How valuable is Evan Bouchard? I’d rank him as a likely solution for 5-7 seasons of top-4 defense and a prime power-play performer. He’ll be costly after three seasons, but likely productive for another 7-10 years after his entry deal based on his pedigree. Valuable, right? What if the Oilers drafted brilliantly in the first round in the four years previous? What if the Oilers drafted brilliantly four years after? What kind of value could he deliver with all of those great teammates?
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’ reasonable expectations for 2020-21: Goals against
- Lowetide: Oilers’ reasonable expectations for 2020-21: The Goals
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers defensive prospects are impressive overseas, but what comes next?
- Lowetide: Oilers pick up an intriguing addition in free agent Dominik Kahun
- Lowetide: How close is Ryan McLeod to an Oilers roster spot?
- Lowetide: Jay Woodcroft oversees a spike in Oilers prospect development
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers’ organizational depth chart: Where does Edmonton stand today?
- Lowetide: Dmitri Samorukov’s KHL impact and what it means to the Oilers
- 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.
THE CHAIN GANG
I always think of prospects as a link in the chain. The ultimate is probably Sam Pollock who traded for extra first and second round picks 1971-75 and brought in enormous wealth for the Montreal Canadiens.
In 1971 his scouting staff chose Guy Lafleur in the first round and Larry Robinson in the second. Amazing. In 1972 it was Steve Shutt and Michel Larocque, Bob Gainey in 1973 and then 1974 (Doug Risebrough, Mario Tremblay) and 1975 (Pierre Mondou, Brian Englbom). I could go on.
The Oilers 1979-81 were like that, just an avalanche of talent in one cluster that guaranteed future success.
Those days are gone. Every team is better at drafting and there are soon to be 32 teams. Many teams are better at building links in the chain than Edmonton since the 1980’s.
Take the 2008-12 five-year period. Oilers hit a home run at No. 22 in 2008 with Jordan Eberle but nothing else from the draft. In 2009, Magnus Paajarvi and Anton Lander have promise but don’t land as hoped. Broke the chain. Taylor Hall arrives in 2010, and the team had several high picks (I liked Tyler Pitlick and Martin Marincin) but none cashed.
In 2011 Edmonton had a strong draft (Nuge, Oscar Klefbom) but the Nail Yakupov pick in 2012 broke the chain. Nurse, Leon, McDavid plus two fine young blue in 2015’s later rounds, and maybe there’s a chain!
Jesse Puljujarvi. I have high hopes for JP, partly because he has so many tools and partly because he’s so inexpensive. If you look at him as an entry deal, this has a real chance to work into a value deal.
If we start the cluster at 2014 (Leon) and run five years, you can get project seven possible foundation* players (Draisaitl, McDavid, Jones, Bear, Puljujarvi, Yamamoto, Bouchard) that’s seven players in the cluster and two of them are absolute killers. Puljujarvi is an important piece in the chain.
FOUNDATION PLAYER?
*I count a foundation player as any of the following: Starting goalie, top-4 defenseman, any player who lands on the top two lines, No. 3 center. There are 12 foundation players, so seven in a five year period would be a nice group.
Man these guys are hard to find. Links in the chain. By the time you start paying the back end of the chain real money, the middle of the chain needs to be ready. Why? Because you cannot just grab players 22-27 years old who can fill a foundation role without giving up tremendous assets.
Which brings us to Dominik Kahun. His draft year was 2013, but no one took him in any of his draft eligible seasons. Per 82 games in the NHL, he is posting 15-25-40 in the NHL. That puts him squarely on a skill line in Edmonton.
I don’t think he’ll be David Perron at 25 (Edmonton acquired the winger in time to score 28-29-57 in 78 games in 2013-14). I’m not sure he’ll even be Curits Glencross at 25 (Oilers grabbed him mid-season 2007-08 and he scored 9-4-13 in 26 games) but he has scoring talent and probably five productive seasons (or more) in his future. Let’s look at the cluster as it currently stands:
- Age 19: Philip Broberg, Raphael Lavoie
- Age 20: Evan Bouchard, Ryan McLeod, Olivier Rodrigue
- Age 21: Kailer Yamamoto, Dmitri Samorukov
- Age 22: Jesse Puljujarvi, Ilya Konovalov
- Age 23: Connor McDavid, Ethan Bear, Caleb Jones
- Age 24: Leon Draisaitl, William Lagesson
- Age 25: Darnell Nurse, Dominik Kahun
- Age 26:
- Age 27: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Oscar Klefbom, Adam Larsson
Kahun gives some punch to the far end of the chain, and Puljujarvi can be the link between McDavid and Yamamoto, Bouchard and Broberg, et al.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A fun show as we steamroll to the weekend on TSN1260 beginning at 10 this morning. Steve Lansky from BigMouthSports will join me and talk Howie Meeker’s birthday, World Juniors and what an instant Covid-19 test could do for live events. Russ Baxter from FanSidedNFL will pop in at 11:25. Text 10-1260 and @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
‘- Re Kahun: how does he rate vs Reider before he arrived here? Kahun of course is playing on a much better time and that alone makes his transition a lot more likely to succeed. Superficially I see them as similar: not young not old scored decent wheels good skills bounced around a bit. Hope Kahun > Tobias
’- Max Ward died today. He’s probably the most impactful Canadian I actually knew a little bit. When I was a kid in Yellowknife he used to land his massive “water bomber” at our lake where we had a Cabin. It was the biggest loudest pontoon plane on a belly only I’ve ever seen.
‘- RIP Max Ward. Because of Covid our family can’t go to the funeral. Sucks.
To follow up on SP’s post from yesterday, due to Lagesson signed in the NHL now, his contract has been terminated with Vita Hasten and he can’t be loaned because they have the max 4 loans. Lagesson is no longer on the team.
I’m curious about a couple details.
Why not start the cluster at 2013 with Darnell Nurse and run 6 years and project eight possible foundation players?
Also, why not include Tyler Benson in the Age 22 group with Puljujarvi and Konovalov? Jones hasn’t proven himself substantially more than Benson. Lagesson certainly hasn’t, nor Samorukov. He’s only 15 months older than Samorukov, just 7 weeks older than Puljujarvi, and only 6.5 months older than Yamamoto. If Jones is a possible foundation, I could see Benson getting consideration, too.
Jones has certainly proven himself more than Benson to this point – in my opinion.
What repeating facts Do we know about the 2 championship teams each yr.
-you need 2.00 to .50 GAA in 4 wins of a final 4 series.
requires Top 60 def Dmen
top 10 Save% goalie on scoreable shots.
need top PKGA fwd and Dmen.
-Strong top 125 goal, point and Evg fwds can be a help,
but you can win a championship #28 (LAK) or lower reg ssn g team,
#29 Dallas this yr.
just historical truth!
Norris is given to the top pt producing Dmen who are often bottom 50 def dmen.
Not really a dman award.
A rover Award!
Victor Hedman disagrees!
Mark Giordano disagrees!
Fair enough, and you could be right – I fully acknowledge that I”m more adverse to term contracts for over-30s than many including Holland.
5 years takes the guy to 35 – I simply can’t get on board with that one, unless its an extreme discount with an AAV right around where he comes in this year. Its just too much risk for me.
Frankly, we know Larsson has interest in re-signing and, if he’s healthy this season, and willing to go 2 X $2.75M, I’d prefer to re-sign him. He can straddle the 2RD/3RD role with Bouchard as he continues to develop.
Bear/Barrie/Bouchard seems like “alot of the same” and, well, a little more “heavy” for playoff hockey wouldn’t hurt.
Yup. I can see that too. I think the only thing we know for sure is the season after this there will be change on the back end.
We hope Holland makes the right decisions there because goal & forward can both use some help if the right trade is there.
Absolutely, there will be changes on the back-up – we’ve been talking about the depth on D for a few years now and it looks like its starting to show itself and the options for Holland over the next few years will be plenty.
I do think you make a good point about experience, we know Holland values it so I don’t thin we are going to see a back-end made up of Nurse, Broberg, Sammy, Bear, Bouchard, Jones any time soon…..
Exposed in the expansion draft? Subject to a wild regression, or some sort of off-ice controversy, I can’t imagine that happening.
Bear was an NHL rookie, still on his ELC last season, and he played top pairing minutes all year long and led the d-group in %TOI vs. elites. No, I don’t think he’s currently a legit 1RD but he played that role and didn’t get killed – he’s no worse than a legit 2RD in my opinion. I’d keep him and let Phil Kemp develop in to that 3RD/PK guy or look at Berglund next year or a cheap vet – even Adam Larsson on a smaller contract.
We’ll see how Barrie fits in but, to me, he’s a shorter term stop-gap – he’s going to be 30 starting any extension and, well, Bear and Bouchard have the puck-moving skill set on the right side, and PP acumen.
TSN has been doing trade trees.
When teams make the best decided deals the return compounds.
Teams that lose take huge hits in team quality which I like to also call equity.
When you have too many LD under contract that have significant trade value, an upcoming expansion draft, it is key to derive maximum value from players to keep the group moving forward.
That Klef is uncertain is a hit. Ideally someone is moved to get value back instead of walking valuable UFAs bcs playoff hopes.
This is what drags contenders out of it too many times.
Hopefully you get my points.
Let’s all remember that the goal is to have too many good players, hopefully that have been developed, and ARE traded for value.
Failing to do this has been the biggest drag on the pipeline for the Oilers.
it is sad to trade good liked players, but the consequence of not doing that where appropriate is a declining team.
I like the players, I want them to all succeed and be on the team.
I dislike failure and mediocrity far more. My Oilers trained me to that.
Mainly just a cap and roster construction determination. If we are looking at re-signing him, its likely he had a productive year and would be looking for a handsome raise on what he hope to be a value contract.
Yes, I know, if we are re-signing Barrie, they are highly likely moving on from Larsson but the cap won’t be going over $82.5M for like 4-5 years (in my opinion) and players on value contracts will require raises over time.
We’ll have to see where we are but I think there is a decent chance of Bear and Bouchard the top 4RD going forward and, well, frankly, I’m generally against signing UFA aged players for the regressing 30s – Barrie will be 30 for the 2021/22 season – not old but, still.
I know Holland is much more amenable to giving 30 plus players term but the core of this team is fantastic and there are some really good bets coming on D in the next few years (and a couple of forwards a bit later – Holloway is going to be a gem).
The one thing that can cripple the Cup chances is sizeable contracts for term for older players. Kassian is one potential example of a smaller type risky contract.
I like what Holland is building and believe risk-adverse is the current way to continue.
I think a Barrie extension means Bear will be exposed or traded later for more size/PK skill 3rd pairing right side.
OK, thanks. I think Holland will want some experience back there to go with Bouchard & Bear on the right side and that Barrie is the guy he is hoping provides it. I understand the ‘over thirty’ contract. I would love 3 years and expect 5. More than that and I am out.
But if Borberg & Samorukov develop as I hope the back end is looking talented but inexperienced so I am hoping Barrie is feeding tape to tapes up the middle to McDavid all season long. 😉
We’ve seen what the results of not having skilled vets to mentor young players coming in. Trying to have a team full of under 30s players is ridiculous. No winning team has ever been comprised of all under 30 players. Experience and mentor ship is needed on every team, as you mentioned, hoping Barrie being able to provide. Having older, experienced players has proven, on every Stanley cup winning team, to be a needed ingredient, and isn’t crippling to cup chances.
you may be able to have those 30+ contributors on Value contracts at the tail of their career as opposed to the last years of high money contracts
Thank you for the info.
Hope Lavoie is fine and its just a war-wound.
On the injury note, not sure if everyone generally knows but Marody came back to North American after, I believe, just one game played – injury and it might be his head (not positive on the head).
I was listening to Laggeson on with Wilkins the other night and he mentioned there would be some paperwork to get done before he played.
Lastly, Karpat got shut out today so Jesse remains mired in a production slump (notwithstanding the 5 on 3 OT winner the other day).
OP said
I am surprised that you don’t anticipate a extension unless you are thinking 6-7 years.
Clearly we are both just speculating but the feeling I got from the Barrie interview when he was signed was that an extension was part of the discussion if and when the money made sense and the on ice part worked out.
Curious as to the reason you arrived at the opposite conclusion.
I agree generally about being conscious about trading picks but can’t critisize Holland very much for the picks he traded away at the deadline.
Chiarelli is still criticized to this day for not adding more than Deharnais at the 2017 deadline and I don’t think that team was any closer to the Cup than the 2020 team.
Holland said he owned it to the players to try and help them out going in to the playoff run. I can’t really disagree with that and believe most of the fan-base, from casual to obsessed would have been disappointed with a stand pat.
I think he did a reasonable job at the time. I didn’t really see the need for the Green acquisition but, really, we are talking about a 4th or 5th rounder and, as it turned out, he would have been a material add in the playoffs due to the Larsson injury, but Covid.
The Ennis trade was great and its led to a current value contract for next season.
The two seconds for AA hurts but defendable value at the time in my opinion – it wasn’t a rental, the player was under team control and then, well, Covid.
————–
As far as trading players for picks – absolutely, I’m all over that except I don’t really realistic options for that. The bottom of the roster players (Nygard, Haas, Khaira, Chiasson) aren’t really tradable for picks – not with players the level of Kahun currently available on the open market for under $1M.
Evan Bouchard had a pp assist in almost 22 minutes of ice time but that’s where the fun ended for Oiler players in Allsvenskan tonight. William Lagesson didn’t play since signing his new contract means he no longer has a valid contract with Vita Hästen.
Raphael Lavoie took a skate to the face and got a nasty cut in his game. Don’t know exactly how bad it is but the latest was that he had to go to the hospital to get stitches. Hopefully he just ends up with a scar and nothing else, I’ll see if I can dig up some more info, you’re always concerned about eye injuries when someone takes a skate to the face.
Don’t think the cut was in the neck area which ofc are the real scary type of cuts in that area. Neck guards are also mandatory in swedish hockey starting this season so I don’t think that should be a concern at least.
Holy cow! 34 posts later and one finally gets through. I’m back in the game!
None of your posts got trapped in the filter, but a few did. No one in time out but a reminder the following words will cause your post not to land:
Trump
Trudeau
bitcoin
Bitcoin
Viagra
military
cialis
What do you have against the B word? Inflation is coming.** Only two ways to save yourself and your family. Gold and the B word. Maybe a little silver too. The oligarchal families from around the world are now investing in digital assets, and Wall Street and institutional money is beginning to flow to the sector.
**It could be that “deflation is coming”, but methinks MMT will overwhelm the deflation. MMT is coming. It is sort of here already here with the trial run of CERB, and $5 billion per week of QE by the BOC.
Within a couple of years, each of us is going to have a wallet with the Bank of Canada, and they are going to deposit “Canada coins” …say “maples”…directly into it for UBI or whatever.
The reset of the global financial system will require central banks to connect directly with the debt serfs and disintermediate dysfunctional banking systems.
Three messages in a row for me including this one! Not sure how I got hung up with the format change but just would not work. If it was a common problem Im sure others would have also experienced it as well. Likely my highly evolved technical skills let me down. (insert frowny face here)
hi
Firstly, I don’t anticipate that Barrie signs a long-term extension with the team but you never know.
Secondly, why would re-signing one good player on the team preclude the team from keeping another good player with high end pedigree?
I know you are uber-focussed on Bouchard being on the PP right away and seemingly think he has not other value but Bouchard is more than just a PP guy.
In my opinion, Bouchard doesn’t need to be PP1 as an NHL rookie and doesn’t even need to be full time PP1 in his first few years.
Succession plan. Injury cover. Depth. More than one good player.
Reja
Reply to OriginalPouzar
November 6, 2020 1:03 pm
What happens to Bouchard if Barrie is a point magnet on PP 1 which is basically over 90 seconds and ends up signing a 5 year contact. Is there a place for a player with the same skills?
I have to agree with this. I’m high on Jones, I think he could prove to be a legit 2nd pairing d-man through this year. I also saw Ethan Bear play top pairing minutes as an NHL rookie pretty much all year – it was impressive.
At the same time, both Broberg and Bouchard have much higher ceilings than either Jones or Bear – they are a number of years behind but are coming quick. Bouchard will arrive to some extent this year and Broberg may be arriving quicker than we though (3 years was the somewhat general consensus – it may be 2).
This does make sense give top 10 draft pedigree vs. 4th/5th round draft pedigree.
Jones and Bear has wildly exceeded any reasonable draft day projection already.
Its like you copied and pasted what I have been saying about Bouchard and, even moreso, what I’ve been saying for years about fast-skating and skilled prospects at training camps. The fanbase of this organization has been “tricked” many times over the years with performances at camps by these players – tricked in to thinking they are NHL ready or close thereto.
Yes, I know, the camp in July wasn’t the same as a regular training camp, I get that, but it was still a training camp and, while Broberg looked great (from accounts), he was not going against real NHL opposition – intrasquad games with vets going through the motions.
https://www.tsn.ca/bill-daly-jan-1-puck-drop-remains-our-objective-1.1548710
Opening the new NHL season on January 1 remains the objective of the league, deputy commissioner Bill Daly told TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun on Friday.
I wonder if the NBA announcement has put any pressure on the league?
I would hope not as they financial aspects of the two leagues are not even close to comparable. The NBA can play the entire season with no fans and make money based off of their TV contract and their advertising.
The NHL will lose money if they play the entire year without fans.
The border issue is all but a non-issue for the NBA, they simply need to re-locate the Raptors like they did with the BlueJays.
—————-
I understand the NHL’s desire to start as early as possible to get as many game in as possible. I also understand the other side, waiting as long as reasonably possible to let science, etc. run its course to try and get the largest percentage of fans in the building for the longest period possible – not to mention to potentially have some cross-border/quarantine matters changed. The YYC pilot project could be huge for this – just launched this week.
————–
My persona prediction remains that camps will open shortly after the World Juniors finish and the season will start late January (maybe early Feb).
From the Oilers standpoint, how do they have a real training camp where their facility has essentially been loaned out to World Juniors from mid-December on?
How valuable is Evan Bouchard?
He was drafted as the high potential, point producing, puck transitioning right shot d-man this organization has been looking for for years.
Since he was drafted with the potential he was played two years:
1) OHL d-man of the year in draft plus 1
2) AHL all-star in his 20 year old season showing massive development through the year and being a very high end AHL player in the 2nd half of the season
There seems to have been a bit of “souring” on his development or potential and I think that’s largely related to (a) Broberg developing a bit quicker than we though he would and showing the flash at camp that speed brings and (b) Holland bringing in Tyson Barrie this off-season which means Bouchard needs to bump an incumbent for a roster spot.
Neither of those two things should take away what Bouchard has done since drafted. He’s had two plus development season and is pretty much arriving “on time”. He has proven all but NHL ready and, even if he starts next season off the roster, he will get his opportunity to play many NHL games this year and I anticipate he may never see the minor leagues again.
His ELC has slid twice and he’s got 3 years of it left – that should be a massive value contract for each of the three years (he has performance bonuses for a potential cap hit of $1.6M).
Evan Bouchard is highly valuable.
Absolutely, would you do Holloway and Bouchard for OEL. Not even close for me.
With that contract? No thanks
I wouldn’t do that if OEL had the same contract as Klefbom. Madness.
I was just about to type essentially the same response. I wouldn’t have done Bouchard (or Broberg) and a 1st for OEL prior to the draft and I wouldn’t do it now and none of that would change even if OEL had a more reasonable contract.
Bouchard/Broberg – we don’t know how fast they will arrive and, when they do arrive, how fast the will impact the lineup materially but what I am very confidant in, is that three years of each ELC is going to be extremely valuable.
I for one was very impressed with him in the games he played in the NHL. Showed calm decision making – not running around like a usual rookie D. This young man will be on the team fulltime for 2021/22 and given that injuries always happen should contribute this year as well.
Fast skaters, like Broberg and Mcleod, always show well in camps and preseason and therefore overshadow other players. If anyone does not consider Bouchard as a great prospect they are not following his play and progression since draft day. Bear and Bouchard as the top 2 RD for another 8-10 years will be a good thing.
This correct on many fronts. We have struggled to develop one “true” first pair dman. In two years we could have 3 first pair quality dman.
I would project Nurse, Bouchard, Broberg to play higher in the batting order than Bear and Jones, that does not mean I have soured on neither Bear or Jones.
And c) shiny new toy syndrome
Solid add!
What happens to Bouchard if Barrie is a point magnet on PP 1 which is basically over 90 seconds and ends up signing a 5 year contact. Is there a place for a player with the same skills?
Yes there is. If Bouchard does not get PP1 time and the points that come with that, then his cap hit will be for a 2nd/3rd pairing dman.
I attempted to run a Seattle Kraken mock draft last night (cap friendly mock draft sim). It took a damn long time to figure out who to protect for each team – a lot of guess work around who’s actually going to be extended contract wise for a bunch of teams.
Even then, I’m clearly a terrible GM as when I reached the end I had a cap hit of $86 million. Taking the best player available from each team is not exactly a sure fire way to run an expansion draft apparently.
That said, for the Oilers I settled on 4/4/1 for the protection scheme. Klef, Nurse, Bear, Jones for the D, and then Draisatl, McDavid, Nuge, Yamo for the forwards.
Side note – I protected Rafferty for the Canucks, no way they let the future 5 time Norris recipient slip through the cracks.
Is not the future Norris winner – Brogan Rafferty – exempt as he will only be a second year pro? But good to protect him just in case Bettman decides to rule against another Canadian team for the benefit of an American one.
Even if he’s exempt, if I were the Canucks GM I would go 7-3-1 and protect him 11 times just to be safe.
I think he has to play 40 games minimum this year, and then be resigned (or a least that’s how it looks on the Cap Friendly simulator). I’ve assumed he’ll play 82 and finish the year with around 60 points. You can guarantee he’ll be number one on the Kraken’s wish list if he is available.
I went back on forth on the Edmonton protection list, it basically came down to deciding between Jesse and Caleb Jones for who I’d protect, and at the moment I went with Caleb.
Lot of ifs and buts for a lot of the teams as well in terms of who’s actually going to be eligible to be taken due to contracts running out by the end of this season. I think it’s probably better to wait until teams release their actual protection lists to get a proper view on what’s actually possible, way too many variables at the moment.
This is great that there are now some young players who are in real competitions for roster spots. Even though it’s mostly defencemen at this point. This is how good teams work. Kids win the spots, and then show what they can do, and you move out more costly vets when the kids are firmly established. Lather – Rinse – Repeat. All these lottery tickets Holland has been using are just bridging the gap to the push from kids up front. He’s got things in the right direction, but it is a big chore and will take time. I do think goaltending is going to have a pretty short leash this year though.
The ‘foundation player’ list can be further broken up into subsets with first-line center, first-pairing RD and #1 goalie being at the top. 97 and 29 cover the bet for #1C for a number of years, but the Oilers, as are most teams, still looking for a true #1RD and #1goalie. Pretty thin at those positions on the list and in the prospect pool.
I like the Pollock method. Oiler GMs need to quit trading away draft picks. I will not list them from the last 6-years as it is too depressing, but you all know them. Current GM has traded away 2 x 2nd, 4th and 5th round picks when the team is not close to winning a cup. Stop the madness!
Note: the 3rd in the Lucic deal was not included above because the trade was a serious win for Holland and the Oilers. The Flames are in big trouble with that Lucic NMC.
Trading players for picks should be an option especially with the Kraken draft situation coming up.
Not only keep the chain – but strengthen it!
I assume Lucic has a verbal agreement to waive his NMC. I can’t imagine why Seattle would choose him.
Maybe they need some swagger.
How do you know have you talked to Lucic he almost quit because he was so sick of peters last year. I obviously gather him and ward are tighter but you never know. People have a lot of fuck you in them when they think they’re getting played for a chump.
That is why I said “I assume”.
Regardless of how things turned out with the Oilers I have always had the impression that Lucic was a stand up guy who put his team first.
Exactly my impression is Lucic got dicked around by Peters and the Flames organization in general, does he hold a grudge and not waive his contract agreement. He might very well say a agreement is a agreement. It would be interesting if anyone could find out how many players waived their agreement on the NTC or NMC doing the Vegas draft I have a feeling it’s a very low percentage.
After being run out of Edmonton due to his contract, I can’t imagine Lucic thinks he’d get picked by Seattle. Maybe he wants to stick it to Calgary but I doubt it, he seems like a nice guy.
I mean, he probably occasionally listens to the news and fans and has heard that he has one of the worst contracts in the league
I’m not sure why he would want to stick it to Calgary either – with some “better play” in the playoffs, I think the fanbase doesn’t have the vitriol towards him that the Edmonton fanbase does and he got some 3rd line minutes and PP1 time in the playoffs.
I have also assumed that he will agree to waive the NMC. He knows that he won’t get taken (and may be fine with Seattle even if they did) so not waiving just hurts the team that he’ll continue to be on for the next few years – there is no upside to it.
With that said, I will continue to hold out hope that he takes a protected spot and, well, I’ve never heard anything close to “official” that he’s willing to waive it.
Nineteen names on that list. Nine are dmen. Change is coming.
Yep. “Age 27” is likely to contain at least one cull.