This is Ken Holland’s inherited roster in the spring of 2019. Not many players remain. In fact, after Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, only the team’s prospects who made it (Stuart Skinner, Evan Bouchard, Ryan McLeod) appear.
Seven men from the spring of 2019 populate the current roster. The cap hit for those seven men is $44 million, or 53 percent of the total cap. How many players among the 14 Holland spots are inefficient contracts?
THE ATHLETIC!
- New Lowetide: How can Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft solve the team’s early issues?
- Lowetide: Why the Edmonton Oilers’ AHL team is set up for 2023-24 success
- DNB: Several Oilers defensive issues remain despite Mattias Ekholm’s return
- Lowetide: How the Edmonton Oilers’ Connor Brown contract could impact roster decisions
- DNB: Stanley Cup-aspiring Oilers have a long way to go after ‘big gut punch’ in season opener
- Lowetide: Why the Oilers’ opening-night roster is short two foundational pieces
- DNB: Why Raphael Lavoie didn’t make the Oilers and other roster questions ahead of regular-season opener
- Lowetide: Oilers’ Brady Stonehouse signing an important indicator for the future
- Lowetide: Why the Oilers’ veteran-laden AHL team offers better depth
- DNB: Jack Campbell has earned the right to start opening night for the Oilers
- Lowetide: Why Mattias Ekholm’s injury situation is a worry for the Oilers
- Lowetide: With Oilers rookies in short supply, expect more from sophomores
- DNB: Five intriguing Edmonton Oilers developments from the preseason
- Lowetide: Do the Edmonton Oilers have a blockbuster trade in their future?
- DNB: Oilers release Brandon Sutter from tryout offer
- Lowetide: Oilers reaching critical pressure point with prospect Raphael Lavoie
- DNB: A third Edmonton Oilers tenure, no matter the odds, is Sam Gagner’s goal
- Lowetide: Should the Edmonton Oilers alter how Connor McDavid is deployed?
EFFICIENT CONTRACTS
Your mileage may vary, but I count the following as efficient contracts:
- Connor McDavid
- Leon Draisaitl
- Mattias Ekholm
- Zach Hyman
- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
- Evander Kane
- Evan Bouchard
- Brett Kulak
- Stuart Skinner
- Ryan McLeod
- Mattias Janmark
- Dylan Holloway
- Derek Ryan
- Philip Broberg
- Connor Brown
- Vincent Desharnais
My “inefficient contracts” are Darnell Nurse, Jack Campbell, Cody Ceci and Warren Foegele. My “indifferent contracts” are Adam Erne. You may want to include others in the inefficient category, I will tell you the calls weren’t easy in some areas.
The new GM is going to need some room to wheel. I expect all but Nurse from the inefficent group will be in danger of being sent away next summer. Foegele is UFA, he can be walked no harm no foul. By the way, I like all of these players, but the cap room is more important.
Finally, I’ve said this before, but the Bouchard contract length (two years) tells me we’re counting down like Casey Kasem on a trade that involves Nurse or Bouchard. Summer of 2025 or sooner. Pretty sure.
DUSTIN SCHWARTZ
I’m flummoxed about the rage in the cage over Dustin Schwartz. He got booed enough to notice on Saturday night during introductions. This despite the fact he had just coached a rookie goalie during a Calder Trophy nominated season.
Let me ask you a question: how in Christ would you know if Schwartz is going a good job? If you’re mad, get mad at Ken Holland. If you’re going to fight, at least know why you’re angry. If the Oilers fans who are raging against Schwartz today are married, I want to extend sincere sympathies to their wives. Your man can’t figure out why he’s angry. That’s a tough person to be living with 24-7.
Get real. Identify the culprit and say it out loud. Ken Holland signed a guy to a contract that was too much for too long. You know who won’t flee from the criticism? Ken Holland.
Dustin Schwartz may or may not be the problem. I don’t know either way. I also know you don’t know either.
We’re live noon to 2pm today on the Lowdown, Sports 1440. Guests include Jason Gregor and Joe Reedy of AP to talk Chargers-Cowboys. . We’re at Sports 1440, noon to 2 today. You can reach me in the comments section, @Lowetide on twitter, or text us 1.833.401.1440 directly.
James Reimer with a 23-save shutout tonight for Detroit.
That’s a performance he can take Pride in.
Why would anyone downvote this?
Nurse is a lightning rod. He’s slightly overpaid, however he has skills and abilities in the top 10% in the league, and if we were to run him out of town we’d be sorry. At some point Campbell has to perform, or his future could be on LTIR for largely mental issues. He’s very hard on himself, and probably reads this crap, and listens to sports radio
Goalies are voodoo.
Only voodoo priests know anything about them.
Legit smart people thought Mike Smith was hot garbage.
Mike Smith is the all time leading oiler goaler in save percentage.
https://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/teams/edmonton-oilers-goalies-career-nhl-stats.html
I got absolutely lambasted for this. Smith posted really great save stats in the two seasons following.
Why Smith is better than Koskinen
Blender out already. Jeeeeeeeez
LT – of the inefficient contracts you name, 4 in Total.
Foegele $2.75 mil. UFA after this season
Ceci $3.25 mil. 1 more season after this one.
I think both these players can be moved or dumped if needed. Contract dollar amounts are not too high.
Nurse – $9.25 mil. This one has been beat to death, and there is probably no clear but answer. He is def overpaid. He has also shown a wide range of outcomes. They need GOOD Darnell at this price tag. Defensively sound, fewer mental errors. Keep it simple. He will never “out earn” his contract or provide value, but most agreed with that the day the ink dried. It’s not Nurse’s fault they backed up the brinks truck for him.
Campbell – $5 mil. 3 more seasons after this one. This one is a real problem. Skinner saved the year last season. But his SV% has been closer to .890% since February of last year and he may not be the answer (we don’t know yet). But Campbell is clearly not the answer for a Cup Winning Team. Campbell has had 1 season where he played more than 35 games. Maybe he always was a backup in sheep’s clothing and Kenny fell for it.
It’s going to be very interesting how KH handles the roster this year and the deadline.
This is still a GREAT TEAM. GM cannot afford to take a step back with transactions this year. Has to win a few deals.
Yes he needs some wins to offset the mistakes, unfortunately his best work is when he has the hammer and his weakest in open waters
Nurse’s contract is done. He is a very good player but limited. The real problem is the management not finding him a proper partner. Some GMs can make strategic moves a reshape things
— I don’t know if our coach is a good coach. But he does the same thing all coaches here have done for years.
— Last year Conner played the most minutes per game of any forward in the league and Drai just behind that
— Small sample to be sure but this year McDrai is 2nd and 4th (and RNH 9th) in TOI/game.
FUN FACT : I went back a few years to see and observed the following:
1) none of the Cup winners had multiple forwards in the top-10 of TOI/game in the last few years.
2) From 2018 onwards McDrai are 1-2 in TOI per game for forwards
— I wonder if anyone thinks that playing that many minutes effect’s performance?
— I don’t think our coach is all that but I do t know : he just does what all Oiler coaches have done.
— I’m fairly certain however our organization hasn’t maximized McDrai by playing them the most in the league the last 6 years…
Hockey might be mostly goalie, but the Oilers problems are mostly defence.
Perhaps but, honest question, was the Vancouver defensive group and team defence any better on Saturday night? I would say they make more mistakes than the Oilers defence and gave up WAY more chances and high danger chances but got saves, many of them.
Wrong
The Oilers currently have a team .750 SV%.
You can argue bounces or bad luck or poor goaltending, but I don’t think any defensive scheme or d corps can be attributed to causing a .750 sv%
Last year the worst team in the league, the Chicago Blackhawks, had a .892 SV%
Of defenceman contracts at the top end the only ones I’d consider to be value are:
Cale Makar – 0 UFA years bought.
Miro Heiskanen – 1 UFA year bought
Mcavoy
Karlsson has been worth his deal for 1 season. Doughty is solid while not being worth the full value of the contract last year. Other years looked upon it worse.
Opinion:
Werenski (injuries), Jones, Burns, Trouba, Chabot overpaid
Fox, Hamilton, Josi slight overpay
Pietro, Sergachev fairly paid
Imo defenceman in general are underpaid and should really get the Left Tackle treatment.
I don’t think we ice a much better roster with Nurse 2 mill cheaper.
Ppl dragged Pietro for years before he joined Vegas’ depth and has been very effective. Nurse is similar. Healthy Ekholm takes off the load as we saw and we see much better (not perfect mind you) Darnell. Bouch should not play elites at the clip 25 does at this time.
Look closer.
Carolina has 4 high end defenders on value contracts…Calgary has 3.
There are many more.
Closer than what. I was looking at the top end of D contracts. Quite literally not at all what you’re talking about.
Haha. Just remember HH called Ilya Mikheyev a top six winger this morning. So take it for what it’s worth. Which, we all know, of course, is very little.
Pretendergast, this is a good post. I hadn’t realized how many overpays there were in total, beyond the four $9M+ contracts at the same time (Hamilton, Werenski, Jones, Nurse). (I thought at the time that only Hamilton was worth it, and I stand by that today.)
The Karlsson deal was terrible on the day it was signed. Doughty was also paid for past performance. Chabot has not lived up to his deal.
All of which make Sanderson, Power, and Dahlin’s recent extensions mystifying. Sanderson had 32 points with even Corsi/Fenwick. (Granted, his xG ratio was strong.) Power had 35 points with a slightly positive Corsi/Fenwick and an abysmal xG ratio. That gets you $8M+? Remember, Tyler Myers won the Calder with Buffalo, and never again repeated his rookie season.
Rasmus Dahlin finished 8th in Norris voting and was extended at $11M per. Can you guess who finished 7th in 2020-21 Norris voting and got extended at $9.25M per? Yes, indeed you can.
I will predict now, for the record, that at least one and probably two of those three contracts will age like Nurse’s. (Ottawa is already in cap hell without having even made the playoffs yet: unable to sign Shane Pinto this year, and facing a $7M (!) raise for Sanderson next year.)
One thing people never bring up is, Nurse’s contract was all UFA years, for an under 30, top pairing dman. As was Hamilton’s. There was no RFA years to discount in it, as there was in Jones, Makar’s, Werenski’s et al. The more the years of UFA, the more it costs. That’s never brought up in his contract discussions in relation to the other contracts signed.
Agreed, the Power extension looks to be a mirror of Sanderson’s as it was signed shortly after. Weirdly enough, I think Sanderson’s the goods and will outperform Chabot, Power, in short order. Watch Ottawa, he’s really that good.
Conspiracy theory would say Chychrun gets usurped on the PP by Sanderson before the end of the year to deflate the next contract. However, DJ Smith has a new owner to impress so decisions like that are probably off the table. New owner isn’t as frugal as the last either.
No idea how Ottawa will manage their cap situation.
I still don’t get how Nurse got that contract. Cap is gonna have to skyrocket for that one to be palatable
Because he wanted Keith and once a player is bona fide in Holland’s eyes he pays them or pays for them full pop plus
He didn’t sign Nurse first who from what I read wanted mid 8’s as his ask (meaning he should have been able to sign him in the low 8’s), Nurse was ready to go. That allowed Bowman to overpay Jones and Kenny got to add an extra million to Nurse’s contract. Which is the player they are missing now
And on and on
I’ve posted this before in the past and now I am riffing off of my poor recall.
Holland signed Chiasson to an ill-advised $2.2m x2 year contract after potting a bunch of goals on the power play. This was right after he bought out Sekera. This was important because the dollars wasted on Chiasson overlapped with when Nurse got bridged.
Holland then signed Kassian to a 4x$3.2m contract right before bridging Nurse. IIRC he scored almost no points in 30 games then was elevated to the top line to play with McDavid before this contract was signed.
The Kassian contract was a few weeks before Nurse was due for a contract. Because there was no cap space left, he was forced to bridge Nurse. $5.6m x 2
Of note Holland later traded down from a 1st and added a 2nd and 3rd round pick to get rid of his contract two years later.
Then Holland traded a 3rd and Caleb jones for Keith at full cap hit. This freed up enough cap for the Blackhawks to sign Jones to a contract that set the market for Nurse.
Seems to have a thing for wingers with size regardless of actual usefulness. Also marginal D it seems
He’s capstrung now because you can’t win a championship apparently without Foegele and Ceci making too much for their roles. So bridged Bouch which will hurt if they keep him
If Bouch is in the plans that was poor strategy. I don’t mind Foegele but he’s not so far been able to contribute one way or another consistently in his career. Guys in his role have to be rocks defensively for me
With the Habs losing Dach and his size on a smaller team to begin with is Lavoie in the conversation for a Kostin-Sammy like deal.
I presume the Habs call-up the 6’4/220 Armia.
Who we getting back ? In that scenario
I understand people are frustrated by the 0-2 start, but I don’t get the rage. The oilers absolutely owned that game. At one point in the third I think the ozone possession time was 15-8 minutes. The only takeaway IMO is goaltending. Nurse is a flawed player no doubt but he’s a damn good dman. He made one serious error and it cost us a goal. Dmen make mistakes.
He made an egregious error (one that would have been a non-event if Foegele didn’t make a more egregious error) but otherwise played a very good hockey game – the Oilers absolutely dominated when he was on the ice.
The verbal on Nurse for the last 40 hours is wild.
I’ve been wanting to say this for a couple days now, Foegele did not make an error, he made a bad shot, I am sure he just wanted to get his shot on net. Nurse made an error choosing to go deep into the zone.
The bad shot was the error – the one thing he cannot do in that situation is miss the net wide on a shot – end stop.
If Nurse doesn’t make his poor decision, that bad shot causes a 2 on 1, not a 2 on 0 – still a terrible play.
That is the crux of it though – the goaltending is making everyone really nervous right now.
This season hinges on Jack Campbell getting it together enough to be an average goalie and Stu Skinner avoiding the sophomore jinx.
Nobody expects them to be Shesterkin but right now we’re just hoping they will give us the kind of goaltending that DeSmith gave the Canucks on Saturday. So far, however, the tandem has just hasn’t given the team those extra 1 or 2 saves that make the difference between winning or losing.
It doesn’t help when your de facto number 1 defenseman has what is becoming an all too frequent brain fart that results in a 2 on 0 the other way. Nurse has to stop wandering out of position, or he’s going to keep leaking high scoring chances.
The whole team is so discombobulated that Woodcroft is resorting to the putting McDrai back together again, just so they can get a win. This reeks of desperation.
The crux of it is that – the team defense, if you can call it that, is making the goaltending very nervous right now.
Regarding your last observation, Woodcroft is resorting to his old and tired goto move because he has absolutely nothing else. Nurse apparently can’t be benched and McDrai play the minutes they want. This doesn’t reek of desperation … it is desperation.
Did you miss the last 2:08 6×5? If you didn’t actually count bodies, it looked like Vancouver had the man advantage, not EDM. This was a chance to tie the game and redeem themselves for past sins, of which there were many. Unacceptable.
The winning goal on Saturday would have been a save by the guy in Vancouver’s net and just about any other goalie who has played games so far in the NHL.
Skinner has been bad so far this season.
Agreed. A.750 save percentage doesn’t cut it. But when your goalie(s) struggle, making little effort to play team defense responsibly isn’t the answer. It’s the problem. One area or the other needs to step up and take the lead. Preferably both.
The Oilers have never been known for playing button down defensive hockey. The occasions when they’ve mastered the discipline (1-0 over the Isles, parts of the 06 run) are such notable outliers that they’re immediately enshrined in the halls of legend and nostalgic (ie fuzzy) memory.
Fuhr, Ranford, CuJo. Those guys had to absolutely stand on their head to thrive with those ‘defence optional’ squads. Watching this team protect a lead is like watching that guy defuse IEDs in the Hurt Locker.
We shouldn’t expect our goalies to provide heroic efforts every night, but when your team is 80% breakout and 20% backcheck, what other option is the fan left with?
That’s not entirely true. The dynasty Oilers didn’t become a dynasty until they played sound defensively. They had the ability to play any type of game their opponent wanted to play.
My take is the 1-0 proved they could do it, but they simply had too much firepower to commit to it on the regular. Trading chances was in that team’s DNA and we all benefitted from it as fans. It was supremely entertaining.
Maybe during the regular season. But in the playoffs their defensive posture was
prevalent. They understood how to win the cup was through solid defense and that’s
how they became the #1 team in the history of the league.
It’s this kind of choice to mentally group an unrelated set of people together that leads to many illogical conclusions beyond this sports one. Racism, sexism, my generation was better because we didn’t have phones, etc.
I feel like I should send you a cheque cos I’m clearly living rent-free in your head.
Should I mover over ?
It’s amusing to me to what lengths people will go to be offended. Yesterday I went out of my way to say ALL generations are being impacted by the deleterious impacts of technology. But the facts on the ground don’t matter when people are bound and determined to infer their own meanings from otherwise obvious communication.
I honestly think this is one of the greatest negative impacts of technology in my lifetime. 90% of human communication is nonverbal (facial gestures, tone of voice, etc), but we’ve locked ourselves into shortform text modes of communication that almost completely eliminate those visual and auditory cues. It’s frankly amazing to me to how often I see people misinterpreting the literal interpretation in favour of an inferred meaning that is clearly projected from their own personal bias. It’s exceedingly easy to spot when you’re viewing it from the pov of an unbiased third party. Sad.
Is there any cogent reason the above observation needs to devolve into a polarized generation gap war? None that I can see but you can rest assured it probably will.
It has created a culture of victimhood.
Many are easily offended because they want to be…somehow it validates them.
Yes, and there is no generation unaffected by it.
It is amazing how much conflict disappears when people stop in their efforts to be morally superior and just look to have fun and a sense of humor.
That’s funny. LOL.
You sound like Neil Postman.
“there is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.”
“One characteristic of those who live in a Technopoly is that they are largely unaware of both the origins and the effects of their technologies.”
― Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
So I want to preface this by saying that I was unable to watch most of the game on Saturday, and this comment is not specifically related to Skinner’s performance that night or any discussion around it.
One criticism I’ve seen a lot of people levying at the goaltending recently (both here and elsewhere) is that the goaltenders “need to sometimes make a save they shouldn’t”. It was particularly prevalent on Wednesday and Thursday as a response/argument against people who primarily blamed the drubbing on the defensive play.
The thing is, even looking at the season opener on Wednesday, I can remember a couple of instances that both Campbell and Skinner made exactly those kind of saves.
It seems to me that people often really only notice/remember those kind of saves when it leads to the team winning, and otherwise they get buried and forgotten under the negativity and emotions of a bad loss.
Reality is, even if your ‘tenders make say 2 or 3 of those saves in a game, if you’re giving up 6, 8, 10 of those kind of scoring chances you’re not going to be having a good time regardless unless your offence manages to outgun the other team, something the Oilers are (perhaps to their long term detriment at times) capable of pulling off when the offence is up and firing.
To be clear, I’m not saying the goaltending should be free of criticism right now, (far from it) just that this specific criticism tends to be too goalpost moving to make a productive point of discussion.
Thats not really true though when you look at the stats. Skinner has the lowest High Danger Save percentage in the league, making 1 save on 7 High Danger shots (.143) across 90 minutes.
The next lowest is Samsonov in Toronto with a .571 across 122 minutes.
Campbell is next with 5 saves on 7 high danger shots in 27 minutes (.714) although his 5v5 save percentage is second lowest in the league at only .500.
I highly doubt that Skinner will stay at that HDSV % all year, same with Campbell. On the plus side, Skinner’s Medium danger save percentage is 1.000, (10 for 10) but his LOW danger save percentage is also low, with only 8 saves on 10 shots.
We know that low danger saves should total around .920-.940 by the end of the year, Medium danger shows that Skinner is still capable of making those saves, but there are either concentration lapses, technical issues and a good dose of bad luck in the first two games. Either way, when your goalie only makes 1 high danger save across two games, its fair to say that you should hang at least one loss on them, while accepting that Stu is not likely to perform at this level all season.
* Should clarify that Campbell ranks 36th / 48 for overall High danger save %. He’s 47th/48 at 5v5*
QE, but no D
(poetic license on the latin)
So . . . . . . small sample size alert?
Campbell had difficulty last season with lower-difficulty shots and tips. This season he’s off to a similar start. If he’s league average in tips and lower difficulty saves, it will go a long way.
Thank you for this – I have asked this question many times. From what I understand, Dustin S. is quite highly regarded and there are non-Oiler goalies that have worked with him in the off-season (i.e. Carter Hart).
Also, from what I understand, a material part of the goalie coach’s job is with regard to scouting the opposition team’s goalie and providing intel for his skaters. The Oilers usually score, although seemingly are prone to making the DeSmith’s of the world look like Demko’s.
Oilers fandom seems enraged with the new lines at practice this morning:
Kane-McDavid-Draisaitl
Foegele-RNH-Hyman
Holloway-McLeod-Brown
Erne-Janmark-Ryan
Ekholm-Bouchard
Nurse-Ceci
Kulak-Broberg
Desharnais
—————————–
I will say that I am less than enthused but, at the same time, “lets see what comes out of the gate tomorrow night”, right?
Woody does love to play games and its not unusual to have practice lines that don’t resemble the lines that start the game.
I’m not sure many that will agree with the McDavid/Drai together, including me.
I am fine with Foegele up and Brown down but, if Foegele is up, should he not play with Drai (and w/o McDavid) given they have sneaky good results together over time?
Swap Hyman and Drai and I’m all over this.
Doesn’t swapping Hyman and Drai give you Kane and Hyman together, which you’ve previously been against?
Yes, it does, and, yes, I have but I’d rather see that set up than what was rolled out at practice.
I can’t get everything I want.
This configuration is pretty good.
McDavid + Draisaitl together are greater than the sum of their parts.
I don’t agree that they are better together than the sum of their parts and, in fact, quite the opposite.
I have found, over the years, that there will often be a dynamic offensive bump when they get put together but that goes away fairly quickly and defensive issue come up.
I would rather have two separate lines that can drive 55% plus goal share than one that can drive around 60%
Oil fans: WOODCROFT NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING!!
Woodcroft: *does something
Oil fans: NO NOT THAT, WHY IS HE PANICKING??!!
It’s exhausting.
At this rate, 80’s fans would be clamouring for Gretzky to break up Kurri to have more depth.
It might be because of Draisaitl’s success scoring against the Preds. Put him with McDavid and there could be fireworks.
Of possible concern are the contracts that have been handed out to our top-6 wingers.
Evander Kane – contract expires in 2026. Has declined in the last 18 months.
Zach Hyman – contract expires in 2028. Had a phenomenal season last, but just turned 31.
RNH – contact expires in 2029. Still a core player now on a value contract, but that may not be the case in 4 years.
Connnor Brown – contract expires in 2024 … full tax is paid in ’24-’25. Is he more than a 3rd liner?
It’s not to say that our top-6 wingers aren’t good … it’s that they’re more likely to be flat-lining on a downward trajectory. Perhaps Holloway or Bourgault grab their spots, but wing may need a boost going into the playoffs. Again.
Hence ‘Cup or Bust.’ The players know as well as anyone where the performance curves lead for aging players. That’s why the opportunity cost of losing to VGK last year was massive. There’s no Jagr bubbling under to eventually replace Super Mario here.
Bring Bill Ranford Back!
…as a goalie coach
Holland went all in on a goalie betting that his recent stretches of poor play were an anomaly and backed him up with a rookie last year. The bet rolled snake eyes and the rookie saved their absolute butts.
Hockey is 90% goalie, unless you don’t have one. In which case it’s 100% goalie. Holland played his riskiest bets at the most important position. When you do that and it pays off, you look like a genius and you get your praises sung on Sunday mornings. But if your bet goes sour, it can undo almost any other good you might have done.
I know even less about goalie coaching than I do about goalies, which is already so close to nothing that I have to assume that what I know about goalie coaching actually has negative value.
But I do know that Holland went all in before seeing the flop and now we’re left hoping he hits on the turn or the river and I’m not sure coaching the cards are going to make much difference once they’ve been played. So the season hangs on hoping one hits. It does and this team can make hay. It doesn’t… well then Edmonton is going to be a tense town to be in this winter.
This is a great post.
Easy to forget how improbable Skinner’ s success was last year….
Regarding Schwartz, Woodguy is correct as usual that we need to look at the players they are bringing in.
But I guess the question is: Does Schwartz improve the goalies we bring in?
I won’t list all of the goalies since he’s been here from November 2014 (Fasth! Bachman! Montoya!) but if you look at the “main” goalies:
– Scrivens
– Brossoit
– Talbot
– Koskinen
– Smith
– Skinner
– Campbell
Sure feels like once these guys got the yips, they weren’t able to recover, at least on the Oilers. And then you have Mike Smith who had his own goalie coach which just fans the flames.
So is this pressure from playing in Edmonton? Crap defence corpse? Lousy hunter orange jerseys?
Oilers fans were spoiled for choice for goalies for a long time, but it’s been since Roloson that we really had a goalie who could steal games. First season of Talbot was probably the closest to Roli.
We have no proof whatsoever that Schwartz has anything to do with anything, other than the team obviously values him since he’s been here for 9 years throughout coaching and management changes.
But the Oilers have not had an impressive goaltending performance for more than 1 season per goalie, and Schwartz is the only common variable there. The fear of Oilers fans after Skinner dropped the ball in the playoffs is that he won’t be able to recover and we will have to hope for Campbell to figure it out.
Scrivens was on the horrible Eakins’ teams.
Brossoit and Talbot where McLellan’ed. Talbot overplayed (worn down by overwork), and Brossoit underplayed.(always coming in off a long layoff0.
Koskinen and Smith played to their abilities. Koskinen was a quality backup. He was only bad when overplayed.
Skinner was a Calder candidate in his rookie year.
The Oilers are prone to egregious team defensive errors that are challenging for any goaltender over that entire era.
Good post LT. Parkatti gave a great preso on goaltending in 2020 at lunchalytics. I guarantee you he wouldnt have ok’d the Campbell contract. The Nurse one was probably unavoidable (despite being 2m over) and the Foegle one isnt a major error with him being UFA at the end of the season.
In terms of value contracts, its possible the Kane injury will unfortunately change the outcome there. Still early on the season but he hasnt been the same since the injury imo.
You can be mad at the goalies and the goalie coach.
But Team Defense to date will make anyone in net look inadequate.
Too many grade A chances from Grade A spots for today’s sharp shooters armed with carbon sticks.
Box out the crease and give your G some eyes.
Don’t wait for the shot while screening your G
Cut out the poorly timed pinches.
Cover the slot
Your mileage may vary you say, but 3 – 1/4 for a guy who plays 1st pairing is not a killer.
I’m not saying he should play 1st pairing minutes, but he’s the only RHD on this roster that isn’t totally overwhelmed. I just wish he’d hit the net from the point and create chaos from the rebound.
Both the stats and the eye test say it was the goalie on Saturday. Sure, the D zone coverage could be better, and that 2-0 was ghastly. But guess what, Vancouver gave up significantly more high danger chances against but still won the game. Our goalies need to make a save they shouldn’t even once in awhile, because most other goalies in the league do. I bet we can count on one hand the number of games our goalies stole for us last year. In an ideal world the team makes zero mistakes defensively, but that just isn’t how hockey works.
It’s true, one can imagine Adin Hill on the Oilers.
I believe the Canucks had six Grade A chances that game to 16 for the Oilers.
I think the Cult had it 21-6.
Great game last night between Ottawa and TBL. Korpisalo !!! BTW, Ziggy is the bomb.
I spent the weekend in Montreal at my nephew’s wedding. Did not watch the game. Apparently they played better but mistakes cost them. But the goalie needs to bail out a couple of mistakes, otherwise a shooter-tutor is cheaper and as (in)effective.
I am tired of these guys taking 20 regular season games to get their shit together. They talk the talk then fail……. I would sit Nurse and Bouchard for the first period. Tell them to watch so they are ready if they get a shift. The dude has no situational awareness. How do you pinch and leave two Canucks behind you……. Like that is squirt level incompetence. He wears an A, that means he is supposed to be a leader. Lead or get the hell out of the way.
Holland should have traded Nurse as soon as it became clear that he wanted the Jones contract with a full NMC. Paying a 2nd pairing defenseman, first pairing money is just bad business. And the coaching staff holds him to exactly zero accountability … because you can’t press box your 9.25 million dollar defenseman.
That and the Campbell signing has undone a lot of other good moves that Holland has made.
Holland’s not totally to blame of course – Klefbom’s career-ending injuries made it an impossible choice to walk Nurse out the door. The Campbell signing is looking more and more indefensible though … signing a mediocre goalie for too much for too long. If Campbell doesn’t turn it around, Jackson is going to have to buy him out next summer.
You look at the other teams considered contenders, and they all have at least one of the the two most important ingredients for winning it all – a dependable all-situations stud defenseman and a top goalie.
Depressing start to the season, losing in a way that exposes all of our team’s weaknesses.
The OIlers let Nurse get them over a barrel by signing him to transition deals twice.
Nurse bet on himself, and won the timing lottery, when the market reset the year before he was slated to become a UFA.
Holland had no choice but to sign Nurse, because the defense would have been gutted without Nurse, with no quick fix possible. Not signing Nurse would likely have elicited behind closed doors trade requests from McDavid and Draisaitl.
The Oilers would have been a dead team walking.
Nurse is already 15% below the top of the market for equivalent contracts.
Klefbom and Sekera injuries really messed things up. Nurse had a peak offensive season in his contract year. The rest is history.
I don’t disagree that Holland had no choice but to sign Nurse.
I still hate the contract – Nurse is not the all-situations stud that other teams considered contenders have, but he is sure is getting paid like one. He’s a second pairing defenseman with great tools but without the hockey sense to process the game well.
The coaches have failed to reign him in – is that on the coaches or is the player simply too stubborn to play a more risk averse game?
While the cap rises, the contract will seem more reasonable but that will be countered by Nurse’s inevitable age-base decline.
Nurse is an elite skater. The main culpritsin age related decline is in hands and in skating.and in accumulated injuries.
Holland did not need to sign Nurse when he did. Nurse was just coming off a season where he had 16 goals in 56 games with an unusually high shooting percentage. Werenski and Seth Jones had just signed big contracts. Holland had no leverage at that time. I would have taken the chance and waited, rather than signing him a full year before his contract was due.
What trade value does Nurse have? If he is traded does that mean 97 and 29 will be gone?
yes
This is likely correct and why at the earliest any possible discussion by management of trading Nurse needs to be held in check until both Connor and Leon have signed extensions.
Unfortunately, the only way you’re able to trade Nurse at this point is to attach a sweetener like Drai.
Nurse has a full NMC until 2027 and one of the top 10 worst contracts in the league.
He’s not going anywhere.
Your underestimating Edmonton and it’s talent of running players willingly to the airport.
No doubt the Nurse contract is bad and may be untradable, but not sure about top 10 bad. How about:
Skinner
Ekman-Larsson
Huberdeau
Binnington
Benn
Seguin
Johansen
Anderson
Bobrovsky
Vlasic
Tavares
Backstrom
Some reasonably good players on the list, but I’d take Nurse and his contract over any of the above. Unfortunately if Campbell can’t turn the corner, his contract may end up being worse than Nurse’s.
A few of the contracts you mentioned are no longer valid.
For example. OEL is playing in Florida for $2.25 million, Johansen is a $4 million second line centre in Colorado.
But Nurse is considered one of the worst.
https://theathletic.com/4690343/2023/07/26/nhl-worst-contracts-jones-parayko-huberdeau/?source=user_shared_article
Nurse has NEVER had an actual regular partner with legit top-4D credentials.
He has taken on the toughest minutes, mostly with inexperienced D, mobility-addled D, defensively challenged D,
So he’s a second pairing d-man who can’t elevate the play of his partner.
That’s not an excuse.
He has elevated the play of every partner, except Bouchard, who cannot really handle the toughest match ups (yet).
Schwartz seems highly respected by the Oilers and the goalies he works with. No clue if it’s unfounded.
I agree, the guy(s) paid to stop the puck aren’t stopping the puck. For a team who’s competitive edge is offense, in today’s NHL that means ‘higher event’ hockey. You need a goalie that can calm the waters more than say a trap team to play that way.
We want the coach to help the team play to their strengths. Do we want Bouchard to be better along the wall? Sure, but expecting him to be Shea Weber is a recipe for disaster.
They’ll figure it out, actually think Vancouver is better than people seem to be willing to give credit for. Pettersson looks great and Hughes is a ‘pisscutter’.
We wait.
Not mentioned but Vancouver was playing without top 6 forward Ilya Mikayev, top 4D Carson Soucy and offseason acquisition Teddy Blueger who is an elite penalty killer.
Let’s be clear. Casey Desmith stole that last game. They’re better than given credit, let’s not hand the cup to them though. That’s for LA or Dallas or Colorado or Vegas or or or.
No one suggested they are cup contenders…nor are the Kings IMO.
Dallas, Colorado and Vegas certainly are.
Not LA. You can be pretty sure of that.
The Oilers are going to have to pay Evan Bouchard like Shea Weber, so he better start playing like Shea Weber in the D-zone
It is extremely ill-advised to pay for a defenseman’s offense if it doesn’t come with at least average defending.
Evan Bouchard has 162 games left to play (plus playoffs) on his current deal.
I would suggest that most NHL d-men show improvement between the ages of 23 and 25.