The Edmonton Oilers are using more high picks on QMJHL in recent seasons. Two of the three highest draft year points-game totals have arrived from the 2019 and 2021 drafts. There are some quality players again this season, could the Oilers draft from the Q in 2023?
The Edmonton Oilers have seven legit NHL prospects pushing for playing time next year. Using age, goal shares, offence and past successful transitions to the NHL, expect quality recalls from Bakersfield next season. https://t.co/idZQkgxPIz
The Oilers like drafting the QMJHL players. In the last five drafts, Edmonton has chosen three men (Olivier Rodrigue, Raphael Lavoie and Xavier Bourgault) with picks inside the top 65 overall. The club has used eight picks in 1-65 in those years, so three from the Q is a high number historically for the club.
LOWETIDE 2022 QMJHL LIST
RW Jordan Dumais (QMJHL). Undersized skill winger impressive playmaker.
RC Nathan Gaucher (QMJHL). Two-way center with size.
LC Theo Rochette (QMJHL). Talented and creative.
RD Tristan Luneau (QMJHL). Big two-way defenseman has offensive potential.
RD David Spacek (QMJHL). Strong underlying numbers.
RD Maveric Lamoureux (QMJHL). He’s 6.07, tough, wingspan of a condor, raw.
LC Markus Vidicek (QMJHL). Slick skills and good numbers.
LC Justin Cote (QMJHL). Under the radar, but he has skill. July 2004.
G Ivan Zhigalov (QMJHL). Hybrid goalie, has size, high risk/reward.
LW Antonin Verreault (QMJHL). Playmaking winger. Great passer.
LD Jake Furlong (QMJHL). Two-way defenseman who can make plays.
LD Angus Booth (QMJHL). Defensive blue, makes smart plays.
RW Patrick Guay, QMJHL. Quick accurate shooter.
I love the QMJHL, such high-end skill, and it’s always been a mystery to me why so many statistically strong players get passed over in each draft. As you can see, last year was no exception. Several of my 14 listed here weren’t taken, some are on the list above. However, I listed 10 men, the QMJHL saw 19 men chosen. The first QMJHL name not on my list was Samuel Savoie, who went No. 82. I also didn’t have Jeremy Langlois (No. 94), but that’s the best I’ve ever done with the QMJHL. My annual list is 125 deep, I had 15 names. Adam Sherren helps me every year and has really tightened my list. I’m grateful.
QMJHL OILERS PICKS IN THE AHL AGE 20
Marc Pouliot 65 games, 15-30-45 (.692)
Jean-Francois Jacques 65 games, 24-40-44 (.677)
Matthew Lombardi 76 games, 25-21-46 (.605)
Xavier Bourgault 62 games, 13-21-34 (.55)
Slava Trukhno 64 games, 14-21-35 (.547)
Raphael Lavoie 19 games, 5-5-10 (.526)
Marco Roy 42 games, 8-12-20 (.476)
Stephane Goulet 36 games, 9-5-14 (.389)
Phil Cornet 60 games, 7-16-23 (.383)
Bourgault delivered less offense than I thought he would, but he has more range than the scouting reports implied. I’m generally encouraged by this player’s first AHL season.
PROJECTED PICKS
No. 25 overall (traded to Nashville in the Mattias Ekholm deal)
No. 57 overall
No. 89 overall (traded to Arizona in the Nick Bjugstad deal)
No. 121 overall (traded to Philadelphia in the Derick Brassard transaction)
No. 153 overall
No. 185 overall
No. 217 overall
MOCK DRAFT
No. 57 overall: RC Coulson Pitre, Flint Firebirds (OHL). He’s 6.01, 172, and has a power forward’s mentality so there is a Gilbert Brule vibe (injury worry) about him. Brock Otten, OHL Prospects: “he physicality is consistent. He understands how to play without the puck. He’s a solid skater. But what I like most about Pitre’s game is his vision with the puck. It’s rare to find power forward types who see the ice the way that Pitre does. His IQ grade is quite high.”
No. 153 overall: LC Andrei Loshko, Cicoutimi Sagueneens (QMJHL). He owns a 53 pct five-on-five goal share on a team that outscores 43 percent of the time (source: Adam Sherren). 22-48-70 in 67 games. He is an older prospect (October 2004) for this draft and is 18. Born in Belarus.
No. 185 overall: LD Isaac Menard, Shawinigan Cataractes (QMJHL). Undersized and skilled, his resume looks like another M-A Bergeron who has less chaos defensively.
No. 217 overall: RC Matyas Melovsky, Baie-Comeau Drakkar (QMJHL). The young center posted 6-52-58 in 59 games this season. He’s a May 2004, a Czech-born playmaker of high quality. He has good size and is a good skater. I don’t know what the issues are (Sherren’s numbers say he’s about even with the average Drakker skater in five-on-five goal share) but I think he’s worth looking at beginning fourth round. I have him here because no one mentions him so Edmonton might get this player late.
ROLLING 125
I’m doing things a little differently this year. Since I’m so late to the draft stuff, and there’s miles to go, I’m going to do a rolling ranking. Today’s look at the QMJHL means I have completed all three Canadian junior leagues. Here is the current ranking, with US college, USHL, tier 2 Canada, Hinterlands and all of Europe still to come. I’m burning daylight but will get there.
RC Connor Bedard, Regina Pats (WHL). NHLE 62. McDavid? 68. Not many better though.
LC Justin Cote, Drummondville (QMJHL). Under the radar, but he has skill. July 2004.
LC Cole Burbidge, St. John’s Sea Dogs (QMJHL). Slick center turned a corner.
LOWETIDE AND JAMIESON
A busy day on the show, TSN1260 10-2. Bruce Arthur will pop in to chat about the Oilers, Leafs and final four for Stanley. We’ll have live avails from the Oilers’ players and discuss the immediate future of all Oilers players, coaches and front office personnel. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter.
— This is when OP would get one of his high paid associates to upload the exit interviews of players …. F&ck that guy I guess?
Mayan Oil
May 16, 2023 11:55 am
I have McLeod at 3x 1.25m, Bjugstadt or replacement at 1m, Philp at 3 x 925k ((same money as Holloway, Bourgeault, Berglund). Ryan at 900k one year deal with some amount of performance bonus on top of that to push it to next year’s cap as a 35+
Trade Yamo/move on from Janmark and find two capable replacements at a combined cost of 5.25M (their current combined hit is 4.35m). Lavoie at 2 x 925k (again Holloway money et al).
Bouchard at 1 x 2.5m with a deal in the drawer to file after Jan 1 at 5m+ for at least 3 yr term (combined term of the two deals is 4+ years so he does not come up for a new deal at the same time as McD or Drai). If they want more on the one year, go as long as is comfortable on the Jan 1 deal and add a signing bonus year 1 to compensate and keep the hit at 2.5m for this next season
Move Campbell for a backup/1b goalie for 2m.
Neal buyout still on books, no more LTIR issues, prior bonus overages are 850k.
Gets a cap hit of 83167500. If the cap hit goes up more than 1M which is possible depending on escrow debt retirement/renegotiation with NHLPA (both sides are very motivated to return to a normal salary escalation as soon as possible), we can use it on Bouchard and the new wingers as needed as well.
BTW I have a question… what would be the limits on performance bonus amounts for Ryan? Is it a percentage of his salary? Is the actual salary/signing bonus restricted by league minimum salary if performance bonuses are in the 35+ contract? I am finding no direction on this from the NHL website etc other than the restriction of the overall performance bonus pool for the team as a whole….
Ideally I would like to see 1m in cap space for the year to allow for deadline shopping etc. Using this framework might be able to squeeze out an additional 700k or so in performance bonus room if we can do Ryan with a very large performance boonus that is ridiculously easy to achieve? Would that bird fly? If it is a signing bonus can that be deferred to next year on a 35+ deal? How could we structure it?
Harpers Hair
May 16, 2023 11:32 am
Lots of discussion this morning on the Marek show about 3 of the 4 final teams are from states that have zero state income taxes.
Texas, Florida and Nevada all have a built in advantage in attracting and/or paying top players at under market value freeing up additional cap room to sign depth.
Guest on the show, Jonathan Davis explained that he and his wife moved to Vegas specifically for that reason.
I heard the same show. Neither you nor they have given examples of free agents who went there for less. I see a lot of players they traded for. Meh, if you ask me.
Players have big egos, they want the appropriate dollars next to their names. Maybe this matters to old vets but star players want to make more than what the last guy signed for, they don’t give a fuck about an asterisk.
The rules should have been adjusted long ago to reflect this reality as part of the cap. If you’re going to bother having one (I don’t agree with the system), then you have to deal with these differences via the rules/numbers.
teddyturnbuckle
May 16, 2023 11:04 am
Lots of videos going around about the Oilers poor defensive play in their own zone days after they were eliminated. One example link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Shcp9ovcg4 As much as I like Woodcroft I think he needs to revaluate his teams defensive system. It’s been a couple of years now and the team still can’t keep the puck out of their net. The Oilers gave up 3.5 goals against this playoffs the most of any remaining top eight team. Yes the goaltending was bad but the group as a whole still won’t commit to defence first. Struddy had some good points yesterday that Woodcroft needs to call out his team next fall that these lazy mistakes are no longer acceptable. The Oilers don’t have anyone in their top six that is a good defensive player.
1.McDavid – (I will give him a pass only because he is the most prolific offensive player in the game but not a consistent defensive player)
2.Leon – As good as he was early in the playoffs December Leon came back for the last 3 games against Vegas. If you don’t play good defence all year don’t expect just to turn it on in the playoffs.
3.Nuge – He is my favourite player but I am so disappointed in his playoffs. I don’t care if you scored 100 points in a season if you can’t compete in the playoffs. He is lucky he has a NMC.
4.Kane- Not a good defensive player and if he isn’t scoring he is taking dumb penalties.
5.Hyman- I thought because he is a good worker bee that he would be a good defensive player but this isn’t the case at all. Disappointed on how many times I saw him leave the zone before the puck in the playoffs.
6.Yamamoto-I think when Ekholm pointed to Mark Stone for Yamamoto to pick up on a rush in game four only for him to ignore his defence man sums up his defensive game. Not a top six player and it isn’t close.
The Oilers top guys need to decide if they want to win the scoring titles again or commit to a system that wins in the playoffs. I saw online that people were complaining that the Oilers lost to a team who’s leading scorer had 65 points. This is because their players don’t cheat for offence and they play the right way.
Someone here mentioned the other day that the Oilers are using man to man defense. I don’t think most of the defenceman on the Oilers have the IQ to successfully execute man-to-man defence and we see this repeatedly throughout the season. I think it behooves the oilers to go to zone defence and protect the house, and simplify the defensive strategy so that the players can be more effective in their own end.
Exactly. +/- is a sorta team stat and vegas’ top 3 centers were +52 over the 82 game 2022-2 season. Oilers top 3 centers were +33. Vegas has better centers, team concept is primary.
Oiler outscored 9-18 5X5.
Cassidy also outcoached Woody.
Oilers need to continue to upgrade their roster, to run it back is to follow an obnoxious Eastern team into playoff futility. Relying on big stars is not a path to Stanley, need to develop the team.
Bit of a typo there (it was 9-15, which is still bad bad).
Agree with the need to continue to upgrade and improve from within.
But I also want to remind that the Oilers outscored the Kings 15-11 at 5v5 in round 1, and were almost equal with Vegas at 5v5 in the regular season (+26 vs. +23).
Still need to get better, but the Oilers have made major improvements there in the last couple of years (mostly since Woodcroft was hired) and have been a good 5v5 team except for this last series.
jp
May 16, 2023 11:02 am
The season ended earlier than most of us would have liked. Obvious areas of weakness were G, 2RW and top 4 RD, but we know there’s not much money available to address weakness.
As a first pass I wanted to look at how much money could be available if they move the obvious pieces (which remain the ‘$3M men’).
I decided to focus on 2RW and top 4 RD since goalies are voodoo, Skinner had a quality year overall and Campbell would be extremely difficult to move (while also being very likely better next season).
The status quo roster (signed players, RFAs and Ryan returned) would be:
Nuge-McDavid-Hyman
Kane-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Holloway-McLeod-Foegele
Lavoie-Ryan-Kostin
Philp
/
Nurse-Ceci
Ekholm-Bouchard
Kulak-Broberg
Desharnais
/
Skinner-Campbell
Signings:
Bouchard $3.5M x 2
McLeod $1.5M x 2
Ryan $1M x 1
Kostin $1M x 1
Lavoie $800k x 2
Philp $800k x 2
That 22-man roster is $1.867M over an $83.5M cap (bonus overages included).
So before you consider any additions, you need to remove one of the $3M men and replace with a ~$1M player to be compliant. You’re gonna need a lot more than that if you’re hoping to add a 2RW and a 1/2RD.
How much can the Oilers open up if they move all 4 of the $3M men? Turns out it’s roughly $8M total for a 2RW and a 1/2RD once you account for the other opened roster spots (this would be moving 4 players but devoting as much money as possible to 2 replacements).
That would look like this:
Nuge-McDavid-Hyman
Kane-Draisaitl-
Holloway-McLeod-Kostin
Lavoie-Ryan-Jamnark (or similar for $1M)
Philp
/
Nurse-
Ekholm-Bouchard
Broberg-Desharnais
Niemalainen
/
Skinner-Campbell
$8.2M to available to fill those two key roster spots. Definitely possible, but not with some of the names that have been thrown around.
You’ve also subtracted 4 contributing (YMMV) roster players for the 2 upgrades (I guess calling it 3 would be more fair since 1 of the $3M men has to go regardless). But that’s to say: they’d better actually be upgrades.
The biggest issue is getting rid of the $3million dollar men without having to take a bad contract back in return. Looking back, Holland performed a minor miracle with Jesse, not even having to attach an asset with him (which we no longer have anyway after deadline deals).
Unless we are getting the needed piece back directly in the trade (unlikely) this will be difficult. I truly believe the focus needs to be a (massive) upgrade on Ceci.
While I’m loathe to go back into buyout purgatory just as we are finally getting out of dead cap space, given Yamo’s age, his buyout is only $500K for 2 years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that option used which at least gets us cap compliant (if Lavoie replaces him) according to jp’s numbers above.
Yeah, the degree of difficulty in moving Puljujarvi (in-season, with the year he had) was far higher than moving any of those 4 in the summer IMO.
If you did need to pay something to move one of them I think it would be more than evened out by assets you get for the others. And I don’t agree at all that a buyout would be necessary.
An upgrade on Ceci would be great, no question. I think his injury was a factor though – he was better last year.
If you’re putting most of the theoretical $8M to a 1RD then you should certainly get an upgrade. If you’re spending $3-4M on a RW and $3-4M on a RD though I’d be far less confident you’re actually improving on Ceci.
jp
May 16, 2023 10:35 am
Thanks again LT, for the draft coverage, the prospect updates, the reasonable take on the Oilers, for your writing, and for this board. It is all truly appreciated.
Reja
May 16, 2023 10:27 am
You watch Wyatt Johnston score a huge goal for Dallas last night yet we don’t give a waiver eligibil Lavoie a look see of a few games to end the season. Woody’s refusal to replace the useless Yamamoto with a forward (Holloway) that can make something happen plus he finishes his checks efficiently. Between this and not playing Campbell when he knew Skinner was flat should cost him his job. I have 0 doubts we win games 5 and 6 with Campbell and Holloway. Woody took the enjoyment of watching Connor and Leon rewrite the history books because of his stubbornness.
kinger_OIL
May 16, 2023 10:00 am
— It’s almost like LT is “relieved” the season is over so he can get to all his “good stuff”
— got another Leafs Nation idiot fan be like “McDavid needs to come here, he wants to”
— Typical Leaf centre of universe mentality…
jtblack
May 16, 2023 8:54 am
Thanks for all the Great Write Ups this season LT. You are the best 🙂
When you go all in at the deadline like Edm did, it certainly leaves the scouts hands tied.
1 pick in the Top 150 🤣
Oh well, I would rather that than more DoD stuff.
Will be a very interesting offseason by the sounds of it with possible mgmt shuffle, some key player decisions and a clear need to get better in Important areas (2RW, 2RHD, etc).
We essentially lost 2 first rounders to Nashville for Eck along with a signed FA. Even with the shorter-than-expected post season, seeing what he brought to the team and will for the next 3 seasons…I actually don’t mind not having a first round this year.
Holland was cautious about the first rounders, and doing it for a huge hole to plug for multiple years was astute.
Hemsky is a gangsta
May 16, 2023 8:50 am
What are your thoughts on the talk of Steve Staios as the next GM? What qualities does he possess that make the Oilers want to be ‘protective’ of another org poaching him?
That’s all the Oilers require when conducting their ~exhaustive searches and endless interviews, peering under rocks and poking into the top cupboard, looking everywhere for the most talented, yet under-appreciated hockey personnel.~
Steve Staois ran a very successful Junior program in Hamilton. He’s honed his craft in management with the Leafs, the OHL, and now with the Oilers over the past 10 years.
— This is when OP would get one of his high paid associates to upload the exit interviews of players …. F&ck that guy I guess?
I have McLeod at 3x 1.25m, Bjugstadt or replacement at 1m, Philp at 3 x 925k ((same money as Holloway, Bourgeault, Berglund). Ryan at 900k one year deal with some amount of performance bonus on top of that to push it to next year’s cap as a 35+
Trade Yamo/move on from Janmark and find two capable replacements at a combined cost of 5.25M (their current combined hit is 4.35m). Lavoie at 2 x 925k (again Holloway money et al).
Bouchard at 1 x 2.5m with a deal in the drawer to file after Jan 1 at 5m+ for at least 3 yr term (combined term of the two deals is 4+ years so he does not come up for a new deal at the same time as McD or Drai). If they want more on the one year, go as long as is comfortable on the Jan 1 deal and add a signing bonus year 1 to compensate and keep the hit at 2.5m for this next season
Move Campbell for a backup/1b goalie for 2m.
Neal buyout still on books, no more LTIR issues, prior bonus overages are 850k.
Gets a cap hit of 83167500. If the cap hit goes up more than 1M which is possible depending on escrow debt retirement/renegotiation with NHLPA (both sides are very motivated to return to a normal salary escalation as soon as possible), we can use it on Bouchard and the new wingers as needed as well.
BTW I have a question… what would be the limits on performance bonus amounts for Ryan? Is it a percentage of his salary? Is the actual salary/signing bonus restricted by league minimum salary if performance bonuses are in the 35+ contract? I am finding no direction on this from the NHL website etc other than the restriction of the overall performance bonus pool for the team as a whole….
Ideally I would like to see 1m in cap space for the year to allow for deadline shopping etc. Using this framework might be able to squeeze out an additional 700k or so in performance bonus room if we can do Ryan with a very large performance boonus that is ridiculously easy to achieve? Would that bird fly? If it is a signing bonus can that be deferred to next year on a 35+ deal? How could we structure it?
Lots of discussion this morning on the Marek show about 3 of the 4 final teams are from states that have zero state income taxes.
Texas, Florida and Nevada all have a built in advantage in attracting and/or paying top players at under market value freeing up additional cap room to sign depth.
Guest on the show, Jonathan Davis explained that he and his wife moved to Vegas specifically for that reason.
Who exactly on these teams are paid below market value? I know this is a great talking point but who you talking about here?
Eichel, Pietrangelo and Stone are extremely well paid. Everyone in supporting roles looks like they make about par of their contribution.
Dallas Stars have paid top dollar with five players clearing more than 7.75 million/year.
The Cats paid very top dollar to Barkov, Tkachuk, Ekblad (older contract) and Bobo.
I think this matters at the absolute margin. Not much more than that frankly.
They specifically talked about Dallas.
Hintz $8.45 million
Robertson $7.75 million
Marchment $4.5 million
Pavelski $3.5 million
Heiskanen $8.45 million
Its pretty easy to imagine all of those players making a million more in a high tax environment.
They also suggested Vegas is very attractive to free agents because of the state tax situation.
I heard the same show. Neither you nor they have given examples of free agents who went there for less. I see a lot of players they traded for. Meh, if you ask me.
Players have big egos, they want the appropriate dollars next to their names. Maybe this matters to old vets but star players want to make more than what the last guy signed for, they don’t give a fuck about an asterisk.
Nah man, Players care about winning, and take home pay….ego and where their nominal pay ranks is way down the list of priorities of most players.
This has been a transformation for a while … Tampa?
Anyway, no tax matters but I also believe weather, lessmedia scrutiny and Less Tax give southern teams an advantage at obtaining players.
The rules should have been adjusted long ago to reflect this reality as part of the cap. If you’re going to bother having one (I don’t agree with the system), then you have to deal with these differences via the rules/numbers.
Lots of videos going around about the Oilers poor defensive play in their own zone days after they were eliminated. One example link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Shcp9ovcg4 As much as I like Woodcroft I think he needs to revaluate his teams defensive system. It’s been a couple of years now and the team still can’t keep the puck out of their net. The Oilers gave up 3.5 goals against this playoffs the most of any remaining top eight team. Yes the goaltending was bad but the group as a whole still won’t commit to defence first. Struddy had some good points yesterday that Woodcroft needs to call out his team next fall that these lazy mistakes are no longer acceptable. The Oilers don’t have anyone in their top six that is a good defensive player.
1.McDavid – (I will give him a pass only because he is the most prolific offensive player in the game but not a consistent defensive player)
2.Leon – As good as he was early in the playoffs December Leon came back for the last 3 games against Vegas. If you don’t play good defence all year don’t expect just to turn it on in the playoffs.
3.Nuge – He is my favourite player but I am so disappointed in his playoffs. I don’t care if you scored 100 points in a season if you can’t compete in the playoffs. He is lucky he has a NMC.
4.Kane- Not a good defensive player and if he isn’t scoring he is taking dumb penalties.
5.Hyman- I thought because he is a good worker bee that he would be a good defensive player but this isn’t the case at all. Disappointed on how many times I saw him leave the zone before the puck in the playoffs.
6.Yamamoto-I think when Ekholm pointed to Mark Stone for Yamamoto to pick up on a rush in game four only for him to ignore his defence man sums up his defensive game. Not a top six player and it isn’t close.
The Oilers top guys need to decide if they want to win the scoring titles again or commit to a system that wins in the playoffs. I saw online that people were complaining that the Oilers lost to a team who’s leading scorer had 65 points. This is because their players don’t cheat for offence and they play the right way.
McDavid and Draisaitl need to learn the same lesson Yzerman learned. And Sakic, etc.
Someone here mentioned the other day that the Oilers are using man to man defense. I don’t think most of the defenceman on the Oilers have the IQ to successfully execute man-to-man defence and we see this repeatedly throughout the season. I think it behooves the oilers to go to zone defence and protect the house, and simplify the defensive strategy so that the players can be more effective in their own end.
The Oilers don’t play a traditional man-to-man defence. What was this person talking about?
Exactly. +/- is a sorta team stat and vegas’ top 3 centers were +52 over the 82 game 2022-2 season. Oilers top 3 centers were +33. Vegas has better centers, team concept is primary.
Oiler outscored 9-18 5X5.
Cassidy also outcoached Woody.
Oilers need to continue to upgrade their roster, to run it back is to follow an obnoxious Eastern team into playoff futility. Relying on big stars is not a path to Stanley, need to develop the team.
Bit of a typo there (it was 9-15, which is still bad bad).
Agree with the need to continue to upgrade and improve from within.
But I also want to remind that the Oilers outscored the Kings 15-11 at 5v5 in round 1, and were almost equal with Vegas at 5v5 in the regular season (+26 vs. +23).
Still need to get better, but the Oilers have made major improvements there in the last couple of years (mostly since Woodcroft was hired) and have been a good 5v5 team except for this last series.
The season ended earlier than most of us would have liked. Obvious areas of weakness were G, 2RW and top 4 RD, but we know there’s not much money available to address weakness.
As a first pass I wanted to look at how much money could be available if they move the obvious pieces (which remain the ‘$3M men’).
I decided to focus on 2RW and top 4 RD since goalies are voodoo, Skinner had a quality year overall and Campbell would be extremely difficult to move (while also being very likely better next season).
The status quo roster (signed players, RFAs and Ryan returned) would be:
Nuge-McDavid-Hyman
Kane-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Holloway-McLeod-Foegele
Lavoie-Ryan-Kostin
Philp
/
Nurse-Ceci
Ekholm-Bouchard
Kulak-Broberg
Desharnais
/
Skinner-Campbell
Signings:
Bouchard $3.5M x 2
McLeod $1.5M x 2
Ryan $1M x 1
Kostin $1M x 1
Lavoie $800k x 2
Philp $800k x 2
That 22-man roster is $1.867M over an $83.5M cap (bonus overages included).
So before you consider any additions, you need to remove one of the $3M men and replace with a ~$1M player to be compliant. You’re gonna need a lot more than that if you’re hoping to add a 2RW and a 1/2RD.
How much can the Oilers open up if they move all 4 of the $3M men? Turns out it’s roughly $8M total for a 2RW and a 1/2RD once you account for the other opened roster spots (this would be moving 4 players but devoting as much money as possible to 2 replacements).
That would look like this:
Nuge-McDavid-Hyman
Kane-Draisaitl-
Holloway-McLeod-Kostin
Lavoie-Ryan-Jamnark (or similar for $1M)
Philp
/
Nurse-
Ekholm-Bouchard
Broberg-Desharnais
Niemalainen
/
Skinner-Campbell
$8.2M to available to fill those two key roster spots. Definitely possible, but not with some of the names that have been thrown around.
You’ve also subtracted 4 contributing (YMMV) roster players for the 2 upgrades (I guess calling it 3 would be more fair since 1 of the $3M men has to go regardless). But that’s to say: they’d better actually be upgrades.
The biggest issue is getting rid of the $3million dollar men without having to take a bad contract back in return. Looking back, Holland performed a minor miracle with Jesse, not even having to attach an asset with him (which we no longer have anyway after deadline deals).
Unless we are getting the needed piece back directly in the trade (unlikely) this will be difficult. I truly believe the focus needs to be a (massive) upgrade on Ceci.
While I’m loathe to go back into buyout purgatory just as we are finally getting out of dead cap space, given Yamo’s age, his buyout is only $500K for 2 years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that option used which at least gets us cap compliant (if Lavoie replaces him) according to jp’s numbers above.
Yeah, the degree of difficulty in moving Puljujarvi (in-season, with the year he had) was far higher than moving any of those 4 in the summer IMO.
If you did need to pay something to move one of them I think it would be more than evened out by assets you get for the others. And I don’t agree at all that a buyout would be necessary.
An upgrade on Ceci would be great, no question. I think his injury was a factor though – he was better last year.
If you’re putting most of the theoretical $8M to a 1RD then you should certainly get an upgrade. If you’re spending $3-4M on a RW and $3-4M on a RD though I’d be far less confident you’re actually improving on Ceci.
Thanks again LT, for the draft coverage, the prospect updates, the reasonable take on the Oilers, for your writing, and for this board. It is all truly appreciated.
You watch Wyatt Johnston score a huge goal for Dallas last night yet we don’t give a waiver eligibil Lavoie a look see of a few games to end the season. Woody’s refusal to replace the useless Yamamoto with a forward (Holloway) that can make something happen plus he finishes his checks efficiently. Between this and not playing Campbell when he knew Skinner was flat should cost him his job. I have 0 doubts we win games 5 and 6 with Campbell and Holloway. Woody took the enjoyment of watching Connor and Leon rewrite the history books because of his stubbornness.
— It’s almost like LT is “relieved” the season is over so he can get to all his “good stuff”
— got another Leafs Nation idiot fan be like “McDavid needs to come here, he wants to”
— Typical Leaf centre of universe mentality…
Thanks for all the Great Write Ups this season LT. You are the best 🙂
When you go all in at the deadline like Edm did, it certainly leaves the scouts hands tied.
1 pick in the Top 150 🤣
Oh well, I would rather that than more DoD stuff.
Will be a very interesting offseason by the sounds of it with possible mgmt shuffle, some key player decisions and a clear need to get better in Important areas (2RW, 2RHD, etc).
LETS GO OILERS!!
We essentially lost 2 first rounders to Nashville for Eck along with a signed FA. Even with the shorter-than-expected post season, seeing what he brought to the team and will for the next 3 seasons…I actually don’t mind not having a first round this year.
Holland was cautious about the first rounders, and doing it for a huge hole to plug for multiple years was astute.
What are your thoughts on the talk of Steve Staios as the next GM? What qualities does he possess that make the Oilers want to be ‘protective’ of another org poaching him?
1). Former Oiler.
That’s it.
That’s the list.
That’s all the Oilers require when conducting their ~exhaustive searches and endless interviews, peering under rocks and poking into the top cupboard, looking everywhere for the most talented, yet under-appreciated hockey personnel.~
Steve Staois ran a very successful Junior program in Hamilton. He’s honed his craft in management with the Leafs, the OHL, and now with the Oilers over the past 10 years.
If you want to hear a person who communicates and empowers, knows the game and how to build a winning culture, listen to his interview here: Staios: I’ve loved every single minute of my management career – TSN.ca
Well that sure explains the Chiarelli & Holland hires.