The St. Louis Blues had the most interesting early history among the six 1967 expansion teams. The organization made it to the Stanley Cup final three times in a row out of the box, gave Scotty Bowman his first NHL head coaching job, gave the world the mighty mighty goaltending tandem of Glenn Hall-Jacques Plante, and employed future highly successful coaches Al Arbour, Red Berenson and Terry Crisp (among others). Frank St. Marseille might have started as a hockey player sending resumes, but enjoyed a fairly long and productive career considering he was 27 when he played his first NHL games. Vincent Desharnais was about the same age when he arrived as an NHL player. Finding hockey players good enough for the NHL involves lots and lots of looking, and lots of experienced scouts viewing. I do think math plays a part in the modern evaluation. That’s important, and central to my article today at The Athletic (link below).
THE ATHLETIC!
- New Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers enter spring signing season under pressure
- DNB: Goals aren’t coming for Connor McDavid. He’s helping the Oilers more than ever
- Lowetide: Oilers’ Connor Brown and what’s next in his unusual season
- DNB: Oilers desperate to return to winning ways after dreadful loss to Flames
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers top prospect Xavier Bourgault is stalling in the AHL
- New DNB: The Flames are shopping Chris Tanev. Do the Oilers have what it takes to get him?
- Lowetide: How can Brad Holland and Oilers pro scouts impact trade deadline?
- New DNB: Why the Oilers shouldn’t trade Warren Foegele before the NHL trade deadline
- Lowetide: Why this Oilers-Bruins 4-player trade makes sense for both teams
- New DNB: Why a scoring winger should be the Oilers’ top trade deadline priority
- Lowetide: Where can the Edmonton Oilers improve their draft strategy in 2024?
- Lowetide: What are the Edmonton Oilers’ 5 biggest trade deadlines ever?
- Lowetide: Breaking down the Oilers’ 50-man list at the trade deadline
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers top 20 prospects ranking, winter 2023
WHAT TO EXPECT IN FEBRUARY
- On the road to: VEG, ANA, LAK (Expected 2-1-0) (Actual 1-2-0)
- At home to: DET (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 1-0-0)
- On the road to: STL, DAL, ARI (Expected 1-1-1) (Actual 2-1-0)
- At home to: BOS, MIN, CAL, LAK, STL (Expected 3-2-0) (Actual 1-2-1)
- Overall expected result: 7-4-1, 15 points in 12 games
- Actual February results: 5-5-1, 11 points in 11 games
- Oilers in 2023-24: 34-20-2, 70 points in 56 games
Vegas Golden Knights won last night (thanks Toronto!) but the Calgary Flames beat the LAK. So, as of this morning, Edmonton trails VGK by three points with three games in hand. The Oilers are ahead of the Kings by two points with two games in hand. Considering how weird February turned out, this is a solid position.
50-MAN (37)
My article in The Athletic today discusses spring signing season and some of the available names. Edmonton is in good position in several areas, even though the organization has been saved only by its scouting staff (a staff that gets little attention).
The goaltending is the prime example. Ken Holland spent $5 million times five on Jack Campbell, but the position was saved by Stuart Skinner (third-round pick) and Olivier Rodrigue (second-round pick) is pushing. Oilers scouts get maligned and run through the shredder at each chime of the clock, but there is much good in the years 2011+.
On defense, many gold coins were spent on Darnell Nurse, Evan Bouchard and Philip Broberg. Two of the three are established top-four NHL defenseman and the third is waiting in line for the opportunity. The scouts found Max Wanner, Vincent Desharnais and Mike Kesselring, among others.
I think the new manager will need to shore up RH defense, and that may include allowing Desharnais to walk. I suspect his free-agent number will surprise many, as Desharnais is a unique talent.
Up front, Edmonton drafted some stunning talent at the top of the draft (Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) but the scouts also found Ryan McLeod in the second round and several depth picks are playing skill positions in Bakersfield. If even one of them cashes, music!
Finally, the amateur scouts helped in acquiring Mattias Ekholm and other acquisitions over the last few seasons. Those scouts will likely see some more young talent heading out the door in exchange for Pavel Buchnevich or Chris Tanev.
CONDORS
The Condors play tonight, here are the point totals for the prospects in Bakersfield over the most recent 10 games.
- Raphael Lavoie 10, 4-3-7
- Tyler Tullio 8, 3-1-4
- Carter Savoie 10, 2-1-3
- Jayden Grubbe 6, 1-1-2
- Max Wanner 10, 0-2-2
- Philip Broberg 3, 0-1-1
- Matvey Petrvov 5, 0-0-0
- Xavier Bourgault 10, 0-0-0
- Olivier Rodrigue 5, .920SP, 2.85 4-1-0 record
KEVIN O’SHEA
One year, when I was a kid, I needed a Danny O’Shea hockey card and kept getting more and more Kevin O’Shea hockey cards. You’d buy a pack of hockey cards, race through the cards one by one and I swear to you Kevin O’Shea was in almost every package. Whenever I see the Blues logo, I think of Kevin O’Shea. He saw plenty of my bicycle spokes that next spring and summer.
Lowdown hits the Sports 1440 radio at noon today. Guests include Bruce McCurdy from the Cult of Hockey at the Edmonton Journal, and we’ll have another installment of Dunkin’ with Declan. We’ll preview the St. Louis Blues (we’ll have a Blues guest) and talk about the Flames helping the Oilers last night. Will the Flames do it again with a Tanev trade? You can reach me at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section or on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly.
Grubbe took 2, 5, 10 and 10 midway through the second period in a fight with Kirkland (who only took 5) Anybody see what happened to have 22 minutes difference?
I didn’t see it but read Grubbe jumped him right off the faceoff. Curious what led to that as well.
So Buchnevich, eh?
Dallas acquires Tanev at double retention for a song and HH doesn’t check in to gloat?
Is HH in time out again?
If you’re wondering how we lost out on Tanev, this person Twitter won the internet today.
https://twitter.com/CrudeOil4Life/status/1763067983877050398/photo/1
That’s good
No it’s absurd, AsiaOil is correct.
Tanev has a modified NTC. So if he didn’t want to come and/or Conroy didn’t want to trade – then it doesn’t matter what Holland did or didn’t do.
Janus
I don’t doubt for a minute that McDavid will take over the scoring lead by season’s end. With Hyman now second in the Rocket Richard race, (although still 12 back of Matthews) it would surely make me smile if he continued his assault and actually passed Matthews by season’s end as well… all of Toronto would lose their minds! Dare to dream…
Same, without a doubt he wins the scoring race. 5 games in hand is absolutely at least 10 points for McD, which would put him at 105 right now. Plus you’ve got the PP clicking again and Hyman is going to be on a mission to hit 50+.
Sorry, 4 games on Nate, 2 on Kuch. Was looking at GP.
Baby Nuge had a great game. He makes very quick decisions and seems to thrive on having at least one other player to play pitch and catch with in the O zone. Janmark does that well. Holloway seems to think the game quick/smart too and I would like to see him get more time with Nuge and Kane.
The shortie break-away takeaway is probably one of the greatest defensive plays you’ll see all year.
I didn’t expect to see Kane out there in overtime after he embarrassed himself at 3 on 3 last week.
But alas he saw the ice, lost his man and the race up the ice, missed breaking up the back-door tap-in (luckily so did the opponent) Then turns up on offense, misses receiving the pass from Nuge, but recovers along the wall, makes a pass and turns it over….4 shit plays in a row and then goes for a change.
Agreed. Kane should not be out 3 on 3 unless he starts skating better. Could still be injury, but he gets exposed on the open ice
On a side note how bad GM is Craig Conroy going to be?? Seems to be Chiarelli esque mixed in with some old boys club. Tries to sell
not getting a first by pumping up a prospect with zero offensive upside. Must of been desperate to not trade him to Edmonton
Let the hats fly, Griffith and Lavoie on a 2 on 1 – give and pass back and one-timer!
7-1 with 5 to go.
4 points each for Lavoie and Griffith.
38 saves for Jack.
No way to get him back until the playoffs (maybe slight chance the last week) but he’s our depth and just as good as Jake Allen or Fluery who are both sub .900
Panarin has sick puck skills
Scorss an EN from the D zone, all the puck hits is twine. Who does that?
So Tanev is gone with price in the range of expected. I see no obvious Ceci upgrades unless Holland can somehow shoehorn Pesce into the lineup (why would CAR trade him?) or Parayko (salary and term are both a problem). The only way I could see CAR trading Pesce is if they know he will walk in the summer for free and they want to get ahead of that. A decent replacement (Ceci) and another asset might be appealing in that case.
Even spending assets on a guy like Bogosian is problematic. Where would he play? What does he upgrade? Same issue with any of the other likely available RHD like Dumba. I’ve gone through the league a dozen times and don’t see an obvious answer to the Ceci upgrade question.
So for me, focus should shift to 2RW (Tank) and bottom 6 RHC (Dowd). Campbell is our insurance in goal sine I don’t see any obvious upgrades there either.
I saw some Sens and Tank was not impressive. Not what he was anymore. If it was cheap enough maybe
Dowd is a no brainer. I agree there is no realistic D upgrade now. I think Holland does like the D as he said a while ago, Bro currently still his depth
It’s probably Henrique if Holland can work it. I think they feel they need more offense up front, he’s more productive than Dowd who is better defensively, and adds a C
Well if you can send Janmark back in a Dowd trade it’s almost cap neutral. Dowd can replace Janmark on the PK. He’s injured though (concussion?) so hard to know what’s going on. Teams will spend so much effort shutting down the McDavid and Drai lines that it might make sense to beef up scoring on L3.
They don’t even need to send Janmark back – if they wanted to, the could waive and assign him to the Condors – he’d be some sort of pissed but that’s neither here nor there.
You’ve adroitly enumerated my outlook very effectively.
I wonder if Connor knew there was no Binnington behind where he hit his jersey
Kemp to Lavoie who crosses the line, to Griffith who is allowed to walk in to the circles and a seeing eye shot makes it 6-1.
X
Condors cycle it around on a delayed penalty call, Berglund finds Bourgault in the high slot and it finds its way through Dylan Wells and Bourgault FINALLY gets off the schniede!
Dylan Wells.
Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time…
Ahahahahaha El Capitan is off the schnide.
Now we’re gonna roll, roll, roll.
Loved the outcome but didn’t love the OT. Skinner had to make some tough saves. Blues were winning face offs and getting possession. Not crazy about Kane out there in OT.
He’s not fast enough
And yet he had a key defensive play in front of the net, and again along the boards immediately after.
Im not saying he’s a bad player, but they were a hair off a two on one as well because he takes a while to get up to speed
He could sure move when he wanted that empty net goal and hatrick! He was a blur.
Heh heh
Nah dude he let the pass thru on that play…got lucky, then missed a pass, regained possession and turned it over again.
Back to back really solid games from Skinner.
Managing fatigue and energy levels is key but he is not being overplayed – he was in a slump for 2-3 weeks, as pretty much all goalies go through a few times a year – he’s heating back up for the stretch run.
Picks on Sat afternoon and Skinner on Sun night.
Holloway was the nemesis of the Blue’s dmen tonight. He played a hard, simple game.
I hope they are coaching him actively. He is never not noticeable. And that speed with size
He could be a game changing type, not necessarily by goals
Coach just sent him a memo “play like Hyman”
Yup
Reminds me of the old Slats story… one of our lesser lights got his bell rung in mid game (this was before concussion protocols IIRC), and Slats asked the doc if the player knew his own name… told the doc to tell him he’s Wayne Gretzky.
Shaun Van Allen, and not Slats, but Teddy Green…still an excellent story. That team was in the early 90’s, after the suck started…so tough to watch.
He worked hard again tonight and was putting himself in good positions when he didn’t have the puck. It seems to be coming together for him. Loved him up the lineup, too.
can’t help but stare at the first dangle McD makes around the forward on entry into the zone for the goal. It’s offensively close/tight to the stick check like, ya I’m doing this on purpose just to embarrass you this much more. No other player would do that.
Bouchard made that period interesting to say the least.
The best play of the game goes to the Nuge. The backcheck on the PP possibly saved a goal
Thomas slowing down to allow Nuge to make that play made it very satisfying.
Nuge lurking in his blindspot before making the back check and stick lift is supremely satisfying.
Check.
Mate.
9pts back of Kucherov suddenly lol
The patience with the puck of Ekholm set that all up for McDavid.
He hasn’t been peak Viking, but I still think he’s our best D
It was good to see him in OT.
Pretty sure that marker ties Connor with Wayne for most points in the month of February.
OK, but was it a leap year when 99 did it?
Which time?
Binnington played that odd. 2 points!
We’re not worthy!
That really was a fluffy one too.
Right wrist?
Yup
Condor McDavid flying high with the game winner!
I don’t see him spending much time with the AHL affiliate…..
Woosh
BOOM!!! Oh Captain my Captain!!! GWG!!!
Skinner with a very good game.
Claps for a Connor McDavid OT winner!!
Skinner was absolutely spectacular for the last 59 minutes of that hockey game!!
Oh thank God for Connor!!!!!
He just didn’t want to score unless they absolutely made him
And the drought is over
huzzah!!
So he CAN still score goals!!!!
See what happens?? FFS…
That shoulda been over so long ago.
Leon is playing weird, started in the 3rd. Not doing anything and also not getting anywhere helpful to get set up
Too many passes, shoot the puck.
D Zone Coverage not really a priority tonight
Very well deserved point.
Binnington has been a key part in the Oilers now gaining the lead but Skinner came back with a couple key saves when the Oilers got loose for about 3-minutes.
For all but the first 5 minutes, and those loose 3 minutes, the Oilers were the clear superior team.
Would love to see Lavoie in the Perry role
He would have to slow down and show no interest in all but the O zone.
Not exactly the lock down 3 rd period we were hoping for…. OT coming.
And Bouchard may be playing the most high risk high reward game I’ve ever seen
Yikes. Doesn’t seem to be sensing when he’s under pressure
Turnover and STL chance caused by McDavid not shooting.
Seriously – is he broken?
Jezuz h #2 is at it again. Weak ass one and done stick swing at the blue line.
Lavoie gets the puck on the rush, enters the zone, tries to go wide, cuts inside at the circles and wrists home the 4-1.
Now would be a good time for the forwards to get back to going in front with timing for a tip or something
Other things not currently working
Followed up by Foegele giving it away
Nurse killed the forecheck by holding it way too long