During the period when the Edmonton Oilers were building (2006-2015, and then a little bit more), AHL at-bats could be shared by the elite prospects (Leon Draisaitl), good prospects (Jordan Oesterle) and AHL veterans (Brad Hunt). Now that the Oilers are pushing for Stanley, the AHL roster is more veteran, and the good prospects are lower as a percentage than in the past. Is that a good idea?
THE ATHLETIC!
- Lowetide: What Blackhawks can learn from Oilers about winning with a generational talent
- Lowetide: For Oilers in 2023-24, a more aggressive in-season approach is likely
- Lowetide: Why skating ability has such an impact on NHL Draft scouting and success
- Lowetide: What Oilers’ Jeff Jackson hire could mean for front-office’s future
- Lowetide: The 5 most impressive NHL offseason moves and what they mean for 2023-24
- Lowetide: Oilers sign forward Ryan McLeod to 2-year extension: What it means for Edmonton
- Lowetide: Connor McDavid, the Art Ross and challenging Wayne Gretzky’s record
- Lowetide: How Oilers’ pro scouting upgrade helped elevate team in 2022-23
- Lowetide: Projecting Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard’s points for 2023-24
- Lowetide: Oilers’ graduate a strong group of prospects to pro this fall
- Lowetide: Oilers’ late-summer options intriguing with cap crunch and lingering UFAs
- Lowetide: What are the Edmonton Oilers’ keys to success in 2023-24?
- Lowetide: How Oilers’ veteran roster, cap issues could impact Raphael Lavoie
- Lowetide: What the Oilers are getting in 2023 NHL Draft pick Beau Akey
- Lowetide: Oilers’ baffling 2016 draft takes another hit
- Lowetide: Jay Woodcroft is (still) the right man to coach the Edmonton Oilers
- Lowetide: Oilers’ roster utility for 2023-24 could use a final tweak
- DNB: The Oilers roster is improved but evolution must continue into next season
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers top 20 prospects, summer 2023
- DNB: 10 questions with director of amateur scouting Tyler Wright
2015-16 Bakersfield Condors
- Pre-20 (1 total, 1 NHL): Caleb Jones (217 NHL games)
- Age 20-22 (23 total, 9 NHL): Leon Draisaitl (638); Darnell Nurse (559); Jujhar Khaira (336); Laurent Brossoit (117); Anton Slepyshev (102); Griffin Reinhart (37); Josh Currie (22); Dillon Simpson (3); Bogdan Yakimov (1).
- 23-25 (11 total, 7 NHL): Zack Kassian (661); Tyler Pitlick (386); Jordan Oesterle (349); Anders Nilsson (161); Iiro Pakarinen (134); Zach Boychuk (127); Phil McRae (15).
- 26+ (10 total, 8 NHL): Mark Fayne (389); Brad Hunt (288); Nikita Nikitin (259); Rob Klinkhammer (193); Luke Gazdic (147); Ben Scrivens (144); Ryan Hamilton (30); Andrew Miller (15).
Fully half of the total group is aged 20-22. This is a nice haul, even excluding Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse. Role players sure, but that’s what the AHL should be delivering. There are just two feature players in the group (Draisaitl, Nurse).
2022-23 Bakersfield Condors
- Pre-20: None
- 20-22 (12 total, 3 NHL): Philip Broberg (69 NHL games); Dylan Holloway (51 NHL); Mike Kesselring (9).
- 23-25 (14 total, 4 NHL): Klim Kostin (103); Markus Niemelainen (43); Tyler Benson (38); Cam Dineen (34).
- 26+ (14 total, 10 NHL): Jason Demers (700); Mattias Janmark (486); Ryan Murray (445); Devin Shore (422); Greg McKegg (233); Brad Malone (217); Calvin Pickard (116); Justin Bailey (82); Seth Griffith (80); Vincent Desharnais (36).
The 20-22 group represents 30 percent (12 of 40) with the other two age groups splitting the rest. I think we can already see several productive careers and I’ll suggest that Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway will (at times) be feature players during their NHL careers. Not at the Draisaitl-Nurse levels surely, but the two 2015-16 rookies spent a total of 15 games in the AHL.
TALE OF THE TAPE
The tale of the tape shows how much Ken Holland has influenced development by slow-playing the prospects. I wonder if Edmonton would have developed more NHLers doing things his way. I also wonder how much men like Evan Bouchard and Dylan Holloway would have contributed to last season in the NHL with more playing time in the league over previous seasons. One thing I’m pretty comfortable saying: Vincent Desharnais doesn’t hang around long enough to show what he is on the 2015-16 Condors. He’d be down the road, just like Jordan Oesterle and Brad Hunt eight years ago.
The 27 actual prospects in 2015-16 (using Pick224.com estimated TOI)
Looking back, the Oilers running 11 LH defensemen is pretty incredible. I borrowed “Leftorium” from The Simpsons a few years earlier, but the sustain was incredible. Ethan Bear was the first of many RH blue drafted starting in the middle of the decade with Peter Chiarelli’s arrival. There’s some great talent here. Two NHL goalies, four NHL defensemen and three NHL forwards on one minor league team. Obviously an advantage having Draisaitl and Nurse but the Oilers were developing NHL talent.
One takeaway from this exercise: Of the seven men who would play significant NHL games, five (Draisaitl, Khaira, Pitlick, Hunt and Oesterle) were in feature roles in 2015-16. Only very young defensemen (Nurse, Jones) would play support roles and go on to play 200+ NHL games.
Let’s see if we can apply that intel to last year’s Condors.
The 18 actual prospects in 2022-23 (using Pick224.com estimated TOI)
The players in bold are the feature prospects and the estimated time on ice higlights some interesting names. Broberg and Holloway were givens, but the inclusion of Bourgault (he played fewer minutes than Seth Griffith but Kostin only played in nine games; it’s identical to the Pakarinen-Pitlick situation listed above), Philp, Kesselring and Kemp is interesting.
For men like Kemp, Rodrigue and Hamblin, this season is vital. These three have to make the NHL and make an impression at that level. A new GM is likely in place before next offseason begins, and will want to put his stamp on the organization.
I’m not sure how much you get out of these, but at the very least it’s a reminder we need AHL TOI. Oh.
One more thing. I thought it would be good to list TOI for the added roster players after the season. Noel Hoefenmayer was 21.07 estimated ice time, Ben Gleason 18:30. Drake Caggiula 20.43 estimated time on ice per game.
Not Oilers, but this is kinda cool.
CBC News@CBCNews·11m
Prolific slugger José Bautista will sign a one-day contract with the Toronto Blue Jays Friday afternoon so he can retire as a member of the team for which he played 10 seasons, the ball club says.
Would Oilers be interested in John Farinacci ?
What’s his number?
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233
18 minutes! That’s all it took. God, I love this blog
You set ‘em up . . . I knocks ‘em down.
I think you’re fibbing!
Oilers on Puckdoku today.
https://www.puckdoku.com/
Thanks for the heads up.
First try on the Oilers players resulted in (going top down):
The QMJHL bans fighting.
https://theathletic.com/4766764/2023/08/10/qmjhl-fighting-ban-suspensions/?source=user_shared_article
They’ll be creating players heavy on the stick work. I’ll bet injuries go up.
My first thought.
Oliver Kylington opens up about his missing season.
https://flamesnation.ca/news/oliver-kylington-opens-up-about-battle-with-mental-illness-shares-excitement-for-return-to-calgary
Good on him.
Flames suck they’ve been Jealous since our team was called the Alberta Oilers
Good on him indeed.
Getting the help he needed sounds like it was a huge step forward for him, and speaking about it openly may help others take a similar step.
Yep…a very important step for him and anyone else having problems.
What exactly did he “open up about” in that article?
He had a tough go with ongoing family issues, took a year off and collected $2.5MM USD while he availed himself to top mental health professionals, and got his mind right. Like, good for him, but he’s not been particularly brave.
There was nary a quote of any substance about anything he dealt with along his mental health journey. Nada. How is one to relate?
99% of other fields of work would not recieve full pay for taking a year off to spend time with their family’s and deal with personal problems. I myself think the word brave is overused where it gets watered down to a point where it means diddly. There’s lots of folks slugging it out at their jobs with children to feed that could sure use a year off with pay and a open arms return to their Jobs. If we’re using the word brave these are the folks that should get that tag.
Hurricanes sign Caleb Jones.
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/report-hurricanes-signing-defenceman-caleb-jones-to-one-year-deal/
The Canes sure do like the Oilers sloppy seconds.
Shades of Dion Phaneuf. Dion must of really pissed off Avery for his distasteful public remarks.
Well, that’s ironic.
Plenty of AHL at bats for Skinner as he grew up and, now, by some metrics, one of the best value deals in the world among goalies:
https://theathletic.com/4762439/2023/08/10/nhl-best-goalie-contracts-ranking/
Yeah I’d wondered whether this was going to get posted due to Oettinger, or not posted due to Skinner.
It’s a pretty flawed list.
Antti Raanta…19-3-3 2.23 GAA .910%…Cap hit $1.5 million.
Extreme value
Pretty sure it’s more accurate than those betting odds you posted the other day.
https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/nhl/stanley-cup-odds/
No, these:
I’m very skeptical that these odds have ever been posted by a legitimate source.
Odds are dynamic, change daily and are volatile in the offseason as teams add, sign, trade and dump players.
If you examine in detail what I just posted you can see the trends, risers and fallers.
Not concerned in the least about your skepticism.
Do you expect us to believe that 7 days ago Colorado’s odds were +300 and TBs were +550 when none of the major betting (https://www.vegasinsider.com/nhl/odds/futures/) sites listed here have Colorado higher than +800 or TB higher than +1400 today?
And also, the site you just linked appears to shows odds as of July 3rd, so it wouldn’t appear to have been updated in the last week.
You just don’t have the character to admit a mistake. We know those odds were BS, you know those odds were BS, but you just keep up the facade!
Exactly……and he’s getting plenty of responses which is just what a troll wants. We keep feeding him. Everyday he jumps in with his anti-Oiler verbage and everyday, people keep engaging with his garbage. Redbird, you are one of the better posters in here, just ignore him as he continues to sully this great place.
It’s hard finding good goalies with low cap hits and a good track record. So much easier for any position to take the second tier hot UFA and get his cap down (because the cap is such an insurmountable bugger) with over term and/or magnificent trade protections
It was never going to be posted because of the latter.
The list is flawed – as are ALL the similar type lists put out by various sites – including the many at The Athletic – that doesn’t stop those articles being post when they are negative towards an Oiler player (or positive towards a competitor), of course.
I want the odds to be 20/1 Oilers win the Cup. Why would I want 7/1 does anyone in the Oilers organization really give a shit what their odds are?
I have no idea what this post is about.
How about that Gustavsson trade?
What Gustavsson trade?
Filip. The player who’s number 4 on the link you just posted.
Dorian traded Filip Gustavsson in a 1 for 1 trade for a then 35-year-old Cam Talbot.
Gustavsson goes on to post a .931 SV% over 39 games for the Wild.
It’ll be interesting to see how Gustavsson follows up that breakout season.
Skinner and Gustavsson actually look like pretty good comps for each other.
They were 4 and 5 on that list. They’ve close to the same age (Gustavsson about 6 months older). They were drafted #55 and #78.
They both turned (NA) pro in 2018. Both had major struggle early and then figured out the AHL. Then their first real NHL success this year (Gustavsson obviously with the stronger SV% this season).
Their AHL and NHL careers look pretty similar on the whole.
Gustavsson
AHL 90GP .898SV%
NHL 66GP .920SV%
Skinner
AHL 115GP .906SV%
NHL 64GP .912SV%
They’re both on 3 year extensions now, Gustavsson for $1.15M more per year. Time will tell which is the better deal and who is the better goaler.
Gustavsson has the early edge based on this past season, and it was clearly a good trade by Guerin. I wouldn’t be surprised if Skinner keeps pace or pulls ahead over the next 3 seasons though.
Also, I miss Mike Kesselring already – he’s going to be a legit top 4 I think.
He’ll have to beat out Troy Stetcher, who played 81 NHL games last season, for a job first.
ARZ added both Durzi and Dumba to their right side this summer.
He will likely be 5RD on the depth chart .
Durzi, Dumba,Stetcher and former 1st round pick Viktor Soderstom all ahead of him.
4th or 5th RD until the Coyjokes trade at least one of Durzi, Dumba or Stetcher to a team that’s heading for the playoffs. Kesselring will see NHL hockey there this year.
Yeah, I would be surprised if he doesn’t see some action.
Dumba was acquired IMO to be traded.
Not sure if there would be a market for Stetcher and I’m pretty sure they’ll hand on to Durzi because he’s young and cheap.
Yup, Arizona, to me, will be one of the more improved teams this season – should be highly competitive.
They’ve added some good depth at D, for sure. I still think Kesselring will have a solid NHL career and play top 4.
I still can’t believe that the Kings traded Durzi for a second round pick.
Durzi had some defensive struggles last season. Still his point totals prorated to 43 points in 82 games.
Am I the only one here who saw him good (in a projectable way) during the first playoff series against the Kings?
I think Durzi will be really good in a few years while the optics of that trade will be very poor.
This is my favorite Sean Durzi “saw him good” moment in that series:
https://www.nhl.com/video/mcdavid-doubles-lead-in-3rd/t-333439100/c-11715336
Love his composure to argue his case to the ref while Connor keeps playing and scoring a huge goal.
What was is it that Tyler Dellow once wrote about the big mistake standing out leading to bias?
Oh yeah, it was this:
McDavid’s made a lot of defensemen look silly, especially a then 23-year-old offensive d like Durzi filling in for an injured Doughty.
Somewhere in my mind’s eye there’s a goal against Bouchard these past playoffs. I think it was against Vegas. I only watched the series live and didn’t review recaps. It was that goal where Bouchard was in some sort of vapor lock standing maybe at the side of the net doing absolutely nothing. Then a few Vegas players skated around and scored.
There’s always going to be tape of the big mistake made by NHL d.
Now, you and I will keep an eye on Durzi over the next few years.. then we’ll revisit this discussion.
One of the few things Dellow ever said that I completely agree with although I will add that the ‘spectacular play’ is closer to the truth than the ‘big mistake’.
Especially as fans we tend to miss the smart play, the easy play, the quick to notice move etc. We are hard wired for ‘man bites dog’ while totally missing ‘dog bites man’ stories.
Depends how well one knows or can see the game. Maybe you miss the smart plays but lots don’t
There is a reason why every NHL team watches video.
There is a reason why every HC in the NHL when asked about a specific play after a game will say that they aren’t sure because they haven’t watched the video yet.
I have been watching NHL games for over 65 years. Thanks for the ass holey remark.
I’m ruined forevermore; thanks for this gem.
I think Durzi’s a good defenseman, but I feel like he’s from the Barrie/Bear tree where size is always going to be an issue for him defending (better offensively than Bear obviously). It definitely looks like he’ll play top 4, but I think he’ll be a bit limited.
Half his offense has come on the PP too, and I was surprised to see that all of his on ice numbers (SF, GF, xGF) were negative relative to team in both his seasons. He’ll be 25 in October as well.
Good player, but IMO a 2nd was a pretty fair price. And as a for instance, I don’t wish the Oilers had paid a 2nd for him to replace Ceci (which is not to say I think Ceci is a better player per se). Anyway, JMO.
Interesting:
Sean Durzi 72GP 9G 29A 38P .53PPG
Evan Bouchard 82GP 8G 32A 40P .49PPG
Durzi was never the #1PP option.
I’m not going to waste my time keeping an eye on Durzi. Knock yourself out.
There are big mistakes, then there are big mistakes. That one occurred in a game 7, with 4 minutes to go in a one goal game. And McDavid didn’t make him look silly, he did that himself when he stopped playing to complain to the ref while the play went on.
BTW, overall last season in the series at 5 on 5, he was 3GF 8GA, which is terrible though yes most of that damage was done by McDavid. Clearly McDavid didn’t just do it to him once.
He followed that up this season against the Oilers by going 1GF 4GA in a more sheltered role. This time it was Derek Ryan and Klim Kostin doing all the damage. The Kings were probably glad to get a second for him.
If you only look at math this might be true. But it is so wrong in regards to how the brain works it’s laughable
To the point it’s PR for his position or he’s a dense human
There are gigabytes of data in every glance we make. But our brains handle it and process it faster than any computer
Yes we all see big mistakes, but experienced viewers are aggregating the bigger picture and also incorporating the available data. Which is why I say an NHL coach should not need data on the bench to see the game unfolding. An eye upstairs sure, to see structures more easily. I call BS on that take. Self serving or dense
Love it!
Undersized and not offensively high end. These things rarely change
Durzi has LESS 5 on 5 points than Bouchard (by quite a bit) and MORE PP points than Bouchard (and played only ten seconds less per game on the PP than Bouchard).
I think Kemp could see some NHL games this season but there are three other “NHL options” that will start in Bakersfield with him – Noel H., Ben Gleason and Nimeo.
IF, and its a big IF, Kemp can skate well enough for the NHL, he has the ability to be a very good shutdown d-man.
————
I don’t consider James Hamblin a real prospect – I think he’ll hand around organizations as a 14F/15F tweener but don’t see him ever being an ever day NHL player.
Just my opinion – could be proven wrong in time – would be very happy for him if i am.
The Oilers have been looking pretty hard for a RHC for the #4 spot recently. Derek Ryan, Lane Pederson, Jayden Grubbe, Noah Philp, Brandon Sutter, Jake Chiasson, Matt Copponi, etc. and with James Hamblin being a lefty, I think he’d have to really outplay some others to get an everyday opportunity.
It feels weird rooting for a Sutter.
Its not wierd it’s Sacrilegious
There’s still at least 10 ex Oiler D-men draft picks floating around the NHL. Hunt, Oestetle, Kesseling, Marino, Jones, Bear, Gustafsson,Samorukov, Lagresson and Petry. Going back forever you think we could’ve lucked out on just 1 D-man who was a rock like undrafted Charlie Huddy. After all these years Holland has finally found our rock on D in Mattias Ekholm too bad he’s not 6-7 years younger. Ekholm has been almost injury free his entire career I could see him on the Oilers at high quality for another 5 years.
Maybe Ekholm can teach Nurse about the back door play that he still gets burned on after 8 years.
I’m personally quite happy that Ekholm has only three years left on his contract.
He just turned 33 and probably just leaving his prime for his type of d-man. I don’t think he’ll fall off the cliff over the next 3 years (although it does happen quite a bit in that age) but there will certainly be regression.
Love having Ekholm on the team but definitely better than the deal is 3 more years and not 5, at least for me.
As an aside, while Lagesson was able to get an NHL 2-way deal from the Leafs, I believe Samorukov is on an AHL deal now.
Mark my words he’ll sign for another 2 seasons of high quality and mentoring play after this deal is done.
Stauffer asked Holloway yesterday if his conversations with the coaches revolves around him playing wing or if there was any talk of him playing center.
Dylan said it’s been a bit of both…..
I hope so. The more comfortable Holloway feels playing all forward positions the more likely he makes/stays in the lineup. Woody loves versatility.
I would have ALOT of time for Holloway at 4C, he has high end center pedigree, however, at the same time, I don’t trust the Woody would commit to playing his 4th lines the amount of minutes that Holloway needs.
Maybe he will get some depth PK time (and maybe even some depth PP2 time) but Holloway likely won’t see much speical teams ice so he’ll need 14 minutes of 5 on 5 per day.
I don’t see him getting that on the 4th line.
I would also like to see him play with some more skill than, say, Ryan and Janmark.
I guess I’m talking myself out of it but I think him at center is an option and we may see it at times.
Given how often they go 11-7 I suspect they may look at Holloway as a 2/3/4 and C/W depending on the game state, injuries, etc. I think they really want a righty for their 4C spot but that player has yet to emerge for them so Holloway could see some time there.
I hope that 11/7 is a rare occurrence – mainly as I think its not great for the defence and I think Broberg needs to play 14 minutes (min) per night.
With that said, its looking like the forward depth will be materially weaker than last season (at least to start) so you could be right.
I think we’ll see it more often than we should while we have our top 7 defenceman healthy because they have 7 good D you want to play every night but not necessarily 12 good forwards you would. It’ll be interesting to see come training camp because I agree that Broberg should play more (and our top forwards less) but it remains to be seen if we have a good 12/13F. They have some solid bets but no guarantees
If I understand estimated TOI correctly, it makes me wonder what the actual gap in TOI between Kemp and Kesselring was last year. Kesselring is a higher event player in both directions, which could inflate his number.
All 13 of Kesselring’s goals came at even strength. He was 0-1-1 PP and 0-1-1 PK, Kemp was 0-1-1 PK. Kaldis, Demers and later Dineen got the PP time.
Isn’t estimated TOI based on all events a player is on the ice for? If so, couldn’t Kesselring being on for more goals for and against make it look like he played more minutes?