Ken Holland has negotiated two offseasons as general manager of the Edmonton Oilers, with fans reacting to each transaction in the calm, measured way we’ve come to expect from the most well-adjusted fan base on earth. How did he do last year and how is he doing now?
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 Lowetide: Oilers Top 20 prospects, post-draft edition.
- New Lowetide: Finding Connor McDavid’s optimal linemates among 2020-21 Oilers
- New Jonathan Willis: A cautious free agent period boosts an Oilers team still on the upswing
- New Lowetide: Oilers prospects poised to benefit after offseason news.
- New Lowetide: Oilers bring back Mike Smith for another year.
- New Lowetide: Oilers sign Tyson Barrie to a team-friendly deal.
- New Lowetide: Oilers sign Kyle Turris, Tyler Ennis in early hours of free agency.
- Lowetide: Ken Holland will need to be creative in free agency
- Lowetide: Jesse Puljujarvi signing overshadows a strong day for Oilers at draft
- Lowetide: Oilers draft Dylan Holloway on Day 1, with trades possible Wednesday
- Lisa Dillman: Dylan Holloway could be a ‘difference-maker’ for the Oilers
- Eric Duhatschek: Connor McDavid’s positive COVID-19 test stirs debate about the next NHL season
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers could benefit both now and in the future by adding a right-shot defender
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s work week: Get good players, keep good players
- Lowetide: Oilers’ defence prospects are pushing, and changes are coming
- Lowetide: Potential trades and partners for the Oilers’ offseason
- 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
- Lowetide: Oilers Top 20 Prospects, Summer 2020
OFFSEASON 2019
I gave Holland a grade of “B-” in my season ending grades and many people felt it was a harsh grade. Prominent among the things that were considered positive: Neal for Lucic, plus making room for kids on defense and recalling Kailer Yamamoto instead of making a panic trade at the end of December.
HOLLAND’S 2019 SHOPPING LIST AND SOLUTIONS
1 Goalie. If the Oilers are going to make the 2020 playoffs, and that’s a distant bell, a goalie is going to steal some games. I’ve suggested Brian Elliott, perhaps there’s another option. Either way, goalie is the priority. [Mike Smith was Holland’s answer]
2 Two scoring wingers. I do believe Holland will spend money and assets to bring in some quality scorers. It might be a one and one, as in Brett Connolly via free agency and Connor Brown via trade, but there will be changes. [Alex Chiasson and James Neal were the answers early, Andreas Athanasiou and Tyler Ennis late.]
3 RH center. I think we’ll see a PK option who can skate and win faceoffs acquired over the summer. Maybe it’s someone Holland knows, like Luke Glendening. [Gaetan Haas was a bet, he didn’t cover all of the job but was an intriguing addition. Riley Sheahan signed late and did the job lefthanded.]
4 Cap room. Most of the heavy work may have to wait a year. [Holland bought out Andrej Sekera and dealt with long-term concerns by dealing Milan Lucic. He also got out from under the expansion issue re: Lucic].
5 Top 4 RHD who can move the puck. I can see a scenario where Holland and Tippett look at the internal options and decide a solution is on the roster, but 12 months away. Evan Bouchard might own that job by December 2020. [Ethan Bear arrived during training camp, an inspired player perfect for the moment].
HOLLAND’S 2020 SHOPPING LIST AND SOLUTIONS
No. 1A goalie option. Suspect a free agent, from Holtby to Greiss. Holland likes old goalies and there are about two dozen out there. Jimmy Howard even. [Holland shopped the world for you like International Stereo in 1975, but missed on target Markstrom and the prices were too high. He checked down to a less expensive Mike Smith re-signing].
Top 4-RHD. I do think Larsson is a candidate for trade, and Holland will need to replace him. Mike Green might have been an option, I think Sami Vatanen or Tyson Barrie might fit here.
[The answer is Tyson Barrie, although he is likely to play 3 RD this season. That’s a helluva solution, more offensive than I dreamed Holland would reach.]
Two-way winger for McDavid’s line. Andrew Cogliano fits here, I really like Jesper Fast, he’s a right wing. [Oilers solution here appears to be Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, which, let’s face it, is a fantastic option. Jesse Puljujarvi also fits here.]
No. 3 center. Extremely difficult to find a good one, especially a RH center. [Holland again surprised me by grabbing an offensive player in Kyle Turris. I’m not sure where this goes but it’s an interesting route.]
Holland’s solutions a year ago helped Edmonton to finish second in the Pacific Division in 2019-20. The Oilers system delivered three exceptional talents (Ethan Bear, Kailer Yamamoto, Caleb Jones) who pushed the team to greater heights. I believe Evan Bouchard, Tyler Benson and William Lagesson can and should have an impact on the 2020-21 campaign, although not at the Bear-Yamamoto-Jones level.
PULJUJARVI Q&A 2017 JUNE: KID “A”
Some of you enjoyed my Martin Marincin tracer item yesterday, I thought it might be an idea to run Jesse Puljujarvi’s RE back and forth from June of 2017. Here it is.
What do you make of it? Strange days indeed. This is a crazy player card, filled with great positives and sinking negatives, while also being too small a sample size.
Lost season? I wouldn’t go that far, but the range of possibilities remains vast for this player. What’s more, the portion of the puzzle that includes offensive ability may be more clear, and not in a good way.
Where do you want to start? Let’s go with goals. His shooting percentage was very poor, basically defensemen post that number. Again, small sample size alert. The one goal he scored was off a turnover on the power play, a good and lucky shot. He did have some ten-bell chances but couldn’t cash.
Did he have a good shooting percentage in the AHL? He shot 11 percent (12 goals in 109 shots). Mikko Rantanen as a rookie shot 17 percent, William Nylander shot 19 percent, as rookies.
Hmm. What about back in Finland? During his draft year in the Sm-Liiga, Puljujarvi scored 13 goals on 175 shots, works out to 7.4 percent.
This is devastating. I’m going to puke. Well, hold on now, let’s have a look around. Patrik Laine played in the same league, scoring 17 goals on 253 shots, works out to 6.7 percent.
Oh, okay, not so bad! Laine managed 19 shots per 60 minutes (in all disciplines) according to The Hockey News (if my math works). Puljujarvi? He averaged 13.94 shots per 60 in all disciplines. He shoots less than Laine and that may impact his ability to flourish with Connor McDavid. If he doesn’t have a terrific shot, and we’ll see because he’ll get stronger, we may be looking at more of a two-way forward.
He could still be a productive player? Yes. There are some positive signs for JP as a two-way player.
Let’s talk about it. Sure. He had a good possession number by Corsi, with and without Connor McDavid. JP was 2.86 5×5/60 scoring with McDavid and had a 53.8 Corsi for 5×5 percentage. Without him the offense went away (0.59 5×5/60 scoring) but the possession (53 percent) remained.
So, need to find him a 3line that can score? Exactly. Nuge and Maroon? Nuge and Pouliot? Somewhere in there we should find a solution.
What about the woodmonies? Dangerous Fenwick (40.5 percent) shows us why Todd McLellan didn’t want Puljujarvi with McDavid. 97 is going to get the elites beginning at the anthem, and JP wasn’t able to have a positive impact.
What was McDavid’s Dangerous Fenwick? He was 55.2 percent DFF.Crazy. Beyond the outer limits.
Where will Puljujarvi play next season? No idea. I suspect the club will bring him to training camp and let him compete against Zack Kassian, Drake Caggiula, Anton Slepyshev and possibly Spencer Foo for the 2R and 3R jobs. I would give him a good chance to win one of those jobs and start the year in Edmonton.
Will he stay? He has to score. That’s the deal. Puljujarvi’s value now isn’t what it was draft day, if he can’t score this coming season it’ll take another hit. Behooves Edmonton to find a sweet spot, I can’t see it from here beyond Nuge on a softer 3line.
You keep trying to trade him! No, but the Oilers are in win now mode. So their options are pushing him at the NHL level and possibly losing some games because of growing pains, sending him to Bakersfield for another year of frustration, cashing early as Chiarelli has done in the past.
You keep trying to trade him! Part of it is lack of trade pieces that have real value, but I don’t really want the Oilers to let him go. In fact, it could bite them in the ass.
Like trading Hall or Seguin? I don’t know that JP will reach those levels, but he has a potentially enormous future. He’s also a big train who is going to be a load when he gets older. A giant teenager now, you give him four years and we’re looking at a fairly unique player.
Ideal spot next year? We’ve been over this. Third line with a creative center, soft parade if possible and any of Edmonton’s three vets on LW (Lucic, Maroon, Pouliot). I think he could flourish there.
What will he RE be next season? Probably 60 games, 30 points, about like last season. He could blow that out of the water, but I can also see him in the minors for a time.
Who will he be if he doesn’t emerge as a scorer? A giant Jere Lehtinen is possible.
Who will he be if he does emerge as a scorer? The end of the phrase that begins “McDavid to….”
Why this song (KID A)? A few reasons. Even after listening to this song many times, it’s still somewhat unfamiliar and disjointed. It’s just short of unsettling, because there’s no logical progression. The title works as a description of Puljujarvi, and I think the song might be about growing up in chaos. This ain’t bandy.
What kind of offer do you think might be best for both sides, between Nurse and Ken Holland?
I think it was Willis who wrote about McDavid’s struggle vs Chicago during the season.
In the end we’re just guessing at the elements that went into Tippett’s decision. This one brings the changing lines decision closer to being a defensable one but as you say, some of those data points should probably just been thrown out. And of course things didn’t work out well when the games were played.
Smith starting, then not getting pulled, yeah that remains a concern big one.
I wondered how much of Draisaitl’s on ice SH% was due to playing with McDavid.
Over the last 3 seasons without McDavid, Draisaitl (in 1811 minutes) has an 8.67% on ice SH%, a .903 SV% and a .990 PDO (this is including the red hot 2020 run).
Should we expect Draisaitl to drive percentages at all? (I feel like that line may continue to, but it seems none of the members really have a history of it (playing with McDavid aside).
That line shot 14.9% and had a SV% of .952 in the regular season.
Drai’s career ON SH% is 10.1% – 7th best in the NHL among players who have played 4000 minutes during that time. McDavid is 2nd with 10.6%
Koskinen’s season long 5v5 SV% was.924, Smith was .900
So an expectation of a 1025 wouldn’t have been out of line with Koskinen in net and 1001 with Smith in net.
Yammamoto doesn’t have enough history to know what he is long term yet.
Drai has shitty ONSH% as a 19 year old rookie and was ineffective too, came along as a 20 year old and was much better as a 21 year old. Yammamoto isn’t the same level of prospect and he coming along better as a 21 year old than a 19 or 20 year old is to be expected.
You’re not wrong, your numbers are spot on
I think though, given your conditions of no more trades, no more signings, Kenny would call up a $700k contract from the AHL(Patrick Russell) prior to submitting the roster, and we’d be about $30k under the cap
That would give us essentially the full Klefbom LTIR cushion of $4.1 and another $700 of cap space when you send PRussell back to the AHL
If you subtract about $2.3M to sign Bear and Lagesson,that leaves about $2.5M of walking around money, all of it by using the LTIR cushion(meaning, we’re over the cap)
And you’ve got to leave at least $1M for AHL callups when injuries happen – so really, a $1M – $1.5M player is all that is realistic- and this is AFTER the season starts
I don’t think it’ll unfold with the above scenario however, the Oilers will want Bear and Lagesson signed before training camp, but the number ($2.5M) won’t change much either way you slice it
A couple of things on this.
The Oilers success since McDavid and Draisaitl were split up (6th in the league in Points%, 12th in 5v5 GF% (51.5%GF), after being 28th (43.9%GF) in the first 41 games). I think that’s as much due to having two 50% even strength lines as it is to the magic that Nuge-Draisaitl-Yamamoto found.
McDavid didn’t outscore, but his lines (non-Drai, non-Nuge) were 50%GF in the last 30 games. And the TOI the Oilers had to play as a team without McDavid or Draisaitl on the ice dropped to 21:38 per game (it was 28 minutes per game in the first 41 games of this season and was about 25:30 in the 2 seasons before this one).
McDavid was *only* 50%GF on his own in 2020 but he was positive (54% GF) on the season without Nuge or Draisaitl.
I think the lines will be fluid, as Material Elvis said earlier, but if Nuge-Draisaitl-Yamamoto keep outscoring well enough then McDavid should still be able to win his minutes without them, IMO
Post of the day. 🙂
FTFY
Again 🙂
*Assuming no further contracts signed before day one of the regular season. Like Laggeson.
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that.
There could be. Are you excited?
This is key IMO. Thank you.
Thanks for filling in some of the details. I knew Koskinen had gotten some unreasonable (more than anyone should play their starter) stretches of games but that’s pretty brutal.
And Holland did seemingly have enough faith in Koskinen to be pretty selective where he looked for an upgrade.
The only thing I disagree with are Holland and Tippett’s plans. I’m sure they have at least some of the same concerns about Smith that we all do. But I imagine they’d prefer if Smith played decently enough to split games evenly with Koskinen (and past an equal or better W-L record as he did this year).
I’m sure they’re also bracing for the possibility of some further regression, but really the only glimmer from this past season that Tippett believed Koskinen was any better than Smith came from the play-in, after Smith got brutalized.
I really don’t think they ‘want’ to start Koskinen 2/3 games, though they may be prepared to have to.
Didn’t work out and right decision are for the most part mutually exclusive. No coach is perfect 100% of the time. He did what he felt was the right deployment of his personnel to give the team the best chance for success. In hindsight I believe that Klefbom and Larsson were not at 100% going into the play in series after the exhibition game against Calgary.
Thanks for taking the time – again – to explain this
The above is the key point in all this – Holland may not be done(he probably is not), but we may have to wait until day 2 of the season before he signs someone else, simply because of how in/off season LTIR works
I agree that a PTO for a player(s) is how this will probably play out- the player(s) can participate in camp, get insurance, and may even have a handshake agreement with Kenny with the understanding that a contract won’t be forthcoming until the mechanics of LTIR play themselves out
And even if we get the full LTIR cushion of $4.1 for Klef, Kenny won’t spend it all – he needs some walking around money for the day to day operation of the club ie:injured players/call ups from the minors
Thanks.
Likely scearnio:
– Sign Bear and Lagesson to their short term deals.
– On the eve of the season, send down Yamamoto and a player (or two if needed) through waivers (Neal for example) to get under the cap
– Put Klef on LTIR on day 1
– Create a cap cushion (i.e. ability to go over) in an amount equal to Klef’s $4.16 less the cap space they had at the time of placement.
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They have the option of adding more players and then putting Klef on LTIR in the off-season to get cap compliant but we can be almost certain Holland won’t do that as he will have $0 of cap space in that case.
Couldn’t even call up a player to replace a short term injury.
In almost every public appearance Holland is clear he wants to enter the season with at least $1.5M in space in order to make day to day roster moves. He’s not going to use off-season LTIR to get compliant.
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Its usually tough to spend any of an in-season LTIR cushion given all the players are signed by then but this year is different – there could be many legit NHL players unsigned, on PTOs, etc.
I’m sure one day we will find out that OP and HH have been sitting together on the same couch this Whole time
Demand? OK, then.
I merely suggested that a key to the season was Tippett going to me of a starter/backup regime as oppossed to a 1A/1B with Mikko starting more and, I quote “say 70%”. I never made any demands on that being the right number.
WIth that said, nope, not willing to back off. For sure the season is likely to be condensed. They could play 60 games with 15 back to backs. Boom, play Smith in those plus a couple more 43-17.
You do realize that travel will likely be highly reduced and that is a major factor in goalie fatigue, right?
Anways, nice try attempt to diverge from your incorrect statement that you refuse to acknowledge – maybe one day you’ll be able to admit a mistake like an adult.
I’ve heard if a few times but I listen to ALOT of Oiles and NHL related pods – I think it was on 31 Thoughts with Marek/Friedman this past week but can’t say for certainty but I definitely heard it from either Friedman or Saravelli.
One doesn’t trade out of a momentum trade. One raises the trailing stop.
The market can stay irrational longer than one can stay solvent. Lesson #1 for mean reversion traders. Maintain excess collateral. Markets are somewhat irrational, not efficient. Fives games was insufficient collateral….Tippett burned through it.
One bets on mean reversion when time/duration is on your side.
Betting on mean reversion against the dominant trend/momentum, even it is not based on fundamentals is a suckers trade when the time horizon is short/finite. e.g. I know I am right. I don’t care if I lose money. Mean reversion trades require time and duration.
The time horizon of the trading idea, and the time horizon of the trade have to match. Tippett trading idea and the time duration for the trade were mismatched.
If a momentum trade goes against you, if one sets it up correctly, one close the trade quickly, (and sometimes flips the trade in the other direction).
Tippett bet on mean reversion, and waited till the last period of the last game to take it off when it was failing to revert in time.
He may have been right, but the lost. So he was a fool. Because his idea did not match the time horizon for the idea to pay off.
– How much money do we have left to spend on this roster assuming Klef is out for year?
– The cap next year is $81.5MM. We have $700K of space and still need to sign Bear
– Doesn’t that mean we have:$4.9MM ($4.2 from Klef + $700K) – Bear contract available?
– Why is the assumption that Holland is done this off-season?
– Asking for a friend
So are you ready to back away from your demand that Koskinen will play 70% of the starts?
I’ve seen this said a couple of times now about Kahun but not where it came from. Do you have a link or who said it?
Thanks.
Tippett has taken way too much flak for breaking up Nuge Drai Yamo.
How in the world do you run that line in a series against a team with Kane on one line, Toews on another, and a pretty good third line centered by Strome?
Do you ask 97 to playing checking C against Kane? Sheahan’s line can’t be counted upon to post a positive goal differential.
You need two lines out there that can outscore.
Tipp made the right strategic decision, just didn’t work out.
Your statement was wrong – you posited Koskinen would see a decrease in percentage of starts. Unless you think Mike Smith will start more games than Koskinen your statement was wrong.
I am not speaking to an overall concept of how the coaches may need to manage their tenders in the up coming year. That is a different conversation from pointing out your incorrect statement – again.
I’m speaking to your position that Koskinen will start a less percentage of games – its wrong (subject to you thinking Smith will start more).
We know you will never admit being wrong – even what absolute facts are presented that prove it unequivocally.
The Oiles offered Kahun a contract – that’s been made public – the money didn’t work for Kahun. Doesn’t mean either the team or the player won’t circle back but an offer was made.
becuase in 2020, when that line was together, McDavid didn’t outscore his opposition at evens.
The Oilers require both McDavid and Drai to be on outscoring lines.
Breaking up that line is not an ideal option, it may even be wrong, however, keeping that line an outscoring line while and also creating a second outscoring line is a must.
The Drai line will not continue to outscore at anywhere near 77% over time and the PP is highly unlikely to come right near 30% over time.
Better tell OP.
He’s got Koskinen down for 70% of the starts no matter what the season looks like.
Yes we’re all concerned about a schedule no one knows what is going to look like in a season we don’t know if it’s going to happen
There will In my in my opinion best case scenario 60 games. Even if the starter plays 70% and or 42 games that is doable. The trick is not to have your starter play back to back games. When you take out the various lengthy breaks during full 82 game schedule what remains does not need to be near as onerous as you want to believe. It is a trivial thing to discuss in that there is no way to know if we will be able even an abbreviated season. It will be the same for all teams. If there is a division realignment due border problems the east coast teams will get a much better idea of the the extra travel enjoyed by western teams. Absolutely no one can predict with any degree of accuracy what will transpire in our new reality.
THERE ARE FOUR SCORING LIGHTS, er, LINES
Thanks for that it was great
Love the Tipp love
You are posting cause and effect as a certainty when its impossible to determine.
Do the Oilers win the series with that line not broken up? Maybe but far from a certainty.
Your premise of keeping the line together is sound – they were absolutely dominant for a stretch and the Oilers were winning in that stretch.
Seems simple but its not.
It was an unsustainable model – winning based on one outscoring line (outscoring at unsustainable levels) plus high end special teams (again, unsustainable to run them both that hot).
Yes, the model was working and Tip probably should have left it until it stopped working.
With that said, we know that line will not approach 77% goal share over time, likely not 60% and the McDavid line needs to be a second outscoring line. Its simply a must. Special teams will regress and stop covering up that, even in 2020, the McDavid was not playing on an outscoring line. Its not about his production, its about him winning the ice.
The PP will be very good again I would think but its highly likely to be less productive percentage wise as last year – even with Barrie. Same with the PK, it may not even be high end next year.
They need both top 6 lines to be outscoring lines (and for the 3rd line to not get caved Sheahan style – hopefully Turris can help create enough offence on that line as they will get scored on).
Its was 318 minutes with a 1100 PDO. Gord herself can’t maintain a 1100 PDO.
The OIlers were handed their hats by a lousy Blackhawks team because the line was broken up.They went from the playoffs slipsliding away, to being safely in second place when the pandemic hit.
Larsson, who was great from Jan to the end played half a game hurt. Klef was hurt. Nurse and Bear were bad.
That said, don’t read too much into 4 (!!!) game samples.
EDM SV% (all situations)
Regular season .906
Play in .869
EDM xGF%
Reg 48.5%
PI – 60.7%(!)
EDM GF%
Reg 47.2%
PI – 42.9 %
Tippet has them playing well and the series against CHI was awful, but mostly because pucks went in, not because how they played. (first game excepted)
Last year’s regular seasons standings governs until the first month of the season is up – I assume that means pre-Covid which would put the Oilers, assuming points percentage is used, about 2/3 down the list.
If you’re pushing Koskinen to 70% starts in a compressed schedule with multiple back to backs to achieve that level, it’s a pretty fair bet that Koskinen will not only get burned out but is also likely to get injured and voila, Smith is your starter.
Perhaps you should think these things through.
I should have been a little more clear. You’re right that it’s likely to be in the range of 50-50 for starts. What I agree with HH on is the premise that with a compressed schedule there is likely to be a lot of starts for both goalies as well as potentially the third string. At any rate all of this is speculation. It’s clear Koskinen should get the majority of starts, but between a likely compressed schedule and Tippet’s trust in Smith I doubt that happens.
Its tough to find a worse signing (or riskier signing) that Matt Murray but Bergevin found a way……
Unless he thinks that Smith will start more than Koskinen, his statement is wrong as Koskinen won’t decrease his start rate from, essentially, 50%…..
It was a typical stretch to find a negative in either, something to do with the Oilers, or, a comment of mine.
Style-wise, it would seem they would be a good pair but both, in the playoffs, and over 3 seasons, they were “meh” by the numbers – under 50% possession in both and 50% goal share in both – small samples though.
Either way, Slepy’s KHL contract goes through 2020/21 and he can’t sign in the NHL until it expires on April 30, 2021.
He’ll also be a UFA at that point.
I cannot understand this either! We accidentally fell into that one on an experiment. Probably as the coach wanted some insurance on that line when trying out a raw rookie in Yamamoto. And, lo and behold the line clicked! Why look for a different solution?
Mainly we tried to play RNH on McDavid’s line to compensate for Kassian. Maybe just take Kassian down to the level of his talent. Try JP who was excellent with McD and put in Neil or Ennis on that line.
I think many are being guarded on their optimism with Puljujarvi and, knowing this coach (and hearing the comments of the GM), believe he’ll be pencilled in a 3RW to start. Of course, play on the ice will dictate where he sees most of his minutes.
Starting at 3RW and working his way up to the top 6 (either during camp or after the start of the season at some point) seems like a reasonable presumption.
If he does go to the top 6, I don’t see any reason why you would move Yama away from Drai and put JP there – I mean, the 400 minutes of McDavid/JP shine like a diamond via the numbers and we know what Drai/Yama did together (along with Nuge).
I’m not really in to a Hoffman add – I just don’t think its the right fit.
Sure, he’d by dynamic offensively on the McDavid line but I think we have concluded that there needs to be a defensively responsible winger on that left side (in particular if Kassian is on the right side). That line would score alot of goals but would they “outscore”?
Nuge can go there (we know the “risk” of moving him off the 77% goal share line) but does the Drai/Yama line not need that defensive responsibility as well?
Sure, if Hoffman was willing to sign a Barrie like one-year value deal, find a way to figure out the money and add him in and see if there can be a fit but, from a high level, not my ideal.
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There are plenty of available options for depth d-men that will be way cheaper than Russell and there are many potential forwards that could fit that should come cheap now (AA under $2M probably, for example).
The issue is it doesn’t seem Russell is tradeable at $4M, even with the $1.5M cash outlay – it would have been done unless Holland really wants to keep the known vet over adding a cheaper one from free agency.
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Goaltending may be an issue, for sure, but it wasn’t an issue last year. Smith was awful in December and simply inconsistent all year but they found ways to win when he was in net and Koski was solid (numbers show him better than solid).
Coach T is smart enough to learn and know he needs to go with starter/backup (even with his Smith history) and, hopefully, Koski is up to the challenge with some extra work.
They like discussing the NHL draft! -).
McDavid’s overall game will be forced to improve if he takes the leftovers like Crosby does. Again, another net positive for improving the team overall.
Draisaitl keeps improving because he works as hard on his weaknesses as he does on his strengths.
Nugent-Hopkins shouldn’t be kept from maximizing his potential by tending to the weaknesses in the game of others.
Hypothesis: Maximizing Nugent-Hopkins, maximizes the Oilers. McDavid and Draisaitl can take care of themselves. Tranforming Nugent-Hopkins from just-a-guy to a top five scorer is what moves the needle for the Oilers.
How was Tyler Johnson clearing waivers a surprise?
What team do you think was going to pay him 5.5 million for the next 4 years?
You haven’t been paying attention to the NHL cap situation.
Yamamoto hasn’t broken through. Without Nugent-Hopkins (and Draisailt), Yamamoto is still Patrick Russell. The coach is being impatient. Instead of leaving him in a situation to succeed, they rushed to one where he will still fail.
Like Kahun, maybe?
Who is everyone? Most of the posters prefer that line. But unless it is Dave Tippett, why does our line speculation even matter? It’s fluid — the lines will be switched throughout the (hypothetical) season.
jp,
While Koskinen struggled at times in the latter part of 18-19, in fairness, he started 25 of the last 27 games (in 52 nights), since the Oilers had no faith in Stolarz after trading Talbot. And three of his worst performances were on the 2nd night of back to backs. A better pacing could get him to 57 games without fatigue being as much of a factor in a normal season. Every goalie will have to adapt if the schedule is tighter than normal. While Holland coveted Markstrom, it would appear he had enough faith in Koskinen not to go 6 x 6 or more for Markstrom. Whatever the schedule next year, if both Koskinen and Smith are healthy, I suspect their plans are 2/3 to 1/3 for starts for Koskinen.