This verbal is over 15 years old, coming up on 16 years. The four men involved in this series of paragraphs have played a total of 4,780 NHL games. The two Oilers have posted 992 points, Phil Kessel has posted 992 points. All four have enjoyed solid to outstanding careers, with just one waiting for Stanley. Samwise. I fear Gagner fans will have their heartts broken this week, as it’s likely the veteran gets demoted. He can be recalled for the playoffs, and I expect he would get his name on the Cup. That’s different than contributing to one. I hope he gets the chance.
THE ATHLETIC
- New Lowetide: Which under-the-radar Oilers prospect could be traded before the NHL deadline?
- New DNB: How Calvin Pickard has affirmed his spot on the Oilers
- Lowetide: Is Edmonton Oilers prospect Raphael Lavoie a tweener?
- Lowetide: What’s the ideal deployment for Edmonton Oilers’ Evander Kane?
- Lowetide and DNB: Who says no? Evaluating 20 of your Edmonton Oilers trade proposals
- 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 MARCH
- On the road to: SEA (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 1-0-0)
- At home to: PIT (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 1-0-0)
- On the road to: BOS, CBJ, BUF, PIT (Expected 2-1-1) (Actual 0-0-0)
- At home to: WAS, COL, MON, BUF (Expected 2-1-1) (Actual 0-0-0)
- On the road to: TOR, OTT, WPG (Expected 1-2-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- At home to: LAK, ANA (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- Overall expected result: 8-5-2, 18 points in 15 games
- Actual March results: 2-0-0, 4 points in two games
- Oilers in 2023-24: 37-20-2, 76 points in 59 games
The Oilers have a legit chance to put the Golden Knights on blast, and must keep winning to hold off the Rasputin of the Pacific Division (the Kings). Edmonton is three points up on the desert dogs with three games in hand, that’s a nice neighbourhood. Edmonton is four points up on the Kings, but have just one game in hand. Nine points behind Vancouver with four games in hand. Put that one way for now, we’ll revisit after the ides of March if it’s still a thing.
POSSIBLE OILERS AFTER THE DEADLINE
Warren Foegele and the 2024 first-round pick are gone, along with a depth pick from 2020-something. Philip Broberg is waiting in Bakersfield for a recall and we’ll see how the second and third pair are populated between now and opening night of the playoffs. I tried to get Nic Dowd on there too, but based on reported prices I felt it might be a bridge too far. I got my key target, Tyler Toffoli. There’s $179,819 that would need to be retained by another team.
CONDORS
I wrote a piece on Sunday (published Monday) about this year’s Mike Kesselring and received quite a bit of feedback. For the record, I’m not writing Xavier Bourgault off, but it would be unwise to deal him at this time. Consider the offensive performances by Edmonton’s prospects in Bakersfield who are in their entry deals:
- Tyler Tullio 10, 2-2-4
- Max Wanner 10, 0-3-3
- Jayden Grubbe 6, 1-1-2
- Carl Berglund 6, 1-1-2
- Carter Savoie 7, 1-1-2
- Xavier Bourgault 10, 1-0-1
- Matvey Petrov 3, 0-0-0
- Noel Hoefenmayer 5, 0-0-0
- Philip Broberg 1, 0-0-0
For me, a player like Bourgault needs to survive this season (he got hurt last night) and get stronger over the summer. All of the young wingers have a tough time with board work, but Grubbe is already there as a difference maker in that area. Max Wanner is helping the outscoring, playing a rugged game and even posted some crooked numbers on offense. He has 16 shots in the last 10 games. Bourgault has 10 in the last 10 games. So, excluding Bourgault from that list was based purely on the reality of his recent performances. I think he was an astute pick, but is not trending in a good way. This is not the time to trade the man.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A fun day with plenty to discuss on the Lowdown. Daniel Nugent-Bowman at The Athletic is our feature guest and we’ll also chat some MLB and NFL (you won’t believe what happened yesterday!). 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.
Bob mentioned during the intermission that the Oilers currently have $3M+ in deadline cap space. He also mentioned that they were hoping/expecting to add without subtracting anyone of note from the roster.
That’s good news.
$3M in cap space is also good news.
According to Cap Friendly the Oilers would have $3.1M in space with Gagner assigned and a 20-man roster (that checks out).
If we follow that forward, if the Oilers were to add 3 players at the deadline it would replace Gagner and knock 2 more Oilers off the roster (maintaining a 21-man roster like they’ve been running with for some time now).
If we add the salary of those 2 Oilers knocked off the roster (I’m guessing Holloway due to being waiver exempt and Brown because no explanation needed) that would leave the team able to add a shade more than $4.8M between now and Friday.
I know many folks would kinda like to remove Ceci and/or Foegele from the roster, but it’s really not necessary.
They could add Tofolli at 50% and Carrier at 50% and still have about $1.47M left to add a 3rd player.
Pretty sure that’s correct, and I’m very interested to see what actually happens this week.
I get more of a kick out of this team
than any other team
in a long time
the way
they take us all
on these win streaks
over and over again.
I’m not clear on why my posts are being flagged as spam??? This one is the 3rd in 2 days. Nothing about my posts are spam or even spam-like. I’m an Oilers fan.
Reverse psychology 101 kids 👌
Bouchard is coming on like Paul freaking Coffey 2.0
What can be done with Nurse? Right now he’s playing great invisible hockey.
Message to Boston and others:
Play toe to toe with the Oilers and find out who’s top 3 players take over the game.
Biggest Game of 2024 so far:
By mirroring Boston Bruins over a 2 game series; Oilers prove they know how to finally play the Bruins at hockey.
Bruins:
6-5ot
Oilers:
2-1ot
They continued to “stick with it”, continued with the structure, didn’t cheat for offence the entire game and even after they went down and the clock kept ticking.
They eventually got that goal, as they tend to do!
Great work by the 18 skaters, the goalie and the staff!
On ice leadership, by example.
Simple hockey with a veteran team. Thank heavens the move was made before the clan of hyenas could pounce.
Evan Bouchard-san
Feeds Conner McDavid-san
Draisaitl-san snipes!
Bouchard’s got 60
McDavid says Hi Gretzky
Draisaitl Booty
Determined effort
Nuge, two hundred foot wizard
Connor! Leon! Yay!
Well tonight cements my feelings that you trade Ceci for a top 6 winger and cap space (something like Tank @ 50% retained). That nets you $750,000 in cap and fills a gap in the top 6. Ceci has real value as a top 4 RHD. Then go get a 4/5 guy like Carrier to play with Kulak and add a 4C like Dowd. We should be able to fit those guys with little or no additional retention.
Great win but Ceci simply cannot make that mistake in the 3rd period of an important game against an elite team. You probably lose 2-0 in the playoffs 8 times out of 10 after that kind of mistake.
I think you’d need a 3rd team involved, not sure Staios bites unless he can parlay Ceci.
But yes, Tank would be an incredible add.
I would love to see these two teams in a Stanley Cup Final.
McDavid will have 100 assists by the end of the month.
How much to get McCann???
The fancies may say differently, by it felt like the majority of BOS big chances were on the PP. 5 on 5 we were good.
It was not a coincidence that Perry comes out and slams Marchand after Marchand tries to lay a big hit on McDavid.
That Perry is crafty.
That type of gamesmanship is what has been missing from this team.
The “TD” in TD Garden should stand for “Thanks, Draisaitl!”.
Good one!
This had the look of one of those 20 games that they were gonna lose no matter what… then they won anyway. This team is pretty alright.
I’m going to start calling the coach. Coach Win Streak, only loses so he’s not known as Coach knows it all. Not sure how he doesn’t get Jack Adams consideration.
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat!!!
What an exhilarating display!! #Goilers
Gutsy win against a very good team.
Took the Bruins a really long time to get tired tonight..
LEON YOU HOT BITCH!
Also, NUGE YOU SEXY WIZARD
Shake your money makers! Draisaitl you beautiful big ass bomber!
Leon “The Professional” Draisaitl snipes the OT winner from his office.
It’s about time for a re-watch
Sometimes it’s not even fair
Well that was fun.
Well that was damned excellent!!
Great to see the W.
Great comeback.
Great OT goal!!
Now, fire Knoblauch!
Only after he gets the Jack Adams and a Stanley Cup.
BOOM!!! Drai with the dagger!!! THANK YOU, NUGE!!!
What a frigging OT winner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Janmarks eyes almost popped outta his head, I bet! lol Damn, that woulda bred wicked but still happy to be able to take this to OT!!!
No Kane, please…
However this game turns out, it’s been pretty fun for a low-scoring affair.
Wild that Janmark didn’t shoot that.
Wild. If only Nurse wasn’t pinched, he probably could have been in the perfect spot to keep the puck in.
Smart. No risk play, no chance of a miss and the puck rimming out.
Exactly what I was thinking.
Alright, there’s 1 point. Fun game!!
OH HELL YEAH
Hyman you beautiful hockey player.
wait.. Drai tip looks like
Heh heh heh.
Nuggy creating standings points on backchecks!
Leon Draisaitl.
OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!
So cool!! #43 for Hyman ties it!!
Edit: Draisaitl goal. Whatever!
BOOM!!! Determination!!!
Holy back check, Nuge.
NUGE!!! What a backcheck!!! Hope it’s a game changer!!!
Apparently YES!
YES!!!! Thank you, NUUUUUUUUUGE!!!
Nicely done.
Well that PP was less than inspiring …… Looks like its not our night.
I bet you’re happy to be wrong.
Ecstatic!
Perry with the perfect response on Marchand after his hit on McDavid. There was no delay in enacting his reprisal, and it was almost a carbon copy hit but the delivery was 10x better.
Knoblauch should be fired for playing and/or encourage this piss poor slow ass crap.
What a gutless way to play hockey when you’ve got three 50 goal scorers.
Shoulda fired him a month ago when he decided to play mind games with the defense and BROKE UP the best line in the NHL.
You know why Jackson is two time zones away from the team? Katz realizes he got hoodwinked by Coffee and fired the wrong damn guy back in November.
Hi HH
If your going to bash our greatest D in team history and arguably top 5-7 ever to play the game please learn his name. It’s Paul Coffey watch hi-lights of him on utube he’s one of the purest skaters ever.
The spelling is part of the schtick and is part and parcel of making it all ever so slightly unserious 😉
You doing okay?
Hi Verdad!
He broke up the best line in hockey (after it was regressing) to create an even better line. The GF/60 of the line went up from 4.49 to 5.57 and the goal share went up from 62% to 75%.
I don’t comment much, but this calls for it. You sir are an HH level incompetent. Kind of a douche to be honest in the way you speak so negatively about our oilers. Why you hear if all you spread is negativity.
Hi Art!
Cody got lost in the centre ice supermarket.
He wasn’t at all lost, but it’s true that he couldn’t eat up a puck that he got a piece of.
The Bruins had possession. Ceci chased a Bruins’ forward from his own zone to the other side of centre ice leaving the other two Bruins fowards behind him and Kulak outnumbered two to one. All three OIlers forwards were in Ceci’s field of view in front of him. He clearly had a seniors moment.
Didn’t see the goal, but the Boston announcers were hanging it on Hyman.
Almost time for the coach to use the option of loading up the top line to create energy and…. oh, wait….
Damn, Stu seemed very slow getting across for some reason.