Photo by Mark Williams
The Oilers have an opening for a left winger on one of their skill lines. Tyler Benson isn’t a candidate. That’s a tell. The fact Edmonton doesn’t have another in the system is also a tell. The Oilers are going to have to use an asset (trade or dollars) this fall on a No. 2 left wing. That’s a shame.
THE ATHLETIC!
I’m proud to be writing for The Athletic, and pleased to be part of a great team with Daniel Nugent-Bowman and Jonathan Willis. Here is our recent work.
- New Jonathan Willis: Could it make sense for the Oilers to trade Oscar Klefbom?
- New Lowetide: Why Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl won the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Breaking down my ballot for the 2019-20 NHL awards
- Lowetide: Rising talent, acquiring picks key to Oilers’ success at draft
- Lowetide: European leagues are open, and Oilers prospects are everywhere
- Lowetide: Ken Holland and Dave Tippett’s past players: Can any help the Oilers?
- Lowetide: Roster projections for Oilers, including trade and free agent targets
- Jonathan Willis: Why the Oilers should buy out James Neal
- Lowetide: Oilers approach 2020 draft with increased depth in important positions
- Lowetide: Stock Watch: Hot starts and safe landings for Oilers prospects
- Jonathan Willis: There are no good shortcuts for the Oilers with Jesse Puljujarvi
- Lowetide: Potential trades and partners for the Oilers’ offseason
- Lowetide: The Oilers could find a world-class agitator in the draft
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Should the Oilers select goalie Yaroslav Askarov 14th at the NHL Draft?
- Lowetide: A bold draft strategy for the Oilers in 2020
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers third-line centre search should include other teams’ cap casualties
- Lowetide: Dealing a defenceman? Taking stock of Oilers’ blueline assets
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Q&A: Oilers GM Ken Holland on improving internally, the flat cap and goaltending
- Jonathan Willis: Can the Oilers find value picks among the 2020 NHL Draft’s impressive Russians?
- Lowetide: 10 free agent targets for the Oilers this offseason
- Lowetide: What if the Oilers went scorched earth in front of 2020 free agency?
- Lowetide: Oilers Top 20 Prospects, Summer 2020
- Jonathan Willis: Unqualified RFAs could be top offseason targets for the Oilers
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Who stays? Who goes? The most likely players to stay with and leave the Oilers
OILERS 2020 PICKS CONFIRMED
- No. 14 overall: RC Seth Jarvis, WHL
- No. 76 overall: RD Luke Prokop, WHL
- No. 138 overall: LD Dylan Robinson, OHL
- No. 169 overall: RC Logan Barlage, WHL
- No. 200 overall: LD Trevor Thurston, WHL
This isn’t a mock draft, merely the Red Line Report prospect who corresponds with Edmonton’s draft slotting in 2020. It isn’t fabulous but not a disaster, either. Will Edmonton have five picks on draft night?
LEFT WING PROBLEMS
Benson is just one example of a left winger who is in the system, under contract, and not under consideration for one of the two skill jobs. Here is the depth chart including only signed LW’s: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, James Neal, Joakim Nygard, Jujhar Khaira. That is a depth chart that is absolutely vulnerable to invasion. AHL depth chart Tyler Benson, Joe Gambardella, Ryan Kuffner and Ostap Safin.
Benson has been in the minors for two years, this is his time. Except it isn’t and we know that because Holland added Andreas Athanasiou and Tyler Ennis at the deadline. So, what does he do? Well, he might try trading for a less expensive Athanasiou. Here are some possible options.
Jesper Bratt of the New Jersey Devils scored 1.24 goals per 60 at five on five this season and is over 2.00 points per 60 for the last two seasons.
Tyler Ennis of the Edmonton Oilers scored 0.77 goals per 60 five on five, and had a 1.90 points per 60. He did have some chem with McDavid.
Jake DeBrusk of the Boston Bruins scored .74 goals per 60 in 2019-20, posted 1.18 per 60 in the previous season (all five on five). His points per 60 faded to 1.65 but his shooting percentage faded. A great bet if they can get him.
Alex Killorn of the Tampa Bay Lightning is signed long term and has a no-trade deal (16 teams). The AAV is $4.45 million for three more years, but he’s a two-way winger who scored 1.17 goals per 60 in 2019-20. Lightning make an annual trade for cap purposes, Killorn is a nice player.
Sonny Milano of the Anaheim Ducks struggled and got himself traded this season but has had strong goals per 60 at five on five in the past (1.45 in 2017-18). He’d be worth a flier.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A fun morning with good people and great guests, we get started at 10 on TSN1260. Bruce McCurdy from the Cult of Hockey at the Edmonton Journal will join me to put Leon Draisailt’s awards sweep in perspective and we’ll talk about signing/walking Oilers RFA’s. Joe Osborne from OddsShark will cover the NFL Week 3, and talk about how much injuries can impact the line on a game. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
As per TSN Ottawa is 18 million below the salary cap floor. That combined with Eugene Melnyk’s cheapness might make Kris Russell’s contract attractive to them (lower salary, higher cap hit)
Any idea what a possible return might be from their roster or prospects ?
Bob Stauffer
@Bob_Stauffer
·
1m
Distinct possibility that we see Jesse Puljujarvi return to
@EdmontonOilers
on a short term deal.
New GM/HC since Puljujarvi was last in Edm.
Puljujarvi’s agency has merged with Connor McDavid’s agency.
Oilers would have 6 RW’s.
Could result in a RW belng moved for a LW.
Yes, Askarov had a bad week – I’m no expert but its the only bad week of his playing hockey that I know about………
As far as being in the NHL next year to back-up, its a non-factor and non-issue – he’s got two more years in the KHL, signed through spring 2022.
One doesn’t need so expect draft plus 5 – he is a generational prospect at his position. Also no goalie plays in the NHL in his draft year but, like other position players, the timeline for generational goalie prospects is likely accelerated.
Nygard broke the same finger that he hurt earlier in the year – he needs surgery and is out 4-6 weeks.
New for The Athletic:A reasonable trade price for the Oilers to pay in pursuit of OEL
https://theathletic.com/2085609/2020/09/24/lowetide-a-reasonable-trade-price-for-the-oilers-to-pay-in-pursuit-of-oel/
Lowell George, man. Thanks LT.
Why does no one mention that the normal forward timeline is draft +4? Count yourself lucky if it’s sooner.
Lowetide,
I/we appreciate the update LT
The enjoyment we get from this site is worth the minor inconveniences
Ryan:
OTF/60 count is not good science.
Grade 10 Finance Math tells you Know your relavent data.
OTF change with pocession and without pocession are quite difrent human machine mechanics.
2 completely difrent Sets of math and video study!
You have built in a huge error at the start of Analysis.
Same problem occurs when you do not exclude closed shots if you want errors less than 15%.
Some games 85+ of shots are closed.
Evg/60 allows for identification of elite HD open shot Fwds and Defenders.
But the pocession analysis often has errors in the 40-60% range for OTF grouped togeather.
Here is the post.
Their is a belief in playing 2 pairs the most minutes against highest comp.
That is historical old scientific thinking.
If you do not have a pair that is great Def against 1st comp,
You do not give the. Big minutes you shelter them.
But if you have a pair that can crush 3rd and 4th you give them as much of 3rd/4th with some 2nd to get their elite ability to establish a low xSave%
Then you subject a pair that can crush 2 nds with all the 2nd comp, and some 1st comp time.
Leveling as little game damage from the weak 1st comp pair.
In industrial Science you subject individual pumps in groups to different demands based on the load they can handle.
You run the pumps that have worse load performance less minutes.
Vibration monitoring allows you to maximize pump life expectation with usAge time loads.
Last 2 gm:
Sekera 22 ev min 0.00 evga/60
Hanley 23 evmin 0.00
Heiskanen 37.5 Evmin 1.60 evga/60
Oleksiuk 33.5 Evmin 1.80
Klingberg 36.5 evmin 6.56 evga/60
Lindell 33.5 evmin 7.13
Common sense says transfer the min load to the 4 D that displayed they can take more minute load at the specific comp loading.
I didn’t say don’t draft him. (Although that is my position). I was addressing that point being made that Askarov was going to be ready for backup duty next year. And said that was a dangerous projection. Askarov had at least one big stumble. So one shouldn’t assume that one will be able to skip development steps.
I said expect the normal timeline….draft+5. Not draft+1 or+2 as the poster was suggesting.
You have drunk some serious koolaid if your argument for Askarov is that he will help within two years.
If one is drafting Askarov, one should expect the normal timeline….draft+5, and count yourself fortunate if he arrives sooner.
And also, that was Carey Price a few months before turning 18, playing at the U18 World Juniors. He played in that tournament about 2 months before he was drafted.
Price was Team Canada starter at the U20 World Juniors (the one we watch on TV) in his draft +2 season (he was 19 at the time, and he was exceptional). He played 41 NHL games with a .920 SV% the next season.
Askarov “choked” as Team Russia starting goalie in the U20 World Juniors at age 17 (his team still won a silver medal, so it’s also possible the choke suggestion was an exaggeration).
Askarov was Team Russia starting goalie at the U18 World Juniors last year (that’s his draft -1). Askarov hadn’t turned 17 yet and was named an all-star and the best goaltender.
I’m not sure we should trade up for him but the kid has an incredible track record to this point.
Yeah, it would be nice to normalize each player to their team SV% to at least try to correct for good/bad goalies. I feel like there might be a bit better than 0.14 correlation then, but that work is zero fun at all.
The Oilers large range of OFT shifts I guess does make it a good place see a correlation What I worry about is that in that sample of 6-7 players, Klefbom’s numbers are having a large effect on the overall result. And it’s not possible to be sure whether 1) fewer OTF shifts are causing a worse on ice SV%, or 2) Klefbom has a bad on ice SV% and gets few OTF shifts, so the Oilers D have a correlation between the two (Klefbom clearly doesn’t explain all of the correlation, but I’d guess it weakens considerably without him). All that said, the Oilers D results clearly do support your hypothesis.
We might also need some sort of composite “difficulty of minutes” metric (incorporating TOI vs elites, OFT shits, %OZ shift starts, at least) to get at the big picture question.
I believe Smith mentoring him last year is going to come up aces this year. He cleared up the yips on his glove hand and Smith really taught him well on handling the puck. I think we see a more confident Kosh now that his family and himself have settled into Edmonton. Remember Kosh is Yari Kurri’s man and it would not surprise me if his save percentage is over dare I say 9.20 and playing over 50 games.
Carey Price Canada U18 WJC-18 4GP 2.65AVG .894SV% Choked.
1. Sidney Crosby
2. Bobby Ryan
3. Jack Johnson
4. Benoit Pouliot
5. Carey Price
6. Gilbert Brule
7. Jack Skille
8. Devin Setoguchi
9. Brian Lee
10. Luc Bourdon
Annaheim, Carolina, and Minnesota probably wished they didn’t put as much stock in a small sample bad WJU18 tourny in Price’s draft year.
Montreal could have had a top forward to insert into their lineup sooner! Like Brule, or Skille, or Setoguchi. Or maybe a top D like Lee and Bourdon.
I look forward to watching HH trying to put lipstick on that pig.
I got the same message (for the 1st time) but I think you’ve just gotta do the math 🙂
What kind of term and AAV do you figure they’ll give him (or whoever commits to it)?
IIRC Hall said he was planning to sign his “UFA deal” despite Covid rather than take a short deal and hit the market again in a year or two.
This is my favorite part of the season, excluding playoff games when the Oil are playing.
I know we’re supposed to cheer for individual plays and individual games, but I’ve always loved GM season the best.
Go Daddy removed some malware this afternoon, that was the most recent issue. Most of the problems I’m having are coming from WordPress updates. It’s like a giant wave for all blogs and a custom built one like mine, that is 15 years old, has a tough time keeping the boat from rocking. I’ll eventually move to a new site, am in the beginning stages of same but have much on my plate at this time.
Wow. That’s not the move I thought we’d see.
Sounds like Holtby is looking at Vancouver
Excellent!!
If everyone experiencing problems with the site could state their O/S and browser it may help those troubleshooting the problem(s)
I’m running Windows 10 on a Surface Pro 3 running Chrome version 85.0.4183.121
I’ve been (mostly) OK for several weeks now…the photo on the main page has been missing for weeks and no edit button and no delete button (all 3 disappeared on the same day)
I have not been experiencing re-directs or log in/log out problems- these problems may be related to the browser you are running (and it sounds like they have since been resolved ..??)
He’d better.
His cap hit is four and a half times as much as Demko’s.
I’m not saying Kosh is better then Demko but I’ll take Kosh to have a better save percentage.
The redirect is gone, but now I keep getting kicked out and getting a message that I’m being blocked, lol.
Lowetide finally figured out how to get rid of me 🙂
I’m picking Colorado.
Slocanoil,
I think that Lowetide and Godaddy were able to fix the problem.
I would be ecstatic to have DeSmith as our 1B next year – a great bet at a great price-point.
From accounts, the contract does have an out clause.
If he was going to commit for the year, presumably he would be able to find a spot in the SHL, he did play there a few years ago and I would expect him to be a top d-man in that league.
test
Any rumors out there where Hall is looking?
That seems very quiet
I’m picking Boston
For Bakersfield maybe
We definitely need to aim higher
He did what Jarry did for half year this year for half a year the year before
But definitely provided AHL level goalering in AHL last year and the last year he was in AHL
His contract runs through 21/22 which should not be an issue as noone should expect him to be in the NHL before that.
Just like Konovalov is on track for……
Yes, I acknowledge the projected ceiling is not even close.
Then again, the likes of Shesterkin and Sorokin drafted around the same place (or later) than Konovalov.
That’s a pretty big conclusion leap from what’s known at “the tournament of small sample sizes”.
What does one say about his performance at the U-17s and U-18s – pretty sure the U-18s are VERY important to the scouts.
but Casey DeSmith would be a GREAT addition.
Meh.
Two years ago.
Oilers didn’t bring Yak over, he played two seasons of junior for Sarnia before he was drafted. Ya, he played in the KHL just before the NHL but that was due to the lock-out.
Yes, and after starting the season with a meh performance in the 2nd tier Russian league he has been lights out starting 2 KHL games…… 2 games.
Point is simply that his KHL start this year is a nice arrow (similar to that of Broberg and Sammy and their starts) but is really meaningless in his projection – his projection and potential are sky high, as they should be, based off his history over the last few years, not two starts in the KHL.
First game in 6 months (or so) and it takes Stamkos until his 2nd shift to snipe.
Oh that’s so good.
You won this thread.
And definitely no concussion history to worry about
Yup none
OriginalPouzar,
Demko is 24 and has 41 NHL games to his credit with a.914 save percentage to his credit behind a very leaky D.
He is also coached by the best goalie coach in the NHL in Ian Clark.
Looks like a very smart bet to me.
Ryan,
10/10
Umm, we were pushing Askarov long before this season started
He’s the best goalie at this age that are taking over the goalie jobs in the nhl
If you have to askarov the question…