I keep everything. It’s both a curse and a giant pain in the ass. It’s also a gigantic pool of story ideas for me and helps me write every day. So, one week I’m reading about Pierre Jarry joining the Minnesota North Stars in November 1975 because they’ve traded all their draft picks and are getting old in a hurry, and the next week I’m reading about the Buffalo Sabres flushing their scouts and going with video in 2010. Guess what you’re going to read about today.
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: 10 free agent targets for the Oilers this offseason
- New Lowetide: What if the Oilers went scorched earth in front of 2020 free agency?
- New Lowetide: Examining Matt Benning’s future with the Edmonton Oilers
- Lowetide: Oilers Top 20 Prospects, Summer 2020
- Jonathan Willis: Unqualified RFAs could be top offseason targets for the Oilers
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Q&A: Legendary Oilers PA announcer Mark Lewis discusses his temporary comeback
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s bet on Andreas Athanasiou and how Oilers will proceed
- Lowetide: Lessons learned from the ghosts of Oilers’ draft weekends past
- Lowetide: Oilers’ William Lagesson may benefit from extraordinary circumstances
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘We’ll learn and grow from it’: Connor McDavid’s tune different compared to last year
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Who stays? Who goes? The most likely players to stay with and leave the Oilers
- Lowetide: A rational approach for the Oilers at the 2020 draft
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: What’s holding back the Oilers? Superstars’ defence and team’s depth under focus
- Jonathan Willis: After a play-in round exit, the Oilers need an offseason of change
- Lowetide: Oilers 2020 picks finalized, it’s go time for Jesse Puljujarvi
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s urgent summer as Oilers general manager begins
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: The Oilers have some disappointing lessons to learn — even in season of progress
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Replacing Tyler Ennis: Ranking the best left wing and backfill Oilers options
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Bang for your buck: Ranking the Oilers based on contract expectations
- Jonathan Willis: Is Philip Broberg on track to be a top-pairing defenceman?
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s roster construction options over the next five months
Scouts
In the summer of 2010, The Hockey News hired a bunch of interesting writers who offered fresh views. It didn’t last but I loved it. One of them was a former hockey exec named Tom Thompson, who had a scouting background. Thompson had a conversational writing style and since he was an industry exec he was giving me valuable information about what hockey teams were doing during the draft season. Here’s a passage from just after the 2010 draft:
“This will not be a critical look at the first round of the 2010 Entry Draft for one important reason – never has the order of selection so closely followed my personal list. Either great minds think alike or fools seldom differ. I will let you choose.”
The Oilers had drafted pretty close to the McKenzie list and of course the McKenzie list was (and is) the industry standard. Here are the Oilers picks with the McKenzie numbers in brackets:
- No. 1 Taylor Hall (BM 1)
- No. 31 Tyler Pitlick (BM 25)
- No. 46 Martin Marincin (BM 71)
- No. 48 Curtis Hamilton (BM 57)
- No. 61 Ryan Martindale (BM 58)
- No. 91 Jeremie Blain
- No. 121 Tyler Bunz
- No. 162 Brandon Davidson
- No. 166: Drew Czerwonka
- No. 181: Kristians Pelss
- No. 202: Kellen Jones
By 2010 I was also paying attention to Red Line report, who were delightful in that the verbal had an edge and that they didn’t give one tiny fur ball about consensus. Red Line was the 31st team and they made their list. Here’s how it looked run through the Oilers picks:
- No. 1 Taylor Hall (Red Line 1)
- No. 31 Tyler Pitlick (Red Line 30)
- No. 46 Martin Marincin (Red Line 50)
- No. 48 Curtis Hamilton (Red Line 121)
- No. 61 Ryan Martindale (Red Line 100)
- No. 91 Jeremie Blain (Red Line 156)
- No. 121 Tyler Bunz (Red Line 178)
- No. 162 Brandon Davidson (Red Line 204)
- No. 166: Drew Czerwonka
- No. 181: Kristians Pelss (Red Line 218)
- No. 202: Kellen Jones
Eventually, I would graduate to NHLE and at this point I think an equivalency and a scouting staff who give their view on each prospect is the best route to go. Here are the NHLE’s for Oilers picks in 2010. Who would you put your money on?
- No. 1 Taylor Hall 49.3
- No. 31 Tyler Pitlick 18.0
- No. 46 Martin Marincin 4.1
- No. 48 Curtis Hamilton 15.2
- No. 61 Ryan Martindale 26.1
- No. 91 Jeremie Blain 13.8
- No. 121 Tyler Bunz .898
- No. 162 Brandon Davidson 14.3
- No. 166: Drew Czerwonka 6.0
- No. 181: Kristians Pelss 3.7
- No. 202: Kellen Jones 13.8
Top forward (Hall) and top defensemen (Davidson) by NHLE made the NHL, plus Pitlick and Marincin. Pitlick remains shy offensively and no offensive measure was going to predict Marincin (who I believe is still early in his career. He’s a Pelagornis sandersi).
HARVEST MOON 2010
Here’s what I wrote in Harvest Moon 2010:
Overall impressions: A good, good draft. Hall clearly is going to be the story of this draft, but nice value in the second round (Pitlick, Marincin) and later (Davidson) tell us the Oilers set up their draft board well. I also like the Hamilton and Bunz selections, leaving only the Martindale pick as a question mark (they drafted for need) among the team’s most dear selections.
Blain, Czerwonka, Pelss and Jones are probably scouts picks, payment for all those nights driving to little towns all over the world in search of the next Taylor Hall. These men are going to be under pressure to deliver more than an average number of NHLers to the show for the next several seasons. Report card day is around 2015 summer. See you then.
SCOUTS
I truly believe math can help a draft. If you look at the players who will be available when Edmonton picks No. 14 overall (using Bob McKenzie’s list) math is screaming some names and not saying a word about others.
- No. 12 BM Anton Lundell 23.6 NHLE
- No. 13 BM Dawson Mercer 33.3 NHLE
- No. 14 BM Kaiden Guhle 15.5 NHLE
- No. 15 BM Hendrix Lapierre 20.8 NHLE
- No. 16 BM Dylan Holloway 13.3 NHLE
- No. 18 BM Seth Jarvis 41.8 NHLE
- No. 19 Rodion Amirov 19.1 NHLE
- No. 20 Lukas Reichel 24.4 NHLE
- No. 21 Jacob Perreault 32.5 NHLE
- No. 22 Connor Zary 37.4 NHLE
- No. 23 John Peterka 11.2 NHLE
- No. 24 Ridly Greig 26.5 NHLE
- No. 26 Mavrik Bourque 33.7 NHLE
So there are five names here who are clearly identified by math. I think scouts are vital to the process, so it’s important to find out about each player. Maybe Jacob Perreault is such a good shooter that the decision is made to pass on Jarvis and the others. Math informs the decision, but has earned a seat at the table. I believe this to be true.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
NHL quarterfinals are underway and some eyebrow raising results in the early days of this round. At 10 this morning, TSN 1260, we’ll discuss that and more. Jesse Granger of The Athletic is scheduled to join us at 10:20, NHL teams are doing morning avails now so that’s a moving target. RJ Anderson from CBS Sports will also join us at 11 to talk MLB deadline. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
It sounds like your process comes to you pretty naturally. Interesting!
I can only imagine how many HN issues there must be in that laundry room! Nice!
We’ve talked about this before, multiple times.
Both Jones and Russell lose effectiveness when moved over to the right side.
Just because Russell has played the right side doesn’t not mean he “can play the right side”.
I don’t believe that either should be an option, well, at least not the mandated first option if a right side guy gets hurt.
They cannot go in to the season with only 3 right shot d-men available to the NHL.
Jones is an important player and he’s developing – he should remain developing at the position where he is most effective – put the player in a position to suceed.
I most often find story ideas in the archives of this blog, which go back to 2007. I also have about 40 books on a shelf behind me (Gzowski’s book, Behind the Moves, Jim Proudfoot, The Glory Barons) that I refer to often.
I have the old HN in the laundry room, organized by date.
I get inspiration from all of those things, but sometimes when I wake up I have a solution. I was preparing an article yesterday that will be at The Athletic tomorrow and got stuck. When I woke up this morning I had the solution. Strange but true! 🙂
Yep, but I’d love to see the Oilers do as well with their 2 superstars as the Pens or Hawks have… sigh
Also wanted to mention that I contacted THN to see if they planned on printing this years Draft Preview at all…..They do not.
Online only this year, I’m afraid 🙁
How do you store everything? I’m assuming that you mean you have piles of old magazines and books in your house that you can peruse at your leisure. I could not find a practical way to store those old HN newspapers! They remain boxed in my storage…For now!
Peeling some layers here, lately I’ve been looking into ways to curate thoughts and/or future references and have come across some promising systems using apps like Evernote or Scrivener or other notes/list apps. They usually offer easily searchable and categorized note/reference keeping. I’m wondering what your system for keeping things rolling along with this website is?
Do you store notes for future articles somewhere? I am picturing folders by year with subfolders with your yearly repeating subjects and then the related docs/notes in there. Is that close? More simple? One document per yearly post?
Or do you use a more sophisticated note taking app that gathers and organises everything? You seem to be stretched out over at least three different mediums now with the blog, The Athletic, and the radio show. Have you managed to keep them all relatively separate? How?
You are and have always been REMARKABLY consistent with your postings on this blog. It is pure awesomeness!
If there was one thing that you could say is the magic sauce to keeping up with everything, what would you say it is?
Sorry if this is too off-topic or too personal a subject! Feel absolutely free to ignore this 🙂
The pens will be really really bad in a couple years. I think they have the lowest ranked farm system already. It’s going to get ugly there.
Are you back on the bandwagon now?
Now here is where you lose me.
The Oilers have Larrson, Bear and Bouchard as RD. They also have Russell and Jones, who both have experience on the right side. And it’s pretty clear the coach prefers Russell ahead of Benning on the RD depth chart.
I am not seeing the logic in your position.
Agreed. It’s pretty straightforward. Benning is the better player and younger. We need the depth on the right side and moving someone on the left side clears a space for Lagesson. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. IMHO.
Vancouver was the better team in the first period by a small margin.
Vegas is expert at exploiting the long change and, of course, their depth is truly amazing.
Tuch would be a first line forward on many teams and he plays on the Knights third line.
I didn’t see the 1st period of tonight’s game, but in the 2nd period, the ice was heavily tilted in favour of the team with the darker uniforms. Or maybe it’s my TV? In any case, methinks the team in white is very lucky to be leading.
If the Oilers have to eat $2M, then, yes, I’d still trade Russell over Benning.
The team doesn’t have the right side depth to trade one of the 4 and not have a replacement – they cannot go in to the season with not a single right shot replacement option.
Watching Canucks and Vegas game I will say Pettersson is easily the best forward in the 2017 draft. The two Dmen taken before Pettersson are pretty good
I’m sure I’ve read your opinion on this 50 times, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen your solution if Russell isn’t tradeable. What then? And saying Ken Holland has to trade Russell is not an answer.
Let’s just say there’s no bad contract for bad contract deal out there. And let’s say the Oilers would have to eat 2 million, or give up a good prospect, like McLeod or Samarukov. Do you still want them to trade Russell instead of Benning?
Vancouvers D is it’s biggest weakness but their superior forward depth is a plus.
Something, something, second round of the playoffs, something, something, something.
Canucks gave up more goals per game than the Oilers and have the more elite tender.
Something, something, defence as bad, something, something.
Or more likely that the defense is as bad as this season.
Two seasons ago Bjukstad played 82 games.
Between groin and head injuries, Russell is a good bet to miss material games, as he has yearly.
Also, value at the deadline should have absolutely zero impact on this type of decision. There is essentially zero chance that Holland would sell his depth d-man going in to the post-season (he’s proven the opposite) and if he is selling, well, the season is off the rails – maybe because of no decent 3rd line…
Bjugstad is NEVER healthy. Hasn’t been healthy for 3 years. Russell is worth more than a guy who you have to pay much more in real money on LTIR.
There is zero probably that Bjugstad can stay upright.
Russell will have value that the trade deadline that Bjugstad will not.
OP seems clearly intent on building the best roster in the NHL on LTIR.
PuckPedia
Update on Mike Smith’s #LetsGoOilers performance bonuses earned.
-With 35 GP>30 mins, earned $500K
-The 40 GP threshold for $250K is pro-rated by 70/82 to 34 GP, so his 35 GP earned that bonus pro-rated by 70/82 ($213,415)
Total Confirmed Bonus =$743,415
—————-
At the end of the day, I don’t think this ends up hurting the team as, while the reports on this were fluid when it came out, I believe, for the purposes of calculating the final cap hit of a team, players that were eligible to go to the AHL without waivers on the day of “the pause” were deemed to be sent down.
For the Oilers, guys like Nygard, Haas, Jones, Bear, etc. would be excluded for the cap hit calculation for the remainder of the year and the Oilers won’t suffer a bonus overage penalty next year because of this.
The one Covid-related decision that has helped the Oilers.
You should gat an appointment with your optometrist!
I agree with keeping all the d-man except I will have to except out Kris Russell.
If the Oilers are going to make even one external improvement, the cap space needs to come from somewhere (even if its for another bad contract but at a position of need – Sutter, Bjugstad, etc.).
I agree that Jones and Bouchard need to “earn it” but will say that Jones has already earned it – while they bring different assets, I say he outplayed Kris Russell in 2020 and has earned that 3LD spot and Willie Lagesson has earned the 4LD/7D spot.
As LT likes to say, Bouchard is ready – I agree but he hasn’t proven it yet – keep Matt Benning, he is value for $1.9M and, while the Oilers have defensive depth, they don’t have right side defensive depth if they move one out.
I also think that Holland will be able to get Benning signed for 2-3 years at a lower AAV around $1.75M – cutting some cap and taking care of the d-man exposure requirements (assuming Jones becomes a must-protect).
I will also disagree with the premise of Larsson and/or Russell being moved at the deadline – there is all but zero chance Holland sells off defensive depth heading in to the playoffs (that’s the opposite of what he is likely to do) and, if he is selling either or both of those assets, well, that means the season did not go well.
Sorry, obviously meant only drafted once “in the first round”….
I think they’ve only drafted once in the last 5 years and twice in the last 7 (that pick being K. Kapanen).
Personally, I believe that Rodrigue is at least two full seasons away (at least) but Konovalov may be ready for an NHL position after next season (may).
I think the play there would be for Bjukstad – almost an identical cap hit but Rusty cost almost $4M less in actual money to be paid (Bjukstad gets $5.25M in real money).
I’m sure the Pens would love to get rid of the Johnson contract and may not be in the market for a LD unless they can.
While you’ve meandered a bit, you’ve arrived at the right destination.
That’s the problem with Holloway.
You can’t accurately measure or project his offense because of him playing in the NCAA at his age. Anyone drafting him is facing a considerable amount of uncertainty in terms of his offense producing potential and consequently facing considerable risk.
I can’t think of many players drafted out of the AJHL in general, but he played there in his draft minus 1 season.
Parayko is the obvious name the jumps out, but he’s a defenseman.
Michael Benning is a defenseman ranked 57th amount NA skaters.
He had 1.02 PPG in his draft minus one season. He had 1.39 PPG this season.
Holloway had 1.66 PPG in his draft minus one in the AJHL.
That strikes me as not a terrible number, but also not earth shattering.
Carter Savoie is draft-eligible this year. Central scouting has him at 53 in NA. Admittedly he’s 5/9 only.
He had 1.26 PPG in his draft minus one season in the AJHL.
He has 1.83 PPG this season.
Is that enough of a gap to spend a mid 1st rounder on Holloway?
I like Seth Jarvis.
I’m curious where this idea is coming from.
Over the past 2 seasons Kapanen has scored 1.90 P/60 5v5 (identical both seasons).
Here are all the forwards he’s played 100+ minutes with and his P/60 with them:
Matthews 693 2.34
Marleau – 619 1.75
Johnsson 334 2.15
Kadri —– 323 1.12
Tavares — 279 1.94
Kerfoot — 258 2.56
Spezza — 235 2.80
Engvall — 219 2.46
Hyman — 168 1.43
Nylander- 143 1.26
Marner — 110 2.17
The only legit top 6 forward he played 200 minutes with who he didn’t score well with was Kadri, and he was a 3rd liner in Toronto, was he not? Is this like the McDavid and Hall can’t play together stuff?
I’m not sure there’s a reason for Rutherford to be overly worried about Kapanen fitting with Crosby and Malkin.
Classic example just now of why Krug should not be a high target for this team.
To the surprise of no one, Haas is being loaned back to the Swiss league – will be eligible to return when camp starts up.
Rutherford has gone or record stating that, with Zucker and now Kapanen, he’s solidified his top 6 – he must not be aware of Kapenen’s struggle to mesh with legit top 6 linemates in the past.
Oilers 50/50 from the last qualifying game will be drawn tomorrow (Wed) at 4pm.
I’m still in (as I’m sure many other community “members” are).
Exactly so.
Unless you’re a team starting a rebuild, draft picks that can’t impact within a season or two diminish greatly in value.
Rutherford, given the age of his core, has little choice but to supplement it as best he can every offseason.
You can’t use NHLe on Holloway.
NHLe for NCAA will be skewed towards older players. In part because NCAA is often a later option for players, and because most graduate to the NHL after 3-4 seasons of college.
Almost no one jumps from NCAA at draft age to NHL at draft + 1, and those that do are often defensemen (Hanifin).
We pretty much have no idea what the NHLe for a draft eligible NCAA prospect should look like.
If he was 22 and scoring at that level, then we could trust the number a lot more. You’d expect an 18yo delivering the same offense to do better than the NHLe suggests.
Marino was a 22 year old rookie, not a 20 year old rookie.
Significant difference.
Yes, Marino is all but solidified as a top 4RD – a legit 1RD, well, he’s not there, yet, if ever.
leadfarmer,
Back to Boston, then?
Pens are obviously comfortable with Kapanen but that is more than I would have paid.
Now just send Kessel back to Toronto and were back to where we started
@ Darth Tu
Pittsburgh was on pace to be a 100+ point team this year. They’re three years removed from back-to-back cups. Their window is still open but it is closing in a hurry.
Malkin has two years to run on his ticket. Gino, Sid, and Letang are the core of this team and so it’s Rutherford’s mandate to build as competitive a team as he can for this season and next.
It’s not a good trade for Pittsburgh long-term, but short term they’ve expended two 1sts on Kapanen and Jason Zucker, continuing the trend of plug-and-play wingers with Sid and Gino.
Would be even more fun to see Messi on Inter or Lazio or somewhere so he and Ronaldo could continue competing, but yeah, would be amazing to have them on the same team.
To clarify, I think the Oilers at 14 who could use a F would be less likely to be good candidates to trade down than the Leafs who need D/G. Would Dubas take Askarov at 15th though? Hmmmm.
Teams out of the playoffs have always been able to make trades (and sometimes do). Shit, teams in the playoffs can make trades (although any acquired player would not be eligible to play).
Stay tuned for Dubas turning 15 into 26th, 38th and 59th picks.
Honestly though, if there is a year to trade down this has to be a decent year to do so. No camp invites, no Memorial Cup or CHL playoffs. Gonna be some randomness.
I would rather just send Klefbom and buy out Neal to make the dollars work. Not even sure if I would do that to be honest.
Klefbom and a 1st is too much for OEL and his contract.
Ranford.85,
While I don’t know that I think it would be worth the price, I could see merit in pursuing something like Klefbom, Russell and the 1st for OEL. The Oilers remain close to cap neutral and address their long standing top pairing D problem (though, his numbers don’t reflect him being THAT great), the Coyotes save some money now (Klefbom makes 4.5mil for 2 more years and 5.169mil in his final year; Russell 1.5mil this year) and a fuckload longterm, replace OEL with a cheaper & younger top-4 D, and move back into the 1st round.
Seems to have enough merit for either side even if doesn’t look amazing for either. If Holland could trade down first to get the extra pick and THEN pull this off, I’d probably be cool with it.
dustrock,
Lavoie
I would rip a lot of arms off for a 1st and a 2nd for Larsson and Russell at the deadline
What would a smart G do?
Keep all the Oilers D men.
Keep them for 2020-21 and see how the team is doing at the deadline.
Larsson and Russell would both be worth valuable assets if healthy as at the deadline – Larsson as a top 4 D, and Russell as a $$$ cheap 5-6 D.
If you can get a 2nd for Russell and a 1st for Larsson, isn’t it worth keeping them to the deadline?
As long as you’re only taking back money that ends at the end of next season, you also get 8M in capspace back.
Might be helpful in re-signing that Ryan guy… Or Kailer…
Make Bouch and Jones earn that ice time.
Well, to be fair, Lavoie is 20, not 18 and, frankly, I think Jesse’s early years were largely a function of his agency requiring NHL roster time at 18 (i.e 40 games on the roster to vest a year towards free agency) as a requirement to sign and come over.
As it turns out, Oilers’ management’s preference for the player to be in North America was “all wrong” and the best case would have been for Jesse to stay in Liiga for one more year and then sign and come over (or even sign and then get loaned back to Liiga for draft plus 1).
Insistance on the player being in North America plus the requirements of the agent effed everything up.
Braden Schneider might be a RD the Leafs would consider if he’s there at 15. Great skater and defender but can also move the puck well. Quite physical. Not sure he fits the Dubas mold but would be a fan favourite.