We don’t have the Bakersfield Condors to stare at, but Edmonton Oilers fans do have a murder of prospects in Europe to observe this fall. Some of them are beginning to post crooked numbers we should be paying attention to soon.
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 extend Kris Russell, solve expansion issue
- Lowetide: Can Kyle Turris centre an outscoring No. 3 line in Edmonton?
- Lowetide: Tyson Barrie’s skills and how Oilers coach Dave Tippett will deploy him
- Jonathan Willis: Can Oilers unlock James Neal’s scoring potential at five on five?
- Lowetide: Why is Ilya Konovalov no longer starting in the KHL?
- Lowetide: Oilers Top 20 prospects, post-draft edition.
- Lowetide: Finding Connor McDavid’s optimal linemates among 2020-21 Oilers
- Jonathan Willis: A cautious free agent period boosts an Oilers team still on the upswing
- Lowetide: Oilers bring back Mike Smith for another year.
- Lowetide: Oilers sign Tyson Barrie to a team-friendly deal.
- Lowetide: Oilers sign Kyle Turris, Tyler Ennis in early hours of 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
CONDORS ATLANTIC CROSSING
G Olivier Rodrigue. I mentioned in summer that it was possible for Rodrigue to win the starter’s job in Bakersfield and he has started well in the Austrian league (ICEHL). In two games, he has 1.99 GAA and .937. Other Condors goalies Anton Forsberg, Stuart Skinner and Dylan Wells are not playing at this time.
LD Philip Broberg. He’s playing a lot in the SHL (19:50 per game) and that includes heavy work at even strength and on the power play. His boxcars are fab (1-4-5) and his even-strength goal differential (6-4, +2) is the best among the Top-4D so far this season. A big step forward so far. I spoke to Mike Zanier recently about Broberg, and the SHL radio color man raved about his speed and athleticism. He’s matriculating and could find his way to Edmonton right soon!
LD Dmitri Samorukov. He is having a major recovery from last year’s Bakersfield sheltering. Samorukov has played 18 games, going 2-5-7, 17:29 per night and an even strength on ice goal differential of 17-4, +13. You’ll want to see this in North America, but like Broberg there’s something happening here.
LD Theodor Lennstrom. He is in the SHL (6 games, one goal, 14:21 per night), and just over 12 minutes a night at even strength with Frolunda (SHL). He projects as a top-4D in Bakersfield when Covid-19 heads to Mars.
LD William Lagesson. Playing in the Allsvenska, he has scored more than expected (7, 3-3-6) but the key is his defensive play. He’s looking at an open shot at the roster now when the NHL returns in anger. Stay healthy, young man!
LD Markus Niemelainen. He is playing in Liiga (Finland), he has two assists in 8 games and is playing 16:27 a night. I see him as third pair in Bakersfield.
RD Evan Bouchard. He is playing in Allsvenskan (10, 3-3-6) and having an impact offensively. The defensive side of his game came along last year, he’s NHL-ready but Holland likes to overcook players.
RD Filip Berglund. Two-way defender for Linkoping (SHL), he has scored 1-2-3 in 8 games and is playing 22:10 a night. Zanier told me he has taken on more of the load with his new team. At even strength he is playing 16:02 (second among blue) and has an on ice even strength goal differential of 7-10 (-3), which ranks him No. 3 among the team’s top four blue in the discipline.
RD Janis Jaks. AHL contract is playing for Dynamo Riga of the KHL, scoring 1-1-2 in 7 games so far this year. He should be a candidate for third pairing work in Bakersfield when everything gets back to normal.
RD Yanni Kaldis. He is another AHL contract and playing in the ICEHL (6, 1-1-2). This is the Cornell grad, sometimes their defensemen are sneaky good when they hit pro.
C-RW Raphael Lavoie. He plays for a poor team in the Allsvenskan and is something close to a one-man show. He is currently 5-2-7 in eight games, his goals are twitter hits and my goodness it’s a beautiful thing for a team that needs a shooter. It’s the Allsvenskan, and that’s not the NHL, but it’s a hurdle he’s passing with flying colors and that’s a good thing.
LC Ryan McLeod. Playing for Zug (Swiss), McLeod is 2-3-5 in seven games and having an impact. One of the best stories among the forwards so far this fall. The Swiss league isn’t far from the AHL according to Vollman, so this is a fantastic start.
RC Cooper Marody. He’s playing in the ICEHL (Austria), just one game so far. He was injured in his first game and an ETA is uncertain.
LW Tyler Benson. He is playing in the SL (Swiss League), which is the second tier of hockey in Switzerland. The top league, the NL (National League), is the one Ryan McLeod is currently playing in. Benson has scored 1-4-5 in five games, and is about where Evan Bouchard is at this time: NHL-ready, but it depends on role, opportunity and Holland’s time line.
RW Kirill Maksimov. He is scoring well (5, 4-2-6) in Russia’s VHL, which is the second highest pro league in Russian and often called the Supreme Hockey League. His pro career has not been stellar and he’s approaching the halfway point of his entry deal. Those junior numbers are an echo down the canyon but he has offense in his game, proven again by the VHL numbers.
LW James Hamblin. Signed to an AHL deal, he is playing well (4-1-5 in five games) in Hockeyettan, which is the third tier of Swedish pro hockey. It’s something of a feeder league into the Allsvenskan from what I’m reading.
LW Jakob Stukel is scoring well (8-8-16 in six games) in the Alps Hockey League. The league is made up of teams from Austria, Italy and Slovenia.
RC Devin Brosseau. Playing in the ICEHL, Brosseau has played in six games (1-1-2).
FARM WORKERS
Each offseason I guess the minor league RFA’s. A year ago, the list included Tyler Vesel, Joe Gambardella, Patrick Russell, Colin Larkin, Robin Norell and Shane Starrett. I (correctly) chose Gambardella, Russell and Starrett as keepers.
This year? Well, Ken Holland threw me a couple of curves. For the 2020 offseason Ryan Mantha, Ryan Kuffner, Nolan Vesey, Cam Hebig, Logan Day, William Lagesson and Angus Redmond all needed to be signed or walked.
I picked Kuffner, Day and Lagesson as the keepers. Holland kept only Lagesson. Holland culled the herd and is looking to improve the roster top to bottom.
50-MAN LIST (45)
Holland’s additions are shaded in grey, new hires this summer are in bold. The best part of his addition list? No long-term contracts have been added. I expect that will change next offseason. Drafted but unsigned include Dylan Holloway, Ilya Konovalov, Tyler Tullio, Carter Savoie, Mike Kesselring, Matej Blumel, Phil Kemp, Maxim Denezhkin and others.
Liam Folkes
https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/156915/liam-folkes
McPhee in Europe
https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/724/bakersfield-condors
Gio – 893
Anderson – 160
Valimaki – 24
Tanev – 514
Hanifin- 389
Nesterov – 132
Kylington – 87
Looks to me like rolling the dice and hoping it works out. Almost a scent of ‘GM trying a risky move to youth, inexperience and more skill to save job after repeatedly getting bounced in the playoffs’.
YMMV
There’s a lot to unpack in there.
WHAT A BALL GAME
Apologies for butchering the use of your estimates!
0.40 is still appropriate for Lavoie (29) and Bouchard (20). Lagesson gets an age-adjusted haircut to 22.
I do like how a 30 year old Tanev who has never played over 70 games is just a meh level injury risk and is equal to a guys who played a full 3/5 past seasons
Holy grasping at straws
You’re welcome.
I should clarify that the 0.37 was for the under 22 group, not everyone. I didn’t do any more with my original estimate of 0.32 for all players and 0.28 for the 22+ players.
Gio has already started to fall off the cliff. Klef has much more value going forward if he can get healthy.
Larsson missed 2 weeks with a back issue two years ago and then 2 games in the play-in. This could be a non-issue.
If Andersson is a legit top pairing d-man, why did he play 3rd pairing comp? 6th on the flames in TOI vs. elites under 27% (36% mid and 38% grit). Ethan Bear played top pairing comp last year, not Andersson.
Valamaki is likely NHL ready but he has proven nothing at the NHL level – 24 games, extremely sheltered (less than 20% against elites) with middling results.
What does this have to do with professing that the Oilers obsess over prospects and not NHL players and then, leave Barrie and Russell off the Oilers list and list 4 flames, only one of which has played material NHL games in the last 3 years and is a tweener at best?
Your post has nothing to do with the post it is responding to – again.
Hehe, this is special.
Arrived in… the SM-Liiga?
The player in question played 24 NHL games 2 seasons ago.
Nice early-season arrows for a 22 year old in a decent European league. He’s proven nothing at the NHL level.
Cool, thanks for that.
So… (if we ballpark the conversion factor at 0.4).
Lavoie currently has an NHLE of 29
Lagesson is at 28
Bouchard is at 20
Obsessed would be going on a Canucks web site and saying disparaging and untruths about the Dys.
Very nice work.
Thanks.
Good grief.
Let’s take a look at the under 25 players on both teams.
Andersson…160 GP
Hanafin 389 GP
Kylington 87 GP
Valimaki 24 GP (season lost to injury)
Bear 89GP
Jones 60 GP
Zip
Nada
Bupkis
If you want to include fossils like Russell, fill your boots but the Flames just signed a 27 year old KHL All Star D with 132 NHL games to his credit for $700K while the Oilers are paying Starfish $4 million.
Barrie is a very nice add but he can’t play top pairing D and Giordano, while taking on top pairing minutes, is very close to Barrie in points over the past three seasons.
BTW. Shelter Point is not a winery.
Look at it this way.
Klefbom has already fallen over the cliff, likely for a long time if not forever.
Giordano will deliver more value.
Larsson’s back injuries are a major concern.
Tanev is also injury prone but nothing chronic.
Broberg certainly looks promising but will he better than Valimaki…maybe, maybe not and Valimaki has already aririved.
Same with Andersson…he’s a legit top pairing D with experience. Maybe Bear reaches that level…maybe not.
I see OP is pimping Kris Russel after years of trying to get rid of him and Barrie is a nice add but he’s weak defensively.
So you then should assess whether Nurse is as good as Giordano…I don’t think so,
Jones looks decent but Hanafin is a legit second pairing D.
That leaves a bunch of question marks who haven’t shown what they can do in the NHL.
Lord knows there are a lot of them but not all of them will make it or have available roster spots when they’re close to ready.
If you’re looking ahead 2-3 years, I have to think the Oilers have an advantage, but hockey isn’t played 2-3 years from now and Calgary could likely find some other D in that time frame.
Thank you for this and good work.
I’m not sure the model will have a ton of info for Lagesson – we have a full season of his in SHL plus 2 pro seasons in the AHL/NHL that I think provide more info.
He has been a sneaky productive player at evens in the AHL – he’s not a black hole offensively at the AHL level, that’s for sure.
^^^THIS!!!^^^
I don’t know if anyone’s interested, but I had a look at what the NHLe might be for the Allsvenskan league.
I did a comparison of Allsvenskan player stats for 17/18 and 18/19 to their subsequent SEL numbers, then used the SEL – NHL equivalency (0.596) to come up with a number. As per Vollman here,
http://www.hockeyabstract.com/testimonials/nhltranslations
I only took players who played 20 games in each league, which gave me a pool of 84 players.
The Allsvenskan – SEL equivalency came out to 0.53, which translates to an NHLe of 0.32 (OHL level). Age mattered to some degree – players 22 and older were 0.28, while players under 22 were 0.41. The sample size for the younger group (27) was a little small, so I went back another 2 years (bringing it up to 47), but the NHLe only changed slightly to 0.37.
Considering that Lavoie and Bouchard aren’t used to European hockey, I don’t know how relevant this is for them, but hopefully it at least provides a guess for Lagesson.
Valimaki, Kylington, Netsterov and Mackey are NHL players?
One has never played an NHL game.
One has played apx 80 very middling NHL games
One hasn’t played in the NHL in 3 years
One, while a legit plus prospect, has played a middling 20ish games
One leaves Tyson Barrie and Kris Russell off an Oilers list and points to the above as a team with real NHL players and not “obsessed with prospects”.
Shelter Bay Winery…….. every night.
I don’t overvalue prospects but I did mention them so I guess that’s fair. With Klef out I think it’s probably pretty even between the two teams, unless Gio is closer to his Norris season than last year. I think it’s fair to question the oilers D because they’re certainly not strong at this point especially without Klef. As for culling the herd, don’t disagree with that and generally the game has changed enough, including cap impacts, that I’m not sure Holland’s approach of over-ripening is even the right move these days. I’d like to see Jones with a lot more responsibility this year and if Bouchard or Broberg are ready, get them into some games. I wouldn’t shy away from a Bouchard trade if it’s a win and clearly upgrades the team either.
He’s already started tripping down that cliff last year
Sounds like Ennis who I think is a bit more versatile and, while a few years older, also quicker than Leivo.
Leivo’s P/60 were slightly higher but not much and he played mostly with Horvat and Pearson while Ennis with White and Tierney.
Will be interesting to see how each are used this year and who has the better season.
Not all.
Giordano – Andersson
Valimaki-Tanev
Hanafin-Netsterov
Kylington – Mackey
Oiler fans are obsessed with prospects rather than actual NHL players.
Hanafin, Andersson, Valimaki, Kylington and perhaps Mackey are all 25 and under and playing in the NHL .
The Oilers have Nurse, Bear and Jones ready to go and a bunch of others on the way but that herd will have to be culled soon.
He’s a good prospect but the Flames D overall is wanting and past Valimaki I’m not sure they have another D prospect that moves the needle. They could still use another top 4 D but are too tight to the cap. Put this way, minus Brodie and Hamonic, plus Tanev and Valimaki at best leaves them the same as last year assuming Gio doesn’t drop off a cliff. And they weren’t great defensively last year. Calgary has a decent team but they’re kind of in no man’s land overall.
That’s pretty good actually.
Lowetide,
Possible he scores 40 points but not probable. He’s averaged 31.5/82 at 27 years old and seems to have a hard time sticking. Decent bet for the price but not sure he moves the needle much.
Matt Baker (@BakesTakes84) Tweeted:
Heard Canucks are going to retaliate by signing George Canyon for national anthems
Has always been a possession driver…good player.
The Flames also signed Nikita Nesterov yesterday for $700K
He’s 27 on his return to the NHL and was a KHL All Star last season as well as being the top D on the Russian WC team..
He plays both sides effectively and should be a great pick up to play on the Flames third pairing.
And for those who were denigrating Juuso Valimaki recently…all he’s doing is leading his Liga team in scoring.
https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/seasons/teams/0012322021.html
He’s the goods.
My pleasure – thanks for the words.
With Sammy vs. Bouchard, I don’t actually disagree with that premise.
Before Broberg started to show much offensive intelligence and willingness, I had provided my opinion that the one d-man in the org with the highest ceiling is Sammy.
Don’t get me wrong, I have Sammy below both Bouch and Broberg on the depth chart and as important part of the team in the future. At the same time, recent offensive intelligence spike from Broberg aside, Sammy has the broadest range of skills. He’s got everything that a legit #1d-man needs – good skaters, plus defender (an aggressive defence first guy), aggressive neutral zone blue line defence, good passer, good shot, good offensive IQ, etc.
Now, he isn’t “elite” at anything (except maybe the blue line defence) – both Bouch and Broberg have certain elite level skills (skating for Broberg and vision/offensive IQ and ability to get a show through for Bouch) along with being good at many other things.
The chances of Sammy developing all his skills to transition to the NHL is highly unlikely and he probably tops out as a 2nd or 3rd pairing guy, if he even makes it, but he has the 1D skill set.
With respect, this simply goes to prove my point (at least I think it does) that performances by the higher skilled but second tier talent in camp and exhibition games really means very little.
McLeod looked like he could make the team but, in reality, as we’ve seen, he wasn’t close – he struggled in the AHL early last year (except on the PK) and, while he had a good development season, I would argue that his development is pretty much on the expected timeline – potentially a cup of coffee this season but, ultimately, a roster spot is more likely in 2021/22.
Beware of speed impressing at camp.
I agree with you on the areas that McLeod needs to improve but I do think its a leap to say that he’s NHL ready.
Big and fast guys with some skill almost always look great at camps so I won’t put any weight on him looking good in the Stage 3 camp. Lets not forget, he looked great at his post-draft camp and many thought he could should break camp with the team last October based on that.
Anyways, my opinion is based on watching him in the AHL this past year and his usage by the coaching staff. While he got some time up the lineup later in the year (as a winger), most of his time was spent in the bottom 6, split between winger and center. I think they played him on the wing quite a bit to try and give him more reps along the boards, to work on that battle level.
His scoring rates at 5 on 5 were actually quite nice in the AHL, however, for me, he needs to play legit minutes as a top 6 in the AHL (as a center) before he is ready for the NHL. Bottom 6 AHLers don’t become NHL players. Top 6 AHL centers become bottom 6 NHL centers.
He had a good development year last year but needs more time – in my opinion.
Yeah. Agree. Not the kind of guy you’re going to notice but he gets his points and plays a responsible game.
I wasn’t a big fan of signing the goalie. I like him, but his numbers aren’t clearly better than Koskinen’s. On defense, they paid in full.
Leivo? Great bet. If he doesn’t work out, that’s fine. If he’s healthy, 40 points is possible. Impressive signing.
Not a lot of flash but seemed like a player when I watched him. Not a fast train but skating seemed fine.
I was surprised on Kuffner as well. When the trade happened, I thought he was just a throw-in to make the contracts work (for the 50) but reading about him, he was more of a “real prospect” than I thought – somewhat toughed when Detroit signed him out of college and, while he had a terrible first year pro, that’s not unusual and he is only one season removed from the amateur success.
Sometimes it seems they measure them with their skates on?
Three Canucks to Calgary this month. What’s that about?
I thought of you when I saw he signed.
Maybe he does a reverse Rieder and joins the Oilers next year.
Always liked Leivo, I think he would have been a nice get for Edmonton.
Yup. That is a good signing for them. Building some depth.
Harpers Hair,
and you , my friend have some lovely outfits!
FlamesNation (@FlamesNation) Tweeted:
Report: Flames sign Josh Leivo (one year, $875K) https://t.co/QXEOnrxIkU #Flames #NHL
Calgary is making some very smart moves.
defmn,
Ah yes. The Jack Johnson mold. Or is it the JFJ mold? I’m sure this won’t end in tears though. 😛
€√¥£€^$,
Thanks, tried but will not let me sign in or see comments. Frustrating but at least I have a way through twitter.
mood = mold ???
NEW for The Athletic: How many goals will Oilers winger Tyler Ennis score next season?
https://theathletic.com/2158330/2020/10/24/how-many-goals-will-oilers-winger-tyler-ennis-score-next-season/
No issues for me.
What I use normally is Oilerhockey.com as my go to Oiler site, it serves as a table of contents page for me as most sites, like LT’s site pops up there.
Maybe try that
…
Is anyone else having problems with the site lately? To get to the current days article I have to go through LTs twitter link. Also can only log in through same. Going through google to the home page only shows up to the day before article and says my password is incorrect.