with Berglund).
Among the players on the Oilers reserve list, I think Anton Slepyshev is the most likely to be signed. That’s based on several reports (believe Matty was the first) over the last few months.
THE 2016 DRAFT
As you may know, I’m a believer in draft clusters. A two-or three year run can build a dynasty or pretty near, with the 1972-74 Islanders, 1979-81 Oilers and 1989-91 Red Wings being prime examples.
The Edmonton Oilers 2014 draft produced Leon Draisaitl, the 2015 edition Connor McDavid, Ethan Bear and Caleb Jones (plus John Marino). The 2016 draft? Nine picks, including Jesse Puljujarvi at No. 4 overall and Tyler Benson at No. 32 overall, and three picks in the third round that have a good chance to miss (or emerge later with other teams).
To borrow a word from the great philosopher Casey Kasem, the 2016 draft was ponderous. Edmonton badly needed a couple of forwards from that draft and it looks like it might be just Benson.
That 2016 draft needed to be far better. I don’t know how you recover from it, but the Oilers are down a couple of scoring wingers today. I wonder what Ken Holland is thinking about Jesse Puljujarvi today.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A fun show today, with actual news to talk about and great guests. We begin at 10, TSN1260, with the brilliant Dan O’Toole from TSN joining us at 10:20. We’ll chat entertainment in sports, the Olympics and the power of staring. Jason Gregor pops in at 11 and talks NHL meetings, Olympics and more. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. Talk soon!
The Olympics postponement has officially been made official.
Thanks Al.
How do you reconcile Bouchard’s development and pedigree with the fact that its not reasonable to suggest he has top pairing potential because he hasn’t shown himself early enough?
Well, he was graded on the Rafferty scale. Logic and reason went out the window.
If Bouchard hires Joe Colborne as his skating instructor this off-season he should be fine.
It is too bad that a lot of information (even beyond the effectiveness of the various actions) is being lost (never collected I guess is more accurate). But yeah, testing clearly needs to be focused right now where it’s most needed.
One of my hopes for a return towards normalcy is huge increases in testing capacity. The technology to detect the presence of Covid in samples is pretty accessible (the lab I work in and tens of thousands across NA are capable of doing it, albeit without all proper quality controls). There are hurdles I’m sure, but I think testing capacity should be very scalable on relatively shorter timelines (like a few months). There’s also other potential testing avenues that could eventually make their way to drugstore type test kits!
But being able to clear people as Covid free in a workplace or other setting (and regular testing to ensure they’re still free) would allow much more “business as normal” to return. A scenario like testing then isolating NHLers for a 1 month playoffs becomes plausible at least. Kind of analogous to STD testing in the porn industry.
New for The Athletic: Final Oilers report cards: Second-half impact defines a successful season
https://theathletic.com/1695141/2020/03/24/final-oilers-report-cards-second-half-impact-defines-a-successful-season/
You have to assume any patient entering the hospital for reasons other than coronavirus, has coronavirus till testing says otherwise.
That’s a helluva strain on hospitals. Essentially all patients in have to be under isolation protocols. Consider this from Dr. Metra of Brescia, Italy (as reported in the NYT):
“We have lost some patients just because their bed was close to a sick patient and we did not know that he was Covid positive,” he said, referring to the coronavirus. “You have these patients who came to the hospital one week ago to be treated for something else and they were infected and now they are sick. That is the way that our unit became all Covid positive.”
As N.I.D. posted above:
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/health-professionals/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html
Looks pretty exponential lol. Some nice flattening at the top though; a wonderful trend that I hope was achieved by all this social distancing. We’ve avoided some pretty bad math outcomes if the trend can continue.
#gotmo
So far we are managing this without a complete shutdown of our economy and our liberty. That makes us luckier than a lot of places.
There has been a change in how the Alberta government is approaching testing. It’s obvious that the number of available tests has its limits and the government is prioritizing the most vulnerable and the most essential over even those that have travelled.
Sad thing is the numbers were just beginning to tell us the effects of our actions undertaken for the past 10 days.
But that said, I’m glad for the changes in testing. Ideally we’d all have a test we could go down to the drugstore and buy. But this ain’t ideally. Focusing on the vulnerable will bring ICU usage and death rates down as will focusing on health workers who can spread it to differently-sick patients. Focusing on health workers will also keep treatment capacity at its maximum, and minimize transmission to the rest of us.
Really they’re giving the province the flu, but as slowly as possible while isolating and testing the old and the infirm.
N64,
Also, the number of recovered cases in Canada allegedly jumped from 14 to 320 today. As with the Quebec cases reported today, there was some ‘catch-up” involved. Need to take these numbers with a healthy dose of salt.
Are you seeing exponential growth in Canada? I am not finding it so far in reading stats which are limited.
~10% isn’t the doubling every 2 days.
Scungilli Slushy,
Cases double every three days, you can see it in the first site that I linked. This is considered exponential growth – think of it like compounded interest – your investment grows exponentially since it multiplies by itself every x amount of time.
That’s a PM!
Adulting be hard.
Not uncommon in that day I’m old enough to remember as well.
I meant JT in a semi serious way wants to emulate dad.
Not referring to the merits or lack of in those days. But I would have as well I think. PT had balls but not really a common touch eye .
JT has an Instagram feel for things to me.
They were under reporting by 2/3 due to not accepting local test as full confirmed and corrected that today as per this comment on wikipedia:
The large jump in positive results on March 23 corresponds to a directive that local PCR tests done by designated hospitals no longer need to be confirmed by the Public Health laboratory. Previously, tests confirmed only at designated hospitals were considered “presumed” rather than “confirmed”.
Ah that makes sense. Didn’t really think about why such an alarming jump at the time.
The Oilers only have middling D ahead of him yet he sees no path to the NHL.
He’s not a plus prospect yet there are other teams that would essentially sign him for an NHL job (a better path than likely first call-up).
Ha. He did it again!
Let’s not go too far, but our leaders that did long term good were shall we say of more humble origins. There is no one template, but feeling you have a ‘deep’ duty to people is a great start.
I’m feeling JT isn’t minding his narcissistic solo pressers right now, no way to know for sure of course. Seems vacant to the point of Zombie apocalypse though, not the vibe I would want to send. Very Walking Dead.
Kids calling have to ‘Kirk out’.
This is interesting. Care to elaborate?
Off the top of my mind,
Dad with his fuddle duddles and giving the finger to westerners
Junior groping female reporters.
Justin wasn’t exactly ripened in experience. Nor was Dad but the outlook and attitude was a little more adult in the elder adult.
Both entitled which is what rubs me the wrong way. Catastrophic decision making seems to run in the family.
Hopefully now that JT is grumpy after a week of limited attention he’ll be more pro active. In the right way.
I think limited attention is what he craves, (see running off to Africa during the blockades) why else would he not take the coved test and get back to work?
PS: While no fan of Pierre Trudeau myself, there’s a film where a reporter is able to walk right up to the Prime Minister of Canada with the informality of a college professor and his student. That takes guts on the part of PM Trudeau. That’s back in the day when the land was still actually free, and those who had fought and bled for the freedom were still running the show of course lol
I recall Chretien being connected enough to the people to personally throttle and punch them at times (separate incidents IIRC, one I believe a response to being pied). Guts for sure.
I believe there was an incidence with a statue also.
Pierre Trudeau invoking the War Measures Act took great courage at the time, and his gamble with democracy being temporarily suspended, Roman style worked incredibly well, seeing that the FLQ were decimated then smashed completely. Revisionists today can contradict reality all they want but that’s the gist of it.
Trump is a singular one off who came from nowhere zero political experience and won the most important job on earth while going against the most hostile establishment in American history.
Trudeau is Daddy the Prime Ministers prince, providing quasi-royalty to an otherwise dull Canadian political landscape. It’s not for nothing the Sussex mafia have made themselves at home in Trudeau the 2nd’s tragicomic reign.
Poetic and astute.
Utica is no paradise either. The January weather is better in Bakersfield at least. Some ugly options lol
No one said he was a “plus prospect”
But as I said weeks ago…the Oilers have a glut of middling D and they are not going to stick around if they can’t see a path to the NHL.
Ask yourself…”Why didn’t the dog bark?”
Deductive reasoning is your friend.
Denial is not.
While seeking hockey style entertainment options while watching a YouTube clip of every single Oilers goal scored during the 1987 Finals v Philadelphia in what might be their greatest Oilers team lineup ever…
Kevin Lowe scores a great goal and looks like Gene Hackman…
I slotted Draisaitl/McDavid into the top dynasty 6 at first I figured Draisaitl would be better used playing with Gretzky/Kurri.
Then I remembered who the Messier line gets and I nearly fell off of my chair.
Draisaitl Gretzky Kurri
McDavid Messier Anderson
A dream top six I might be willing to bet on vs any other team’s all time top 6 including the Habs/Wings anyone lol
ps: add peak Paul Coffey and +++
You are citing your opinion as fact and even as background evidence itself.
Even if it was a sure thing that Berglund isn’t signing with the Oilers, you don’t know that its because he didn’t like the situation – that is just your opinion based on “a fact”.
Of course, the “fact” isn’t actually a fact as its not known that he won’t be signing by the Oilers.
As I posted very early in this thread, and as has been confirmed by Willis with precedent and information, this signing in the SHL does not preclude an NHL signing with the Oilers this season.
Even if the player has decided to move on and not sign with the Oilers (which is far from known), just because you think you know why, doesn’t mean that you are right – there could be a multitude of reasons but, of course, you refuse to acknowledge any of the (or even that he may indeed still sign with the Oilers).
Not so different than Trump really except younger
Dad had martial law…..
He’s an NHL UFA on June 1st, who do you figure he signs with?
Do you think Berglund or Rafferty plays more NHL games next year?
Depends on your point of view.
If you want physically weak offensive D that need high cap, and sheltering 5v5, or plugs like the Pens do ,than yes they fled.
Even good teams like the Pens get Cup rose coloured glasses. A lot more than the roster goes into a Cup. So much luck and timing.
Leadfarmer and I had virtually the same response. Both dense it seems. What was the point?
To me this is a failure of our federal government.
To expect us to have the time or understanding to assess this is unrealistic, and to allow such information to be accessed is irresponsible.
Not everything needs to be for sale or free market if reasonable social outcomes are the goal.
Sick of internet snake oil salesmen. Please wake up western world. Enough is enough.
Or as Popeye said enough is enough and enough is too much.
Wow, I didn’t realize that Berglund was such a plus prospect in your eyes.
I mean, I’ve been talking about him for a while but I’ve never heard you mention him as such an NHL option until it looks like he may be moving on from the org (which is still definitely not confirmed).
Ha ha. This is brilliant.
Come on HH, even you must crack a smile when OP catches you in the act!
#dontarguewiththelawyer
#sticktoeasiertargets
No, not obviously – pure speculation.
We have no idea why he did what he did and we also don’t know that he won’t be signing with the Oilers tomorrow or over the next few months.
I’m sorry, and with respect, is the suggestion that we shouldn’t be able to discuss Oilers-related news on the Oilers blog.
I don’t think anyone inferred that any Oilers news has importance near the level of what’s going on in the world but if I’m reading that post above correctly and there is criticism for talking about the Oilers on this site…..
I took the original posting exactly the opposite way.
It is wonderful to be able to come here every day and read about things that are important to us, from a cast of familiar characters with surprising insights into complex issues.
Plus homeopathic doses of Trump Derangement Syndrome and deep conspiracy theories. And the occasional bear sighting in the improved darkness, although I can’t make it through any of those.
LT has created and curated a remarkable salon here.
That required an ‘unprecedented emergency’ just like it did with dad; so no. The rest? Yes.
This and the talk of suspending habeus corpus in the US are where we as citizens need to draw the line.
Just reading through WIllis’ piece at The Athletic and, as some had anticipated, the SHL signing likely does not preclude him signing with the Oilers. Even though we don’t know the ins and outs of the transfer agreement.
He cites precedent such as the fact the Nygard signed a 3-year deal in the SHL a few months before signing with the Oilers.
We should know more from Howson tomorrow.
Live by the pass, die by the pass.
American democracy died under the watch of G.W.Bush with the “Patriot Act”; and I still blame him nearly 20 years later.
Justin Trudeau could care less about democracy, is the thing.
If you are interested in Finance and/or Economics and want some info on what we are going through and what The Fed is trying to accomplish right now, this is the best video I have seen:
https://youtu.be/nmG3yClJxxM
Courtesy of Jim Bianco of Bianco Research.
I don’t agree 100 percent with every point he makes, but his analysis (especially on how we got to this point in the markets) is very solid.
I have to admit you must be a good lawyer.
You argue a losing position until the cows not only come home but die in the barn.
The evidence is, of course, right in front of you but you refuse to accept it.
Rafferty signed with the Canucks when he could have signed anywhere.
Berglund did not sign with the Oilers because he didn’t like the situation.
Perhaps you should give him a call and extoll the wonders of Bakersfield in January.
This may not be true at all. Don’t jump the gun.
Waiting for confirmation from speeds.
OP caught you with a specific example of playing both sides of an argument within the same post.
Got to give the man his due. He handles your game with skill and poise. And even when he wins, he is still the gentleman.
Yes, you’ve selected a tough opponent. You may want to pick a different target.
Willis says it doesn’t preclude him signing for the Oil:
“Thus Berglund’s new two-year deal … does not necessarily mean he won’t sign an entry-level deal with the Oilers. It also doesn’t preclude him from signing with another NHL team after June 1. It simply means that if he stays in Europe, he’ll be playing for Linkoping.”
https://theathletic.com/1696014/2020/03/23/does-filip-berglunds-new-shl-contract-mean-hes-done-with-the-oilers/
Which is the way I’ve always understood it.
I didn’t think twice when I read that he had signed in Sweden. They’re not locked in.
There is a path forward to the NHL for Berglund if he earns it with his play in North America.
You may not see if but, of course, you are looking for the negatives with respect to the Oilers (as evidenced by citing pending UFAs Tanev and Stetcher as reasons for Rafferty to sign with the Canucks organization but then cite pending UFA Green as s potential road-block for Berglund).
He will easily find a better deal in the NHL if he decides to sign.
Being 6/7 and then being demoted if/when Bouchard thrives is a loser’s game.
His agent is obviously not a dummy.
Do you think they don’t know about John Marino and his immediate NHL success?
High on the Bakersfield depth chart means closer to NHL employment.
He is likely looking at AHL time with any NHL organization he signs with – of course, if he hits it out of the park in an NHL camp he may stick but I don’t see any “NHL promises” in order to sign.
With those listed above, two have unknown short and medium term futures with the club.
I could have seen Bouchard at 1RD in the Bake to start the year with Berglund as 6/7 in Edmonton if his game translates right away – just to give Bouch a few more AHL games.
Blaming Obama in Trumps 4th year of presidency??
If only Obama wasn’t selling live bats in Wuhan in December
That wasn’t the point of the reply to the original post. Some people are dense.
Did you know our Parliamentary democracy would also be a casualty?
That’s what’s at stake here.
Charlie Angus NDP Retweeted
Tom Parkin
@TomPark1n
·
1h
Suspending parliament and ruling by decree until 2022 is just out of the question. Not one other country has tried to pull this — not Johnson or even jackboots Trump — and I don’t want provinces or any other country to think this is a precedent.
You can bet they already have an agreement in place with the Bloc and perhaps the NDP.
If the Conservatives object, there is no way they are going to be able to do it in two days.
I don’t see how they will get the unanimous consent agreements to get the bailout bill through the Commons and the Senate in two days, with a unconstiutional coup embedded in the legislation.