The role of a farm team is to produce NHL players for the parent team. That’s a simple statement and it’s universally understood. Until the first puck drops. Then the prospect goalie needs to be replaced and the kid blue is blind and that scorer your brought in from St. Walburg in the junior league never saw a hockey stick in his life I swear to God!
THE ATHLETIC!
Great perspective from a ridiculous group of writers and analysts. I am proud to be part of The Athletic. Here are the most recent Oilers stories.
- New Lowetide: Everything you forgot (but need to know) about Oilers’ 2019-20 season
- New Eric Duhatschek: Q&A: Wayne Gretzky on making whisky, learning to like IPAs and loving cheap wine
- Lowetide: Injury is biggest factor in the Oilers’ hopes for extended playoff run
- Lowetide: Tyler Benson’s struggle to score might affect future role with Oilers
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s second Oilers draft should deliver high-octane offence
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘It’s all surreal’: Kevin Lowe’s Hall of Fame nod nets surprise and satisfaction
- Lowetide: 10 things to look for at Oilers training camp and the 2020 playoffs
- Lowetide: Ethan Bear, Caleb Jones and the Oilers’ need for veteran insurance
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Why the Oilers should protect these 8 skaters in the Seattle expansion draft
- Jonathan Willis: Why Carl Soderberg is an intriguing free agent possibility for the Oilers
- Lowetide: Oilers prospect Raphael Lavoie’s possible impact in his first year pro
- Lowetide: Every prospect in the Oilers system and what’s next for each player
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Projecting the Oilers’ black aces and how much they’ll play
- Jonathan Willis: Projecting the Oilers’ lineup for their play-in series versus the Blackhawks
THE 2020-21 BAKERSFIELD CONDORS
There is one substantial NHL draft pick and plenty of potential, but this will be a year of pushing for the playoffs instead of trying to win the Calder Cup. Good things coming. Consider this an educated guess, AHL contracts where noted.
1 G Stuart Skinner. He delivered some strong outings in Bakersfield in his first full AHL season, including a truly impressive November. He isn’t certain to be the starter but will get a chance to audition.
2 G Dylan Wells. He is two seasons into a pro career that looks like it’s peaking at this level. He has played 19 AHL games, only seven this year when the club badly needed solutions. That’s a tell.
3 G Olivier Rodrigue. I’m serious when saying Rodrigue could win the starter’s job in Bakersfield. He ended his QMJHL career with a .918 save percentage (Skinner was .905 his final junior season, Wells .896) and there’s every chance he shows he can stop more pucks than the competition in California.
4 RD Evan Bouchard. A fine puck-moving defenseman whose coverage and urgency improved during his rookie pro season in Bakersfield. He won’t be in California long, if at all, in 2020-21, but every day he’s a Condor Bouchard will be the team’s best player.
5 LD William Lagesson. I don’t think he clears waivers but if he does Lagesson should be a big piece of the Bakersfield defense. He is a shutdown type but can move the puck and posts crooked numbers at this level. I think he has an NHL future.
6 LD Theodor Lennstrom. Always difficult to project hands across the water (water), but Lennstrom is a bona fide SHL veteran so should be able to slide easily into the top-four on the Condors back line. Great speed, great passer, likely to get playing time in all disciplines.
7 RD Logan Day. He’s an impressive player at this level with the puck on his stick, Day’s skills are less effective on a team with Bouchard playing the power-play minutes. His defending isn’t getting better (25-41 even strength goal differential) so he’s going to need a strong defender alongside. RFA this summer.
8. LD Markus Niemelainen. Big defender with good mobility and a shutdown style, my guess is he patrols on the third pairing for his first AHL season.
9. RD Yanni Kaldis. AHL contract. Four years at Cornell for a solid two-way defenseman should have prepared him well for the AHL. He was captain of the team and his NHLE is 19.0 and I would bet on him having some success with the Condors.
10. RD Janis Jaks. AHL contract. Righty puck moving defenseman, he was in the Washington Capitals development camp in the summer of 2019. He has skill and he is righthanded.
11 RC Cooper Marody. His offense year over year was cut in half due to injuries. If healthy, Marody is an impact player at the AHL level. Should Marody recover, he may land in the NHL during the season.
12 LC Ryan McLeod. He’s a rising prospect in the system, that speed could be useful in the NHL starting now. His even strength goal differential (27-27) was strong on a team underwater. His even strength points (5-14-19 in 56 games) is about level with Filip Chlapik, who was 57, 8-12-20 as an AHL rookie age 20 in 2016-17. This young man is a legit prospect.
13 LC Brad Malone. AHL contract. The NHL portion of his career over, Malone no doubt received a handsome contract to play exclusively in the AHL. Center is a tough spot to play and the Oilers need to develop wingers about four at a time next season. He’ll be as valuable in Bakersfield as he was a year ago.
14 LC Luke Esposito. AHL contract, plays a utility role on the team. He doesn’t have enough offense in his game to play with skill, so if you see him playing center or wing with prospects of promise, someone is injured or in the pressbox.
15 LC Devin Brosseau. AHL contract. He’s 24 and just out of college, has plenty of skill (NHLE 23.8) and he’s 6.01, 203. You never know with college kids entering pro hockey, he has some things a coach will find valuable. Could see more playing time than I believe.
16 RC Liam Folkes. AHL contract. Similar bio to Brosseau, he’s 24 and from Penn State with an NHLE of 20.3. Skilled and looked for an opportunity.
17 LW Tyler Benson. Entering the 2020-21 season, he is likely to be either in Edmonton or on the top skill line in Bakersfield. When I begin my reasonable expectations ciphering, Benson will probably see half of his time in Edmonton next year.
18 LW Joe Gambardella. He is a solid two-way player in the AHL, and may be in line for a recall (although Benson now blocks his path). I like his forechecking utility.
19 LW Ryan Kuffner. He’s RFA and did not score as hoped as a rookie pro, but he filled the net in college and Ken Holland gave him a bonus-laden contract with the DRW. One of the more anticipated seasons from an AHL acquisition in recent memory.
20 LW Jakob Stukel. AHL contract, he has experience in the league (three goals in 15 games) and enough skill to be considered for regular work. He’s 23, younger than most of the college men who he’ll compete with for time.
21 LW James Hamblin. AHL contract. This is an interesting player. Hamblin was on the radar of this blog back in 2017 (Wolfpack wrote an excellent scouting report) and now he’s gone pro with an AHL deal. In four WHL seasons he scored 113 goals. Watch for this player.
22 LW Blake Christensen. AHL contract. He’s 24, just out of college and has played in every tier 2 league in Christendom. He didn’t get much ice time in the USHL, plenty in the USHL and had a nice run at AIC (American International College).
23 RW Kirill Maksimov. I’m not certain who to list here, so will go with the fellow who has played in the league for a year. He’s a good prospect, he might be able to make the grade in more than one way, but he has to score some.
24 RW Raphael Lavoie. He scored 38 goals on 310 shots in just 55 games during his final QMJHL season. Oilers badly need to have him fly past the other wingers on the team as a scorer. I think he will.
25 LW Ostap Safin. I like the fact they left him in the ECHL to play a lot, but it’ll be time to push into a regular job with the Condors in 2020-21. We should remember he was ranked No. 51 by Bob McKenzie in 2017. There’s talent here.
26 RW Cam Hebig. He’s RFA and unlikely to return but I’ll list him because Hebig began his AHL career by scoring nine goals in his first 15 games.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A busy morning, TSN1260 beginning at 10. Maybe something breaks on the NHL front, Edmonton looks more promising as a hub city each passing hour. How do we feel about that? Kaitlyn McGrath from The Athletic will talk Blue Jays and baseball at 10:20, Ryan Rishaug from TSN gives the latest NHL and Oilers news, Michael Hurley from WBZ Boston to chat New England Patriots, Cam Newton and another fine. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. Talk soon!
Mocking is the default position of the indoctrinated.
Thanks. Very thorough
Answers the question there is an inverse of positivity graph. it reflects the recent drop in test positivity rate in Sweden from increased testing and the recent increase in the us in spite of incr increased testing
Seems to be some info here.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden?country=SWE~USA
Thanks. How much has the test positivity rate dropped in june? In the US it dropped with increased testing but then spiked in the US South
That’s my big question too. Players currently outside Canada need 14 days quarantine bit that’s self isolation without an approved bubble. Wonder if any training camps will ask to enter any Canadian hubs in middle of phase 3? Or in other locations in Ontario or Alberta.?
yes I was referring to covid parties – the unintended ones that are driving most of the spread here the last month . .Lose the plot and the life of the party can go all Opposite George
~You’ll always be right not trusting experts ~
https://www.tsn.ca/edmonton-and-toronto-set-to-be-nhl-hub-cities-1.1491108
Sounds like good progress made not just on hub cities but return to play protocols and cba extension.
Some stopped trusting experts and governments before any of this and got mocked.
– if we don’t draft another goalie for a few years that’s fine with me
– is there a way for all these teams in the south to have their training camp in canada? Are they all going to quarantine during training camp? Seems that is a big question not being discussed …
What about catch covid parties?
I think you just have to have it?
It still can comes back to the right question. Catching and spreading are not necessarily symmetric.
Am I personally protected from catching it if I wear a mask in a room where no one else does? That may actually depend on using it correctly and even then the effect may be weak especially with a cloth mask.
But reverse the question and ask if I wear a mask significantly reduces my unknowingly spreading it? While touching it and then my eyes might be bad for me are others are still being protected from me?
When they all believed the early China numbers about little non-smptomatic spread the questions focused on personal protection. But when solid numbers on non-symptomatic spread emerged the question shifted to how not to be a spreader.
Not a fan of the early motivated reasoning to pooh pah masks to try to avoid a run on them. Simpler to remove them from retail. But zero tolerance for politicizing mask wearing. Glad to see the attempts this week in the US to remove partisanship from mask wearing.
Thanks for the context and very good to hear things are better rather than worse.
I think the experts and governments flat out lied to us. It doesn’t take an expert to realize masks are a good thing. It’s common sense. But we were told masks were not only unnecessary, but could cause more harm because people tend to touch their face more. At the same time they told us not to buy masks so there would be more for health care workers. Once the supply of masks were secure, we were suddenly told to wear masks. They flat out lied. IMO it’s always wise to seek out differing expert opinions and judge for yourself.
Numbers in Sweden are rising but actual cases aren’t and hasn’t for well over a month(or probably well over two months really). We’ve gone from pretty much only testing people admitted to hospitals to anyone who wants getting tested for free, symptoms or not. As for deaths we no longer have a higher than normal all cause mortality the last few weeks(which will be the only way to get a reasonably correct count in the end) . Things have been pretty tough, trust me I’m very well aware, but atm things are very much on the decline.
Poor Sweden. It used to be nothing but glam metal bands, bikini teams and IKEA factories. Now it has devolved into COVID run amok and street bombings.
Outrage and snark is what I do. Do you ask a scorpion to stop being a scorpion?!
I get your point and what you are saying.
I just think you chose the wrong twitter post, written by a moron and that moron was targetting someone he really shouldn’t be (Fauci), to make a point.
There are very impressionable people on the internet, unfortunately. And there are people who read a tweet like the one you linked and they genuinely think not to trust experts and only believe politicians.
And like I said, people on this site have had some questionable takes and cited questionable people as an authority figures on the COVID response so, I took it at face value.
My bad.
That’s good info. Thank you.
Hi,
I would only compare last 2 weeks of cases as most before that are not active. Based only on the covid wikipedia pages for US and Sweden a quick check (hope the copying and math is correct) has opposite trends for the 2 countries. But definitely get your specific point that thought processes could be similar.
Weekly new cases PER million
USA Date SWE
6,346 16-Jun 5,190
609 last week 953
6,955 23-Jun 6,143
864 this week 634
7,819 30-Jun 6,777
Weekly new cases
USA Date SWE
2,100,402 16-Jun 52,423
201,564 last week 9,626
2,301,966 23-Jun 62,049
286,051 this week 6,402
2,588,017 30-Jun 68,451
When analyzing picks I’ve already moved to a 32 team model and I make that retroactive. For instance if someone was picked 31st before Vegas entered the league I would still count them as a first round pick. That would mean that 9 of the 31 starters are first round picks, and 14 of the 31 starters were picked in the top 64 ( first 2 round).
This conversation has been going on for months. I suppose that I could have written a long preamble reiterating my position that experts are always involved and consulted by politicians before making policy decisions but that that doesn’t always result in correct decisions because different experts have different perspectives and the questions are complicated which means it is highly unlikely that anybody is right all the time or that everybody will be happy even if it is gotten right.
I suppose I could have done all that but I thought that the conversation had been going on long enough with a pretty small community posting here these days that I would just jump to one of many examples of how even experts can be wrong when facing unprecedented events. My bad.
On the other hand you could have done me the courtesy of asking me the point of my post before jumping to outrage and snark.
For sure, there will absolutely be an increase in American deaths due to the current spike. I agree and never suggested otherwise.
My point was much narrower, that Sweden isn’t in much better a spot than the US, thus Swedish NHL players likely aren’t as scared of setting foot in the US as players from Canada/Finland/Russia might be.
The US needs just shy of 45k more deaths to catch Sweden’s per capita number (35% more than they have now). And cases in Sweden are still rising as they are in the US, though not quite at the same rate. 1.1 per 1000 people per day have been diagnosed with Covid in Sweden over the past week. It’s 1.4 per 1000 people in the US in the past week. Neither country is looking great.
But yes, I’m sure many players will prefer to resume play in a relative Covid sanctuary like Edmonton or Toronto.
I would have to think so, yes, even though those parameters haven’t been voted on and agreed to.
Wild times.
This is a interesting point.
I am absolutely concerned about where our prospects are going to play this fall – I do think the AHL starts up on a similar time line to the NHL (both will want/need fans) which I don’t anticipate until December/January.
I have no idea about the CHL – all leagues are planning for October but all have stated they require fans and the WHL has stated they need all 6 jurisdictions beings able to play. I don’t know when that might be.
I”m not sure if this will change any sort of drafting strategy but, ya, I guess it could – prime development time.
Yup. I’m still mulling.
I wonder what escrow they are using? 20%? And if the 10% deferral is being added?
When politicians are in the pockets of the banks…
Wow – McKenzie tweeting that the $300M plus of signing bonuses due tomorrow are expected to be paid.
– I wonder if any weighting to age or development or where a prospect plays this draft
– If we assume no AHL, and no college Hockey, where are draft picks going to play next season?
– A 18 year old that can’t play, get coaching, work on his skills: that’s basically a lost year vs KHL, or other places in Europe where draft picks can play.
– Or you trade your picks this year because prospects aren’t going to develop and you load up the year after type thing. Or trade down and load up on over-agers, who are more fully formed, where lack of further developemnt isn’t a hindrance type thing
– Wonder if teams think this way, or have strategies, or can factor in the importance of develpment
Happy Canada Day tmrw: I couldn’t buy fireworks for our annual thing at cottage which sucks…
As a side note, was on a conference call (well… conference Zoom) with an Ontario Public Health official tasked with COVID response on Sunday. He mentioned that he’d just gotten off a call with an ER doc in Arizona who said “WE’RE FUCKED HERE.” Wife is the physician not me, but that doesn’t seem great news for a Vegas hub to me.
defmn,
I don’t follow you. Seems like his quote displays the most logical conclusion for that immediate timeframe given the information known on that date.
It would’ve been crazy to suggest everyone start panicking about it on Jan. 26th. when there was only 2 known cases in the US and China was hiding the high R factor (and pretending only 1k cases existed in the entire world). It looked very much like SARS or MERS with that fake data and hindsight shows the world was exactly right to monitor;y hotspots for SARS, MERS.
Hearing out experts is going to beat ignoring them everytime.
Even with great expertise sometimes it’s also about asking the right question.
When this thing showed up on our shores they asked the experts if masks provide strong protection for wearers. Not proven they said. Which was a great answer for pols worried about hospital gear shortfalls.
But the slightly different question many are asking now with perhaps 60% of spread being from currently symptomless is do masks protect people around the wearer? And the answer to that question leads to very different decisions.
Sorry, I didn’t realize I had comments and discussions to read prior to yours.
Because this comment you initially made seems to imply that politicians should not listen to experts. Seemingly at all.
“Every time somebody mentions that politicians should listen to experts this should pop up on their screen”
And then you changed it to “should not be taken as gospel”.
I don’t think my bias is showing, I just think you went strolling down troll lane with your first comment.
Doubt they keep cities under wrap during the vote. But it appears that city selection shelved completely during CBA push.
Discussions can take interesting turns. We might look back at the report that Edmonton and Toronto were very close at the first head to head discussion and realize the closeness made it easier to shelve and increase the chance they adopt both when they circle back
As a rejoinder to JP,
Current NHL starters / draft position:
Gibson / 39
Kuemper / 160
Rask / 21
Ullmark / 163
Rittich / ND
Mrazek / 141
Crawford / 52
Grubauer / 112
Merzlikins / 76
Bishop / 85
Howard / 64
Koskinen / 31
Bobrovski / ND
Quick / 72
Dubnyk / 14
Price / 5
Rinne / 31
Blackwood / 42
Varlamov / 23
Lundqvist / 205
Anderson / 73
Hart / 48
Murray / 83
Binnington / 88
Jones / ND
Vasilevskiy / 19
Andersen / 87
Markstrom / 31
Fleury / 1
Holtby / 93
Hellebuyk / 130
5 from the 1st round.
7 from the 2nd round.
8 from the 3rd round.
1 from the 4th round.
8 from the rest.
3 not drafted.
So about two-thirds of starters were top-90 picks.
Small sample size (necessarily), but the draft is a lot better at picking goalies than I would have thought. Obvs didn’t look at the overall volume of goalies selected in each round either, but it *feels* reasonable to assume that more G go in rounds 2/3 than in the first, accounting for higher contribution to the starter list.
Each G pick is a swing for the fences. A depth goalie probably doesn’t help you win, whereas depth F and D can give your roster quality minutes.
Sure but if they’re being asked to report to some cities they might be asking more questions about phase 3.
NHL to the side, that lag on death counts is a trap. Usually lags by half a month behind cases, but with the huge drop in avg. case ages the lag will be about a month
to loop in the folks that do the dying.
Sounds like the NHL and NHLPA won’t announce the hub cities until everything is finalized – hub cities, protocols for stages 3 and 4 and the MOU for the extended CBA.
Not sure if McKenzie meant they won’t announce until the agreement is finalized and voted on/approved or just finalized an put out to vote.
The hope is for it to be issued for a vote by the end of the week but I think the voting takes a good 72 hours.
Sounds like one vote on the whole package – not separate for RTP and CBA which makes sense given their linkage.
Yeah, no question the trajectory in much of the US isn’t good (understatement). Just saying that things in Sweden aren’t so different and I’d be surprised if those players would have a particular issue setting foot in the US (cases in Sweden are still rising and their overall deaths per capita remain well ahead of the US, for the time being).
defmn,
Lots to think about there too.
I don’t think a GM can avoid trying to find the best players at the draft though. I’d suggest there’s a similar pattern with forwards getting paid a lot more for a little more production. It could be a bigger discrepancy for goalies but I’d expect the phenomenon still occurs with forwards (and you don’t avoid drafting Kopitar at #11 because he might eventually get paid $10M for instance).
The law of diminishing returns is definitely something to think about here though.
Don’t know about Sweden direction, but US South is just starting to go supernova. Next the fast growing younger segment seeds the older cohort and by 8/1 yikes.
The road behind was rocky
But now you’re feeling cocky
You look at me and you see your past
Is that the reason why you’re runnin’ so fast
And she said
Ain’t nothin’ gonna break-a my stride
Nobody gonna slow me down, oh no
I got to keep on moving
FWIW, cases in Sweden are virtually the same per capita as the US these days. (the rest of Europe very much lower though)
Yes, tier B goalies are pretty available and relatively easy to acquire (I’m not sure I’d agree with ‘good-great’, ‘without massive acquisition cost’). Then you’ve got guys like Bobrovsky getting $10M for his age 31-37 seasons… You’re certainly not getting much certainty for $3M and minimal assets out.
Agree it would be interesting to see how many of the A/B starters were homegrown vs acquired from outside, and for what. The B guys I’m sure were often not homegrown.
Marody is a bit of a surprise, great news that he’s healthy. And it’s really nice to see the team invite the future over the present tweener vets IMO (Marody, McLeod, Broberg, Rodrigue over Currie, Jurco, Gambardella).
I think its fine as the provision doesn’t apply to player on Loan or RFAs:
13.23 In the event a professional or former professional Player plays in a league outside North
America after the start of the NHL Regular Season, other than on Loan from his Club, he may
thereafter play in the NHL during that Playing Season (including Playoffs) only if he has first
either cleared or been obtained via Waivers. For the balance of the Playing Season, any such
Player who has been obtained via Waivers may be Traded or Loaned only after again clearing
Waivers or through Waiver claim. This section shall not apply to a Player on the Reserve List or
Restricted Free Agent List of an NHL Club with whom the Player is signing an NHL SPC or is
party to an existing SPC with such NHL Club.
I think they are all essentially back…….
They need to have a fairly strict bubble for stage 3 – training camps – rink and home quarantine for the players (and hopefully even anyone they are in contact with – yes their families or they stay elsewhere during camp).
Players should be very protective of themselves right now – not in two weeks when camp starts and not in 4 weeks when they head to the hub – right now.
Phases 3 and 4 need to be essentially Covid free
Thanks for a really interesting post. Lots of info to think about.
I went to NHL.com to take a look at which goalies have been posting what kind of numbers. It doesn’t directly address your look at whether or not to draft a goalie in the 1st round but it offers a perspective on the subject.
I looked at the last 3 seasons and goalies who had played a minimum of 75 games over those 3 seasons – so an average of 25 per season.
The best Sv% belonged to Raanta at .923 and there were 39 goalies who averaged .910 or better with Mike Smith being one of those. Koskinen at .911 BTW.
So if you assume 30 shots per game and a 50 game per season starting goalie scenario – just to keep the math tidy – you get 1,500 shots per season on that goalie.
At a .923 save % that means that he let in 115.5 goals in those 50 games.
At a .910 save % he let in 135 goals.
There is a whole cluster of goalies whose save% is around .915. Seventeen goalies of the 39 had Sv% between .917 and .913. At .915 the team has been scored on 127.5 times over those 50 games or 12 more goals than the goalie with the best average over the 3 year span.
Now there are all sorts of contextual details to explain these numbers but the reason I post them is that it raises a question for me.
Elite goalies tend to get paid a lot of money. Price heads the list at $10.5 M and the 39th highest paid goalie makes $2.5 M (Khudobin).
They aren’t the same 39 names but close enough for my point – and, of course, they don’t appear in the same order for Sv% and cap hit either.
If you are a GM and you can sign a middle of the road goalie who can get you a .915 Sv% for 4 to 5 million per season does it make sense to draft the guy who is going to cost you $8M if he lives up to his draft potential in order to save those 12 goals or does it make more sense to go with the average guy and spend the extra 3-4M on a top six winger or dman?
I don’t know the answer but I do think that this has to go into the thinking when GM’s are sitting on the draft floor mulling over their budget in their heads.
And thanks again for the post. It made me think about the question you asked.
I would suggest that would be due to a word (or words) included in it that automatically subject posts to moderation – for example naming the US president is one.
From accounts, the Return to Play will indeed have an opt out option.
While I would think a couple players will use the opt out I don’t think it will be more than a handful.
Shit, Markus Granlund is joining the Oilers – he has all but zero chance of making the opening night lineup, he isn’t getting paid, he’s not coming back to the team next year but he’s heading over from Europe to join the team.
I know the players have concerns but they also want to compete – as a generality.
What parties the no fun steal your pension and life savings virus is just getting started. I just feel sorry for the younger generation they’ll never see every lounge packed with folks during happy hour, live music free chicken wings and potato skins and the sweet smell of racy woman.