If I’m Raphael Lavoie, this is the summer to arrive in training camp ripped and ready. If he’s spent the summer running over hill and dale, he can blow his previous fitness levels out of the water and announce his presence with authority. You know, all of the kids who played in Bakersfield last season, including Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, didn’t get a full chance to audition for Kris Knoblauch.
Broberg was used sparingly by the new coach in two games before getting sent out. Holloway was sent down after playing just one game under Knoblauch, returning in mid-January. For a player like Lavoie, this could be a great opportunity.
LAVOIE’S 2023-24 SEASON
Raphael Lavoie is an established scorer in the minors. He is a big man who has improved in several areas during his time with the Bakersfield Condors. He moves his feet, he uses his size, he is adept and finding attractive spots on the ice (quiet areas) from which to shoot. He’s a big part of the offence, and he doesn’t cost the team defensively (which is different than saying he’s a plus player without the puck).
His AHL player card from 2023-24 shows a great deal of consistency. Even after his recall and demotion, Lavoie was able to get back on track and flourish. His 44-41 (52 percent) goal share was shy of the Bakersfield crew with Lavoie (121-104, 54 percent) on the ice. That’s five goals. As a comparison, Dylan Holloway was 64 percent.
We know Lavoie was never going to displace Dylan Holloway on the Oilers roster, but that may not be a factor this fall. If we look at the right-wing depth chart currently, we see age being a major factor.
Zach Hyman (age 32), Viktor Arvidsson (31), Connor Brown (30), Corey Perry (39) and Derek Ryan (35) are all past 30, and some of those men have slow boots. One of the chief concerns surrounding Lavoie has been his foot speed. NHL Edge has his top speed as above average, but he does not possess anything close to average bursts based on the data from a small sample. His top speed (36kph) exceeds Perry (33), Ryan (35) and matches Connor Brown (36). Brown hammers Lavoie in number of bursts over 32k (140 to 10) but Lavoie needs to pass only one name on this list. I think the Holloway OS, if it goes through, benefits Lavoie significantly.
On the Lowdown today, noon to 2pm on Sports 1440 radio, Steve Lansky from BigMouthSports joins us from Paris. We’ll chat about the Olympics, the city once everyone left, and his plans for the return of Inside the Truck. We’ll also talk to Tyler Yaremchuk from Daily Faceoff about the Oilers response to the offer sheet, and Declan Krueger will bring us Declanations. I’m at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section here and on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly.
New for The Athletic: With or without Philip Broberg, it’s time for the Oilers to deploy Evan Bouchard as a stand alone impact player at five-on-five. Here’s the math.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5697155/2024/08/16/oilers-offer-sheet-defence-bouchard/
It didn’t work with Larry Murphy. This got Murphy run out of two cities.
Murphy isn’t Bouchard, even if both are offensive D. Bouch is still developing, and it has been a quick learning curve once they played him
Good article. I would be interested in the data with pairings. Are all the Bouchard minutes with The Viking? Who is Nurse’s partner during his minutes vs elites WOWY 97?
I haven’t looked in a few weeks and I read The Athletic after going through the LT comments (so will fully read the article later today) but Bouch’s numbers sustain well above 50% and most close to 60% without McDavid and without Ekholm.
Bouch was 58%-60% in all possession metrics (including expected goals) and 50% in goal away from BOTH McDavid and Ekholm – in ap 150 minutes
Using NST numbers (not attempting to isolate the elite minutes), Bouchard without McDavid or Ekholm:
23-24 153min 61%SF 50%GF 63%xGF
22-23 654min 55%SF 46%GF 56%xGF
21-22 834min 52%SF 40%GF 48%xGF
(the team with Bouchard OFF was >50%GF all years)
Ekholm obviously wasn’t an Oiler for much of that time, but Bouchard without that support is kinda the point.
I think they should try it (stand alone Bouchard) because it might work. And because it might not work.
“Using NST numbers (not attempting to isolate the elite minutes), Bouchard without McDavid or Ekholm:
23-24 153min 61%SF 50%GF 63%xGF
22-23 654min 55%SF 46%GF 56%xGF
21-22 834min 52%SF 40%GF 48%xGF
(the team with Bouchard OFF was >50%GF all years)”
Bouchard was posting below expected until Barrie left. Post Barrie departure he started posting a better GF%.
He still makes the big mistake. But he makes it less frequently. There were a few big booboos in the playoffs. But few than his previous play
There are legit changes in the player.
Agreed there are big improvements.
No need to blame Barrie though. His numbers away from Ekholm (even with McDavid) have continued to lag the expected ones badly. That’s what sunk the Nurse-Bouchard pairing when Tippett got fired, after all.
But with the improvements, I do agree the team should give it another try. I’m just 100% confident it will be a smashing success.
So play him with nurse.
Match on Bro and play him with Ek.
Ek should help him develop into being value in short order.
I’ve been supporting a Nurse/Bouchard duo (or at least trying it) all off season.
Yes, exactly, I’ve been posting about this all off-season.
Bouchard’s numbers stand on their own, both without Ekholm and without McDavid.
Bouchard is no longer a weak defensive player and, in my opinion, has turned in to a plus defensive player making him an elite 2-way d-man in this league.
He’s not a finished product defensively, he still has some work to do tying up the man/stick in the high slot and, sometimes, like most Edmonton d-men, he can get lost in no-man’s land when the opposition cycle low.
With that said, he is high end/elite at defending zone entries and the rush and often creates offensive breaks with a great timed step-up and stick.
The former “lack of urgency” in puck retrievals is gone and he is elite in recovery and transition.
He is not a shrinking violet out there and his board battle commitment and efficiency is no longer an issue.
Remember those high even and highly visible giveaways leading to 10-bell chances and goals against? Well, those were all but gone in the last 2-3 months of the regular season. There was a couple blips in the playoffs but the quantity is way done – this is no longer a big issue.
This is an elite minute munching 2-way d-man that will help drive play with any partner of forward group – the numbers show this.
Your analysis is based on a linear extrapolation, holding other variables relativelly constant. Reality tends to be non-linear with perhaps other variable being more dynamic.
Good point lets pack it up no point in analyzing anything.
The variable to me is for D the partner. There are few players at any position that ‘push the river’ regardless of teammates
Bouch has elite talent and currently still lapses. He isn’t that physical so battling net front still needs work, tying up sticks, gaining position etc, although I see those things improving with him
Bouch needs a defensive physical partner. Bro needs a defensive physical partner. Nurse needs a puck moving partner that gaps better and can defend the lines better than Ceci or Des
Ekholm can do it all when healthy. Kulak at 3rd pair is a rounded player but smaller and not overly physical, so he would benefit from a defensive physical type. This is why he elevates in playoffs, he has no major weakness to exploit when everything is game planned and strategized
To me all players ideally shouldn’t be weak at anything key to a position, even if something isn’t a major strength. This has been the problem with Holland’s rosters, a lot of players with key weaknesses that are hard to put together well for the coaches. The D group is quite out of balance outside of the top pair as it is. Like a show or movie where the ensemble are each aspects of an entire personality
I do think putting all the eggs in one basket isn’t ideal. They crush it reg season, doesn’t always work at key times in playoffs. I think trying Nurse Bouch Ek Stecher and Kulak Brown is the best set up if they lose Ceci and Bro until they can do something
I also like the idea of giving Ek less TOI to keep him as healthy as possible. When he is he is their best D still
‘ This has been the problem with Holland’s rosters, a lot of players with key weaknesses that are hard to put together well for the coaches. The D group is quite out of balance outside of the top pair as it is. Like a show or movie where the ensemble are each aspects of an entire personality’
One goal away from a cup and ppl still say the dcore sucks.
That isn’t a strong argument, it completely ignores the players who weren’t playing well. All of whom did it the playoffs before – Nurse, Ceci, Des, McLeod and Foegele. 3 are now gone. It was Connor that dragged them that far, without Leon after he got hurt and his play dropped off
Ceci and Des were replaced by a rookie playing off hand, one to the PB. Stecher couldn’t play or I say he would have been put in
They probably would have won the cup with a better balanced D group. Nurse was also affected having to play with those two, he did better with Bro at least in GF%
The captain and highest paid player dragged us far in the race for the stanley cup. Not exactly a novel take or strong argument either.
If they had won 1 more game would the core have been good enough? Would you say Dallas had a better dcore with 5 players? Vancouver with Hughes and Hronek getting fed?
Wear and tear exists. You acknowledge it with 29 but not Nurse and Ceci. A fresh Broberg still got caved. He didn’t drive any play and he had none kf the battle scars.
If you are saying they got to game 7 in spite of the rest of the roster I’d respectfully disagree. Nurse should’ve sat. I dont think Desh played poorly. Foegele was a force game 7 Vancouver.
They all had moments that contributed to the run and some gaffs.
Well where our opinions may diverge is if you think Connor is a normal captain and highest payed player. What he does for the Oilers is miles ahead of any other player, and that makes a huge difference for the team, and covers a lot of deficiencies, like a hot goalie does
For me no, the D group wasn’t good enough overall, even if they won. I base my opinion not on feelings about certain players, but years posting and reading about their stats, watching them, discussion here, and the many things out there doing deeper analysis
Most players have their good moments. It’s about the overall body of work, and if they are pushing the team ahead in their role. I thought a lot of players didn’t do that. Which lead to Des playing 16 of 25 games, Ceci HS for one, and both being replaced by a kid with 81 games playing off hand. And it wasn’t the first time either. It seems pretty clear to me
How can this be posted in a conversation about Bouchard without acknowledging that Bouchard was right there with McDavid – dragging!
Well in my defence I was responding to the comment about Connor
But agreed, Bouch and Connor made a bigger contribution to where they got than many acknowledge. Outsized
That is a great way of putting “I have no counter-argument to your actual reasoned analysis”
I was just pointing out the potential limitations of your analysis.
“All models are wrong, but some are useful”.
We will see how useful yours is. You are assuming the distributions (with and without McD) are normal with the same standard deviations.
I think the distributions are flattish and the one without McD has a big fat left tail, so while the mean is fantastic, the left tail is going to get you.
The Bouchard fanatics believe that fat left tail doesn’t exist. The Bouchard doubters (i.e. like me) hypothesize that the fat left tail exists, but a coach with proper deployment of Bouchard can mostly hide it. (i.e. Larry Murphy, after all, is in the Hall of Fame with two Stanley Cups and a Canada Cup), but nobody would rank him in the top ten D of all time).
Larry Murphy has 4 Stanley Cups, not 2. And he is 5th all time among D in points regular season, and 6th in all time playoff points. Not saying he is one of the 10 best, but he was a fully legitimate hall of fame defenseman. He also killed penalties most of his career and was plus 197 (no 5 on 5 stats from his era). Your arguments about Larry Murphy’s deficiencies are spurious at best.
I don’t even know what that means “flat left tail”.
Bouchard succeeds or excels without both McDavid and Ekholm – no hiding;
Yet you post statistics, and make conclusions about them.
I post statistic and use them to help formulate opinions – what a wild concept…..
You keep talking about Bouchard being a product of playing with superstars – I don’t think that’s entirely true and the numbers don’t either.
You are forming your conclusion, well, seemingly to propagate narratives that you have that are based on, well, I’m not sure.
— this is a fantastic comment btw
— most people “use” stats and draw conclusions or make inferences not supported by the stats they cite.
— Understanding statistics and what they tell us (a don’t) is hard. Citing stats and making false narratives easy and prevalent.
LOL to OP replying a few minutes before me on this.
So I understand your ‘fat left tail’.
I was going to ask what you mean by ‘flattish distribution’.
I’m picturing not a very sharp peak to the distribution. Which would mean the tails in general (both left and right) are much fatter. And by extension the mean would have less meaning (no pun intended). I guess the standard deviation would be larger.
Anyway, I don’t expect this is quite what you were going for with ‘flattish distribution’, so would be curious if you can relate what you were.
By flattish, I mean large standard deviation.
A large standard deviation, means larger tails.
A distribution that is NOT normal means FAT tails compared to a normal distribution.
OK, so I am following your analogy.
But what is the relevance of larger standard deviation to the conversation?
I guess you mean A fat tail, since two equivalently fat tails would still be normal.
Fair to say you believe McDavid creates a fat right tail while Bouchard creates a fat right tail?
Fat tails. I love it. Let’s go black swan hunting!
“Your analysis is based on a linear extrapolation, holding other variables relativelly constant.“
EDM’s current five man unit is absolutely sick from an analytics perspective.
Bouchard is a huge part of that. If you look just at Bouchard & McDavid, Mcdavid is better with than without. That’s why you play them together. Not to coverup Bouchard’s weaknesses But because he actually makes McDavid better. You can make a similar case for Ekholm. The WOWY doesn’t fall that way for the other defenders. When you find a combination that makes the best even better, leave it alone.
Compare and contrast MacKinnon & Makar with McDavid & Bouchard. ITS NOT CLOSE!!!
Bouchard can post a 100 point season this year. He started that pace in the playoffs (!). If he does that, he will win the Norris.
I say this, and truthfully I’m not even a fan of Bouchard’s. Just look at the numbers.
Maybe Bouchard is crap without McDavid. Does it matter is he makes McDavid better???
This is very rare, but I disagree with a lot of your points here.
I think Bouchard looks very good when he has a rock-solid partner to cover him. But I still see the lack of urgency and the terrible giveaways, including at bad moments in the playoffs. We have religiously paired him with Ekholm, because it allows him to play to his strengths, which are very great. But he has some major weaknesses too. Like playing defense. And he’s a defenseman.
It was not long ago (i.e. before Ekholm arrived) that he was playing quite poorly. Now we are ready to pay him $9M+? Offensive defensemen often get overpaid.
As the playoffs wore on it was Bouchard carrying Ekholm in the dzone. He was way fresher as the games piled up. Defensively he shook off the less than physical play against L.A. They tried to pound him and he gave some back. Come the Dallas series he was a beast on the physical side of things. There was one shift late in game six where on two sequences he tossed Benn deep in the corner, took the puck with control and made the zone outlet. Next sortie back in he quick stepped Benn who had him lined up, grabbed the puck, made a deak on Robertson and made the outlet.
The physical side was always going to take a bit longer. He’s long been a boy in man’s body and had the skating/puck skills that he didn’t need to be physical. Gotta have the whole package in the NHL and it emerged in the playoffs.
The Bouchard we see this coming season will be better than last years defensively and I think it will be significant.
My main concern with Bouch was that he would stay vanilla, and that greatly reduces playoff effectiveness in most series
But as you said he had some attitude going and I saw no fear. He is hitting man strength now, it should be a fun ride
Godot keeps saying Larry Murphy but the style doesn’t quite fit and he’s meaning it in the derogatory.
If you look at size, speed, shot and style our boy Bouch has a passing resemblance to a younger Ray Bourque. We don’t know how it will turn out. But if you have time one bad weather day watch a few highlight clips side by side or better yet a game or two against tough comp. I see similarities.
You can also add, Bouchard covered Ekholm up ice more often than Ekholm for Bouchard. Ekholm jumped up more often to join the rush, or disrupt a sortie in the o-zone. Ekholm went walk-a-bout more than Bouchard did.
Yes, he had a couple of tough moments in the playoffs with some giveaways – same with Nurse, Kulak, Ceci and, yes, even Ekholm.
I believe the Cult had Bouchard with the lowest rate of mistakes on scoring chances against.
If you look at the last half of the regular season and the playoffs, he rarely makes those big gaffs now – of course they happen. I saw Miro H. and Aaron Ekblad make them too.
Bouchard’s numbers away from Ekholm (AND away from McDavid) support an argument that he is driving on his own.
Ekholm has been playing great – perhaps he is helped by playing with Bouchard (and McDavid), maybe just as much as Bouch is helped playing Ekblad – the numbers support that.
If we let Broberg go and run Bouchard, Ceci and Stetcher at RD that seems fine to get us to the playoffs, some injury risk. Here would be our likely trade deadline options, a decent sized pool. If we get our pick, is this enough to get a cup?
https://dashboard.puckpedia.com/?q=LEYMN4
Petry, Pionk and Larsson would all be upgraded I think, but all of the teams they’re on are aiming for playoffs so I wouldn’t count on any being available. But maybe if those teams fall out of it.
Any rumours on the Leon negotiations. If Leon is not signed by game 1 Bowman needs to cash in on the fly. There’s no way we can let Leon walk without getting a haul in return. Leon is in my top 5 Oilers all-time but the crest is more important than any individual.
Friedman has advised that the rest of the league essentially thinks of it as a done deal – they’ve “taken them off their white boards”.
I sure hope so I want this deal done. Leon-Bouchard-Connor as Oilers for life will give us 10 more top 75% chance at winning Cups.
How about instead of moving a D so they can match both contracts, trade for a LTIR contract as they will be in LTIR anyway with Kane. Example – Poolman Canucks.
This has been suggested by Canucks commentators except they want Kulak in return.
There is zero benefit to the Oilers to trading for an LTIR contract.
It would be the Canucks that adds the asset for the Oilers to take it.
Only works for the Oilers if Kane is in LTIR all year or else its inhibiting as opposed to neutral.
Kulak + Poolman’s LTIR provides $5.25 million in cap space.
No need to put Kane on LTIR and have to worry about his early return.
The Oilers would need to backfill 3LD with a cheap option and send a forward to Bakersfield to be cap compliant.
It absolutely does not.
It just allows the removal of Kulak’s cap hit, and if on LTIR, not paying Poolman’s $2.5M cap hit.
IE – the Cap space provided to the Oilers would be Kulak’s contract and nothing more.
The Oilers get no additional cap space by adding Poolman.
The Oilers would get cap space by moving Kulak, of course, but there is no reason to take Poolman back in that scenario.
Taking Poolman back, if they are going to be in LTIR all season, is fine (net zero) but they would only do it to move a negative value contract.
omg you still don’t know how this works…
The SJS discussion: Wouldn’t it be great if you solved all my problems? Wouldn’t that be just great for you, Mike? That Broberg contract is untradeable without sweeteners. Armstrong is drunk GM’ing that offer sheet. He must really dislike Bowman or something.
Bouchard stayed healthy, scored 43 points in 19:48 @ 22 and scored 40 points in 18:31 @ 23 to earn the two year bridge under $4M. For comps.
Last year, the Panthers deployed a second pairing of Niko Mikkola and Brandon Montour.
That pairing had a cap hit of $6m.
If we match on Broberg, we’ll have a second pairing that costs a hair under $14m. We won’t even know if it works.
Broberg at 4.7 million is to risky the ship has sailed cut bait and move on.
It blows up the cap structure of the d.
Nurse plus Broberg is nearly $14m for a second pairing, one that might not even be decent.
Throw in Ceci and Kulak and you’ve spent $20m on your bottom two pairings.
Nearly 23% of the cap on your bottom two pairings is probably too much.
Now if you trade Ceci and plug in a guy at a million or so, it’s still $18m.
Not sure where I saw this- wasn’t my idea. Why not talk to St. Louis and threaten to sign both players unless they sweeten the deal. I know they can’t trade the players for a year but maybe a separate Edmonton 7th rnd pick for a St. Louis prospect can be worked out? If not sign them both and ride Kane’s LTIR for as long as possible?
Armstrong fuked us over there’s no talking only revenge which should be served cold.
One thing I’ve been contemplating since the playoffs and more so recently given the offer sheets, is Niko Mikkola.
Former St Louis Blues player. 6’5”, played top 4 minutes for the Cats. Signed to a 3x$2.5 in his late 20’s.
He didn’t even have a good season (negative rel’s across the board, regular season and playoffs).
He’s never had a good season, actually. He once had a positive GF% rel (22-23), but I think that’s the only positive rel metric he’s posted for his whole career.
Was it a good signing? I suppose yes because they won the cup?
I personally think Mikola is a strong argument that Ceci can be ‘good enough’ for the Oilers to win the Cup. Mikola’s numbers are no better, and he’s faced lower leverage roles for the most part.
That’s not to say the Ceci isn’t a weak link and that the Oilers shouldn’t look to improve.
But when a guy like Mikola plays top 4 on a Cup winner, I think it shows that the folks saying ‘the Oilers can’t win a cup with Ceci playing top 4’ are probably wrong.
Zito showed us that there are plenty of different ways to skin a cat.
They won a cup without a true “stud” defenseman. The only thing remarkable about their blue line is that the bottom two pairings were cheap. $9m or so for four guys (allowing them to stack the forward lines)
In comparing the Oilers d to the Panthers, other than getting dummied by McDavid’s magic, I don’t recall their blue line making obvious gaffes.
We had some beauties like Nurse turning a 3v2 into a 2v1, Kulak not challenging at the blue line and letting Reinhart score, or Ceci getting beat on puck retrievals.
Every Cup winner shows there are different ways.
Not sure what to do with an entirely qualitative argument here.
The margins are often incredibly thin. The Oilers out-shot, out-scored, out-expected the Panthers.
Yes, but that particular idiom fit so well here.
No one tracks catastrophic blunders/60.
At least, it’s not publicly available. Maybe Staples? Does he track data for opponents too?
The minutes show that the Panthers had four d their coach trusted for the heart of the game. Knoblauch didn’t.
So you’re Godot now. Long way from quoting Dellow that defensemen don’t control their on ice SV%.
This is interesting given that the Panthers 3rd pair effectively won them the series.
Not necessarily. The margin in this series was razor thin as you noted.
To my eye, it seemed that we had more weaker links than they did in terms of defensive errors. Just my qualitative opinion.
In terms of defensemen and save percentage, years ago, I started with the a priori assumption that they did impact it.
Garret Hohl at hockey graphs wrote a compelling analysis suggesting that they don’t.
Still, I think there’s a huge survivorship bias at play along with other factors like coaching and deployment. Samorukov owes a .500 SV% at 5v5 in an incredibly small sample.
Outliers get pulled. Desharnais had the lowest SV% at 5v5. The Oilers stopped playing him.
We know now that different shot types have a greater chance of success, like passes across the royal road before shooting or shots off the rush etc.
Many of the Nurse -Ceci brain cramps absolutely led to goals that were unstoppable by an NHL goalie.
Now this sounds more like ‘the Oilers break stats’.
You’re not the only one suggesting it, so maybe the Oilers DO make more big mistakes than other teams.
Their team SV% has ranged between 7th and 17th in the league since Holland first arrived though, so there’s no evidence of that from a high level.
I suppose that is Godot’s argument in the first place, though we still lack any type of quantitative data to support.
My argument is that everyone is assuming the distributions are normal, and that nothing is Bayesian.
Bingo.
There is zero proof that the reason the Oilers didn’t win the SC is because of Ceci.
A far truer statement is that it is more likely that the Oilers won the SC with a healthy Drai or a better Nurse.
not sure if anyone else has heard this but word on the street is carolina hurricanes are making mr dellow an AGM.
Another win for the edmonton sports analytics scene.
Like the name change. Will you become brobergstan again if the Oilers match?
Dellow hired as AGM in Carolina. Congrats MC79!
The official announcement.
https://www.nhl.com/hurricanes/news/canes-hire-tyler-dellow-as-assistant-general-manager
These analytics fellas are sticking together. Tulsky pulling Dellow up into upper management. Congrats mudcrutch
Per the San Jose idea, and people worrying about it being circumvention, the Rangers did this exact thing with Goodrow this year. This is a case of ‘it’s not forbidden by the rules so it’s legal’.
Vegas has been called smart for exploiting loopholes, the Rangers have done crap like this, why not do it?
Since it’s the Oilers, we’ll almost certainly get punished for it, but just send Lou Lamiorello a 3rd rounder and a pool noodle for his summer disappearing act and you’ll be fine.
Love the San Jose idea…. Who do we want from San Jose?
In the Goodrow situation, the NHL and the NHLPA has no interest in the no trade clause between the Rangers and Goodrow. The NHLPA may try to fix this in the next CBA. It probably certainly annoys them.
In the Broberg situation, the no trade provision arises directly out of the CBA, and is there to protect the interests of the player, and the team making the offer sheet, and players in general. The NHL and/or the NHLPA might feel that they do have an interest.
In the Broberg case, if two related player transactions look like a duck, walk like a duck, and sqawk like a duck, the NHL and NHLPA might want to claim that it is a duck and litigate. Especially the NHLPA, because they might want to make a precedent that they can use in the next CBA negotiations to put in provisions that prevent what happened to Goodrow.
And say in a discovery investigation, both teams San Jose and Edmonton might be required to reveal all communications between the two teams.
Sometimes it is just safer to just drive under the speed limit.
Unless it’s stated in the CBA that they can’t be waived, which I can’t find – ‘Mike take this guy and give us that, and we’ll waive Broberg’
I’d litigate back if they pursued anything, there are three entities with rights here
Nope! Brilliant strategy by dfemn and Skippy!
Match and waive.
Stan: Hey Mike. Fancy meeting you here at the The Tech Interactive (SJ museum I took the kids to years ago).
Mike: Well Stan, glad I ran into you. How does this proposal sound to you …….
No paper trail or witnesses. Plausible deniability.
Go for it Oilers (and SJ).
Woah, there… it wasn’t Skippy’s idea. defmn posted about it last night, Skippy just reposted it today. And gave full credit to defmn.
I’m starting to think almost nobody reads defmn’s posts…
I like the idea for its sneakiness! My one concern is, if 4m+ for Broberg is such an egregious overpay, will anyone WANT him on waivers at that price? We could be stuck with him and that potential albatross contract at the absolute worst time – with Drai, Bouch and McD coming shortly due…
You have that in place before you decide. It’s not an overpay, it’s an early pay. A D with his size and skating is going to have a career and make that much at least. That’s the ploy by St Louis
Do you think Bowman has/will approach Nurse about waiving his trade protection?
If he’s not exploring every avenue, he’s not doing his due diligence.
The biggest problem with not matching is the oilers are dangerously close to becoming old and slow. Prior to the offer sheets I thought this was a problem.
I believe this is a nightmare scenario. Throw in an injury or two and it’s not far fetched that we miss the playoffs, no more cheap vet free agents and back to turmoil.
This is basically the top team in the league since Jay Woodcroft took over as coach. I don’t think even some massive injuries would jeopardize the playoffs for this team.
Especially with how bad the rest of the Pacific has gotten.
— Holland had to fire two of his coaches because playoffs were in jeopardy. It’s crazy to think Hollands coaching group : fired Hitch hired and fired Tipp. Hired and fired Woodcroft also in picture for KK hire.
Jackson fired Woodcroft.
— I suppose also in picture better: Woodcroft was the end of Holland: an incredible amount of hiring and firing of coaches in a tenure.
The comeback would have happened if Woodcroft had stayed. Jackson panicked and shot from the hip or it was decided upon when he was hired. Those are the only two explanations for why Coffey ended up behind the bench.
Hitch was always an interim hire. His contract wasn’t renewed. That’s vastly different than fired.
— how about this “Holland was GM and under his 5 year tenure 3 coaches left and three others hired”.
— I’m not sure other than to be semantic you have a point. Your disdain for my posts well documented. We see things differently.
— My point is that under Holland a lot of coach carousel : the most in the NHL in the last 5 years.
— Other than your “edits” do you have a point with these corrections? Are your edits giving you a different perspective? Do you think Holland did a good job with his hiring of coaches? I think his hiring a proved to be awful. I think you just want to minimize my larger point by nit picking. Do you think he did a great job with the coaches he hired?
I like accuracy when promoting a narrative. And it was one correction; not plural.
Are you sure about that? How many coaches are you counting, is this including assistants? Tippett and Playfair hired/fired, Woodcroft and Manson hired/fired, Knoblauch and Coffey hired. Your numbers already don’t jive, and that’s not including Mark Stuart and the other coaches in lower roles like video, goaltending, etc.
If you’re strictly talking head coaches, it’s three hired, and two fired.
Holland hired Tippett to fill the head coaching vacancy he inherited, and was a big improvement on the previous couple coaches before him. Woodcroft’s record speaks for itself, and Knoblauch has exceeded any reasonable expectations.
So that’s Holland’s record with coaches hired under his tenure. Continual improvement. Would you rather they convinced Hitch to stick around in the name of consistency? (Clearly said in jest.)
We want the same thing — for EDM to win the Cup as many times as possible.
It’s fair (and often fun) to have differing opinions about how to get there, but getting pissy because I point out an inaccuracy in your comment is counter productive. You’re a sharp guy, it’s easy to tell, but this consistently defensive posture after being politely corrected is beneath you, and this forum.
Thanks tips.
It’s the combination of team speed and injuries. I think we underestimate how much slower this team is. Throw in a few injuries and who knows. Maybe not this season but a potential cliff got a lot closer this offseason. We shall see.
I’m really torn on this one.
On one hand, I firmly believe the core mission objective of a competent management team in today’s NHL must be, “Get good value contracts. Keep good value contracts.” Matching these sheets is the anthesis of that MO. With that in mind, you walk these lads to the door and bank the picks as the ammo to get better value replacements.
On the other hand, you simply can’t replace Broberg cost effectively on the open market atm so the replacement cost on him breaks with the value contract mantra as well.
The Oil are quite literally ‘damned if they do and damned if they don’t’ on this one.
It’s a real pickle and not the tasty Polski Ogorski kind.
Pretty sure they could flip the 2nd to Montreal for Harris or Barron, both of which had better stats than Broberg last year.
Interestingly, I had Broberg’s contract pegged at $1.15M after Barron signed a few weeks ago. Armstrong had other ideas.
If they could trade Ceci + for Barron that would be something.
They only have Savard and Barron at RD
Just prior to his extension in MTL, I was using Barron as a direct comp for Broberg.
Being able to flip the second from STL for Barron would be an incredibly fortuitous turn of events. Not only would we be improving the right side of the d-corps, but we’d be paying less for a similar calibre of player.
Fun fact: Barron skates faster than Broberg, according to NHL Edge data.
Agreed, this situation is a damned big dill.
Lavoie at 6.04 and 215 increases his chances on this team by playing physical on the depth lines. Arrive on time, hit, get into it on the boards, win some pucks, make the other team work in their own end. Do that consistently. No role for snipers looking for quiet areas on line 4. Team needs size and the always important “physicality”. There’s plenty of scoring elsewhere.
Agreed, that is his path. Now he has to show that he wants it badly enough to do it consistently.
Agreed also. That’s the path if he makes it.
I’d add though, if he can score 12 or 14 goals while doing that other stuff 95% of the time, that’s legitimate added value over the median 4th line player (7 goals).
The Broberg / Holloway offer sheets have been a fun topic of debate, and has brought the best out of this community in mid-August.
Having thought about it, I don’t think all of this is terribly material to the Oilers’ long-term fortunes. Ultimlately it’s having McDavid / Draisaitl / Bouchard committed to term that will drive 98% of the team’s competitiveness. Everyone else is fungible.
Case in point: Arvidsson, J Skinner, and Henrique have signed for a combined $10M. Include Brown and Janmark and that’s 5 vets making a combined $12.5M. Because more than money they want to win the cup.
This will continue as long as McDavid and Draisaitl are in their primes. Top players will sign value contracts to play for the Oilers.
As recently as yesterday I was of the mindset that losing the asset value of Broberry and Hollywood would be detrimental. But as long as their contracts are measured to be of negative instead of surplus value, then we don’t have to be apoplectic about it however it comes to pass.
Now isn’t that refreshing!
Nice! And that’s exactly right. We signed Broberg to a $4 something contract with our roster and cap situation and someone is offering us a 2nd round pick to get out of it.
The Cup winning potential of the team centers on McDavid, Drai, Bouchard, and, I have to add, Skinner (the one in goal). Also a very good HC in Knoblauch (and possibly the rest of the coaching staff).
For the record, my preferred course of action is to:
1) Explore Skippy the Kangaroo’s genius idea of collaborating with Mike Grier on a plan to waive one of the players. F the Blues.
2) I’d keep Broberg, trade Ceci (if it cost a 3rd rounder or less) and waive Holloway. Mainly because I value the scarcity of Broberg’s skill set. It may not be long until he’s the organization’s #1 LD. Or he’s a #4 playing on his wrong side. I don’t love the contract but for me the upside still outweighs the downside. Also I don’t think the Oilers can go into a 4th consecutive playoffs with Ceci playing 2RD.
3) I don’t know how the money works out but it likely costs us one more vet. Maybe that’s Kulak or maybe it’s Janmark. Cost of doing business. Those are fungible pieces.
1) Is Grier an Oiler operative? Or is he that incompetent? Broberg’s contract is a bad contract. You have to pay to get rid of bad contracts.
2) I don’t see what you see in Broberg. He played 12 games and 11:30 minutes a night in his age 22 year. Which 1LD has that kind of resume? You know who does have that kind of resume? Brett Kulak.
3) Yeah, that’s the thing. No one can explain how the money works out after keeping both. And young players who haven’t produced are also fungible pieces.
Broberg has played 81 games on a team that wouldn’t use him in a straight line. He just turned 23 and has improved a lot, especially last season where he stepped up and was noticed, and he is not yet where he will be
The question is like Armstrong thinks, does Grier think that his terrible team with tons of cap can benefit from acquiring him now and his unique skill set? Their D group is bad, Bro isn’t getting paid more than he will be, it’s just a couple of years early
If money and cap aren’t issues, acquiring his kind of talent is a good idea for SJ
San Jose has two LD first round picks who are expected to arrive soon including 6’3” 20O Sam Dickinson who was touted as the most NHL ready payer taken in the recent draft.
I can’t imagine them having interest in Broberg at that cap hit unless they received additional inducement.
If anyone would have to say it it’s you based on your projections, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush
The best way to move your Stanley Cup hopes forward is have the top D before the F
They take longer to mature because it’s a harder position
That was defmn’s idea.
Skippy reposted it, and gave credit to defmn.
— yeah that’s not the right take IMO. Signing Brah to 4mm would have been bad. Trading him for a 2nd would have been bad.
— That another organization forced our hand your not “saving” $4mm of cap either.
— Should he leave, they are trading him for a 2nd. That’s bad. It’s significant negative equity.
Sure. Lock up your first rounders earlier if you really want to keep them. Lesson learned. In the here and now, shedding that contract is a win.
The argument is sound except for how it affects the team for this coming season when they have no opportunity to replace the departing assets.
And beyond this season.
The core of this team is not young. You lose 2 of your better young assets (didn’t say they were awesome or elite), assets that provide depth – essential in the playoffs for two picks of lesser value and it shortens the competitive window.
That is not good asset management.
Agreed. Not if the return is a 2nd and a 3rd which, let’s be honest, is basically giving them away for next to nothing. I know there are those here who value those picks but for a team in win now mode they are nothing more than trade chips at the TD for depth pieces.
That was why I thought it might be useful to find a way to either keep them or increase their value through the idea of signing and waiving them with a second trade agreement to see if that could improve the return.
My preference would be to keep them for this coming year and see what shakes loose by waiting things out but that does require financial gymnastics or moving other assets.
Broberg and Holloway are no longer value deals. What would St.Louis get in a trade for Broberg today with his 4.7 million 2 year contract?
Disagree slightly.
At the deadline, a mid-round 2nd and 3rd can fetch a top-4 RHD with retention,
I would also include The Nuge. PP and PK numbers plummet when he has been out.
Nah, it’s a problem, old and slow can come quickly. then its back to the top of no trade lists and shopping in the has been bin.
I’m not sure Draisaitl and Bouchard will sign value contracts to continue playing for the Oilers. Drai is a massive talent, but his ES numbers are being downplayed. Bouchard has tantalizing offensive skill, but I think his career trajectory is more Larry Murphy than Drew Doughty.
Both Drai and Bouch are wonderful players, and Drai has been a horse in the playoffs (this year excepted, I assume because of injury). But cap management is essential.
All of this is true, and there is a part of me that is somewhat excited to see Lavoie maybe get an opportunity to win a 3rd line winger spot and maybe mesh with a really solid guy like Henrique.
Maybe he can still blossom in to a 17 goal middle six winger?
Finding soft spots to get his shot away in the AHL is much different than the NHL, of course.
Its also notable that Lavoie really relied on the PP for a bit portion of this past season – he wasn’t a great 5 on 5 producer for long stretches.
The more I think about this whole situation, the less I care. Match or don’t. This team is pretty much all in this season and I’m hear for it. It’s doubtful either of these guys make the difference this year, especially under a coach who doesn’t trust youngins.
I’d prefer they match Broberg and let Holloway walk. Logic as follows.
Broberg: Everyone struggles for solid D – how many words have been written in this comments section ‘solving’ the D problem?
Holloway: for contending teams, bottom six forwards are (more) easily found.
I very much think that each player could have, and might, make a difference.
They both made positive contributions in last year’s playoff run.
I’m not sure where the current coach has shown he won’t trust youngins….?
I do think they are going to match on Holloway but, if they don’t, well, that opportunity just got ALOT more prominent for Lavoie.
I would caution those that suggest it would be a straight line replacement as I don’t think its even close. When both players were in Bako together, there is no question that Holloway was the more impactful player, driving play and producing (at rates even higher than Lavoie) – while being younger.
This doesn’t mean that Holloway will have the better NHL career, I mean, maybe they walk Holloway, Lavoie earns the spot on Henriques left wing and has a big of a pop. Its not out of the realm but, as we sit today, the players are not close – in my opinion.
Lavoie is much more cost efficient. And that is what the team needs. So is Savoie, Jarventie & Philp.
None are NHL ready is the issue. Savoie has the skill and if he was NHL sized he might make it now, but he’s not. Jarventie had knee surgery and Philp a year off
Is that an issue with this team? Why shouldn’t they be able to fast track a young player
in the NHL instead of at the AHL level?
We’ve been there, done that. And lost a lot of young talent by killing their confidence. It wasn’t that long ago we were lauding Ken Holland for refusing to rush prospects before they were ready to the NHL. WE applauded his slow play and marinate approach… are we that bipolar we switch to the opposite view on a dime?
To me fast track means all the tools and a confident enough type, lacking experience
The three have other things as well to develop and get over. Lavoie would be the closest to me
I understand that Lavoie is more cost-efficient – i was simply speaking to the lineup replacement for Holloway and the impact on the ice.
Waivers in training camp is a Plan C option. Do you think Kulak would clear? Of course not. He would get snapped up in a second. No need to pay anything. Half a dozen teams would want Kulak. Look a the state of defenses in SJS, CHI, CAL, CBJ, DET, OTT. What would SJS pay for us to put Broberg on waivers. Lots of options and opportunities to clear a couple of million with Kane on LTIR.
The Holloway sheet is a joke. Small overpay for a high first round pick. You don’t even think about it. Broberg has been unhappy (with cause) so his sheet is not surprising. It can be dealt with by dropping the Kulak/Ceci fetish of the last management team.
I quite like the idea of letting waivers deal with Kulak as a worst case. But it’s a dangerous gambit.
I wonder if we picked up Savoie because they got wind of Holloway?
Also, Jarventie. Would make sense.
Good call I do think they knew something was up but if they knew for sure or like even 80% why not trade Broberg and Holloway at the draft.
How do you know for sure? Adding to your prospect pool is always a good idea.
Doubtful. If they had any idea there was an offer sheet coming the smart play would have been to trade him.
Would someone have given up a 1st for Broberg? Doubtful.
So the smart play is taking the mid-2nd St. Louis is offering.
You are arguing value I think. I am looking at need for the Oilers this season because this late in the season where do they go to replace a player I believe they had plans for as a top 4 dman.
Only if the offer sheet was known in advance to be egregiously high, which it ended up being. I don’t think anyone but Armstrong knew just how ridiculously high it was going to go. I submit, if management was aware something was in the weeds, no one expected an offer nearly as high as it ended up.
They gave up a legit middle of the roster player for Savoie.
If anything, the may not have made the trade knowing they made lose Holloway – keep McLeod.
It’s amazing to me how we went from a goalpost to winning Stanley to having a great July 1 to hiring Stan and all the bad vibes in the last week. Seems like all the professionalism has disappeared. Probably doesn’t even matter now whether they match or not there will be hard feelings from players and fans alike.
Professionalism in this case is being methodical.
Nobody has come out to the media with emotionally-charged comments, or challenged anyone to a barn fight. Oilers management are clearly exploring all their options for trading salaries. They’ve likely checked in with Barrie or Schultz’s agents on a backfill plan.
The right thing to do is be patient and game out the possible scenarios.
You shouldn’t jump to conclusions, because how the club responds to this might prove their resolve.
This is a good test.
— This is true. While I don’t see a path for them emerging from this anything other than a loss of equity, what do I know. It depends on what happens.
— Also one has to assume management has known about this for a lot longer than the public has: Brahoway didn’t fax over signed offers to a shocked management group moments before it was press released
— For instance they take the draft picks and end up by playoffs with players and roster with more upside than Brahoway that have multiple years with Oil: then kudos and we all proven a collective Nervous Nellies.
— As someone was found of saying: “We wait”.
Certainly this is a perfect scenario for Jackson and Co. to demonstrate why all the drama around the Bowman hire was supposedly worthwhile.
Damage control.
Great article at the Athletic today LT. If Bouchard is in line for a bigger payday, it’s time to start carrying more of the load.
Expecting Larry Murphy to carry the load got him run out of two cities.
Larry Murphy was a superstar playing with superstars, and a bum playing with bums.
Kinda sounds like Nurse.
Bouchard is a star away from McDavid and Ekholm.
More of a load than playing over 25 min per game over 25 playoff games (and very little OT)?
Working off Defmn’s idea yesterday… I say match the offers.
Phone up San Jose, see what they would ‘trade’ for Broberg.
Send a 7th rounder to SJ for prospect, let’s call him Shakir Mukhamadullin (but I’m not familiar with the SJ roster).
Place Bro on waiver, SJ picks him up.
The result is a ‘trade’ for more value than the second round compensation.
Obviously also send a 3rd round pick to CGY.
Sneaky. Can’t trade him for a year, but Can waive him. Would kinda screw over both Armstrong & Broberg in one go. I like your style. 🤓
There is also some Russian guy in SJS who seemed to have liked playing in EDM.
Mr. McCurdy perhaps you can get this idea to Management incase they haven’t thought of it!! Or someone needs to I guess haha
Waive both of the rotter’s and have the Sharks pick them up for more of a fair compensation. Whatever that might be?
They need a F because of Kane
They have some young forwards that could benefit from developing in the NHL rather than the AHL.
That one might be gone soon
Come to think of it, it’s such a simple solution teams might refrain from using the offer sheet at all. It’s just bad business and should not be done period.
Well, we still have to keep in mind that SJ is only priority 1 for the first waiver claim, and then they go to the back of the line. So they could only claim Broberg.
Also, the value to SJ equals Broberg minus the value of having to forego first waiver priority when the rest of the league exposes dozens of players to waivers.
This plan should still be worthwhile to SJ, and I hope Bowman is on the line to Grier. But not as much as we might think. And keep in mind, at $4.7M, Broberg’s trade value isn’t that high.
No sir – they stay priority 1 until November when priority goes by standings.
Sorry, I meant “for the first waiver claim they make”. Isn’t that accurate? I presume they don’t have the ability to claim every single waived player until November 1.
Yes, I believe they technically do.
Also sends a message to players not to play hardball with Oilers management.
Would need to see if San Jose has anything of interest to trade?
Don’t match on Broberg, waive him after giving SJ the heads up as described. Then take the 2nd you get as compensation + Berezkin and swap with the Sharks for Kostin and Sam Dickinson + the bonus of ensuring no team will ever offer sheet you again, ha!
Oh and match on Holloway.
Would need to match in order to waive him, no?
What happen to the 2nd rounder for compensation if the Broberg is waived? Wound it be voided?
The league would take it from us and give it to Calgary.
Yes. That was how I wrote it up yesterday after consulting the CBA. Once the Oilers match they own the rights. They cannot trade but there is no restriction on waiving either player.
I think Grier would welcome the call. He has no cap problems for the next two years and he gets two young NHL players for a discounted price.
Armstrong is made to look stupid is the bonus.
Absolutely Bruce just caught that myself haha. Clearly mixed up the beginning there, meant you match on Bro then do as follows, but of course won’t have the 2nd as comp, would have to use the ’26 2nd instead and still think it a hilarious ending from a Oil perspective.
This is genius.
I doubt the Oilers would be so cutthroat and I doubt the NHL would let it happen, but it would solve a lot of issues.
The Oilers could absolutely be cutthroat after the cutthroat move the Blues just pulled on them.
The beauty of this scenario is that there is no way to sugarcoat it: This is a big FU to STL. But offer sheets are generally accepted as a CBA-approved FU; nothing suggested here contravenes the CBA. Its just trading for need. The need to tell STL to F-Off.
Perhaps SJS could throw some sugar on top in case of a penalty, and we make that up to them if required, sometime in the future.
This is a fantastic and creative solution.
My one concern is that it would be flagged as CBA circumvention and blow up in our faces. The back half of this summer has really soured my enthusiasm on this regime. I’ve been getting big “smartest man in the room” vibes from our new POHO, but pulling this off would bring me back on to team Jeff Jackson… it may actually make him the smartest man in the room.
I can’t find if waivers is an option for a player who was OS matched. If it is it should be skookum. The player gets their money still and a job which is all the PA cares about really, they can change the rules next time
If they did that, there was no rule against, and the league stepped in I would take it to court
I posted the link to the appropriate clause in the CBA in yesterday’s thread. It is on page 36 if I remember correctly.
I don’t see any mention of waivers and offer sheets. Do it!
wow. now this is genius.
Lets do Mukhamadullin and kostin. and san jose gets to claim both holloway and broberg.
This solves the long term outlook view of not having a replacement in house long term for ekholm/kulak.
It also gets the disgruntled players out of the room.
The only challenge is that one team would need to trust the other. Either Edmonton puts Broberg on waivers first, and has to trust san Jose to go through with the 7th for a prospect trade. Or San Jose does the trade first, and has to trust that Edmonton goes through with putting Broberg on waivers. Unless they can be done simultaneously somehow?
I’m not convinced that either side would be super concerned about it. You lose friends really quick in the old boys club for going back on a gentleman’s agreement. The question is whether anyone has enough beef with Armstrong to want to take part.
I am here for the chaos though.
It would need to be all pre-arranged with no backing out. It’s like a back door maneuver. It would be sensational.
Oil so tight to the cap no choice but to waive somebody.
Would be a little easier if Holland were still GM. You don’t build those relationships overnight. And Bowman has been away from the game since before Grier became a GM.
This is filthy. I love it. Nothing personal to the player, but the team is obligated to maximize it’s assets. And Armstrong is being calculating to hoop us, so a clever tactical response is appropriate. All meaning it’s not petty
Call up Rosie and see if he’s in. They have lots of cap and are looking for young talent. One scenario is Ceci to the Sharks for a 1st and a 2nd. I checked to see when waivers start, and it’s 12 days before the start of the season. Waive Bro Rosie has first dibs, and you have a 21 player roster and 605K in cap space
Are you suggesting trading Ceci and then matching and waiving Broberg, thus losing 2 starting Dman? How does that make any sense for the Oilers, or have I misunderstood your post?
They have to move a player even if they let the two go. If they want Holloway it has to be at least Kulak’s amount. Kulak is better than Ceci and they have more RD than LD
They are in survival mode. Getting the max return possible and having enough roster players to not tire everyone out should be the first goal
Because they allowed this to come to pass they are in a heap of trouble
Why do they have to trade away a player even if they let Holloway and Broberg walked? And why should that player be one of the top 5 Dmen?
Ceci was not used as a top 4 D in the playoffs. They can squeak under the cap with a 20 player roster keeping him, but that creates it’s own problems. They can LTIR Kane, but will be at other team’s mercy later because they will ‘have’ to move someone. Demoting players won’t work for Kane coming back
I agree with the LTism, start as you mean to go. The cap makes all teams lose players they like, look at the Panthers. This isn’t ideal, but ideal left town when they decided they couldn’t win without mid tier D men in Ceci and Kulak, and Foegele whose game has lots of issues, here we are
I would rather clear enough cap, have 22 or 23 players, not use LTIR, and gain cap and the flexibility to do something later. Not being capped out means other teams don’t have leverage on you when you need to do something or want to. They are good enough to start that way and get to the playoffs
Ceci was third, THIRD, for TOI at 5 on 5 and, again, 3rd for PK TOI/G.
at 5v5 TOI the heart of the game:
First two rounds 2nd
Third round 4th
Finals 6th (last place as Des was PB after 1 game)
There is no defending Ceci. His Oiler time is like Yama’s was. A good half season to start and decreasing performance after. He wasn’t good in 23 playoffs either
His reg season goal share is a little above 50, but the rel is not good. It’s not like he plays with crap players, he’s a big part of the problem for the second line and pair I think
Ceci was 3rd in TOI/G during the SCF (at 5 on 5).
He sat a game, yes, so did Stuart Skinner (2), so did Connor Brown (an entire series), so did Foegele, so did Deharnais, so did McLeod.
He was deployed in the top 4, end stop – numbers and facts.
I am not defending his overall performance but challenging the false statement that he was demoted to the 3rd pair.
My numbers NST TOI/GP 5v5 for the final series
Are you trying to gaslight this about one game to promote your narrative?
If so that is disingenuous. I find your goal posts keep moving. The last game they lost. The previous three they won. If they promoted Ceci to more TOI last game and they lost was it due to an injury to someone perhaps? Gave him a chance and they lost? They lost. He played more? I’m not going to check I’ll trust you. What’s the explanation?
It’s just a sports chat don’t get mad OP
Maybe you are looking at TOI and not TOI/G but, for the later, Ceci was 3rd among d-men in the SCF and, in the last two games he plyed the 4th and 3rd most minutes.
You keep saying he was demoted and didn’t paly top 4 and its just not factual. I’m not mad. I’m not moving goal posts. I’m simply challenging a statement that seems factually incorrect.
Your argument holds little weight when it starts with such a false statement as “Ceci was not used as a top 4 D in the playoffs.”
I should have qualified by the end, he did start there
Look above
That remains a false statement.
In game 7, he played the 3rd most among D at 5 on 5.
In game 6, he played the 4th most among D at 5 on 5.
He sat one game, other than that, he was always in the top 4.
I really like this.
If San Jose is interested, they would presumably offer something better than a 2nd and a 3rd for Holloway and Broberg.
I like your suggestion of trading Ceci to San Jose for picks to open up our cap space to match the St. Louis offer sheets (unloading Ceci’s cap would be worth something in terms of reducing the quality of picks coming back from San Jose, though that would create a hole for the Oilers). I would ask if we could also get Klim Kostin in return (in addition to picks), while requesting a minor cap retention to drop him below his existing $2M cap hit. Kostin is only a few years older than Holloway, a few inches taller, a good enough skater (from my recollection), seemed to love Edmonton, and put up more points than Holloway has so far.
Could this work as the trade:
To Oilers: Klim Kostin (@ $1.5M cap hit), 2nd Round Pick
To Sharks: Ceci + $0.5M cap from Kostin
Hopefully Oilers could sign Barry as a relatively inexpensive Ceci replacement if possible (while choosing between Barry and Schultz, I just realized that Barry was *younger* than Justin Schultz). Season starts and we waive both Holloway and Broberg so that San Jose can swoop them up.
Oilers end up replacing Holloway with Kostin, Ceci with Barry, and unfortunately lose Broberg outright but still have more than good enough blueline for the regular season:
Ekholm – Bouchard
Nurse – Barry
Kulak – Stecher / Brown / Carrick
Depending on Barry’s price tag, I believe this could get the Oilers below the cap, allowing them to accrue some space before trade deadline next year. Use San Jose pick++ to get a top-4 RHD at the trade deadline and go on a deep playoff cup run. 🙂
*Hopefully St. Louis misses the playoffs in 2025
**Hopefully Broberg and Holloway enjoy their own personal “decades of darkness” out of the playoffs. I know that “it’s just business and not personal”, I know it’s their right to do what’s best for them… but I also know that by signing those offer sheets, those players made it a little bit more difficult and unlikely for the Oilers to win the cup in the next couple of years. That *does* make it personal and makes it easy for me to hope they don’t see the playoffs for a long time.
They need to be compensated for allowing SJ to get Bro. Ceci is an NHL RD, they are rare and SJ sorely needs one. I have no idea what Grier would want to pay, but as you said it should be more than the OS comp
I don’t want any defensively suspect players on the team anymore, so while Kostin is fun he can’t establish and that’s why. The old one way offensive D – Barrie, Schultz, others – I think aren’t as good as Stecher and Brown, PuckIQ reads that way. S and B were on a worse team that was in turmoil, it definitely affected their results
The Sharks can only get one of them. They put in the claim on Bro then they go to the back of the line. If no one takes Hollywood by the time it gets around to the sharks(Through the league twice) they win the claim. They claim number 1 on Bro and claim number 32 on Hollywood.
I do not believe they go to the back of the line. The priority remains the same until the end of October and then goes by standings.
A claim does not take a team to the back.
It just a scenario. It could all come into play 12 days before the start of the season ideally making Edmonton cap compliant.
This is awesome, great idea. But I suspect the league wouldn’t allow it.
LOL there you go being all negative again.
The CBA allows it.
Does the CBA allow, and will Bettman allow, a pre-arranged backroom deal that in the context of “substance over form” is a trade of a player who a signed a RFA offer sheet?
I read the CBA OS section Defm referred to yesterday, and there is no mention of waivers. Unless it’s somewhere else, if it’s not stated an OS matched player can’t be waived, it would be dodgy (as the league is) to interfere. Probably actionable. They can’t be traded for a year yes
Well, I have hesitated to complicate my idea here but there are big brains in the Oilers office hopefully who could figure out that the return from SJ does not have to come immediately. If the Oilers are looking for an upgrade in draft picks or a prospect, for example, they can wait months to consummate the deal.
There are lots of ways to do this without crossing any lines the league could trace to.
The Oilers can always DM me if they need more bread crumbs. 😇
Absolutely love this. Do you have to be cap compliant before you can match offer sheets? If so, how would that look?
I believe a team can be 10% over prior to the start of the regular season. Therefore, the Oilers would be OK.
The only roadblock would be whoever right now has first waiver priority would have to agree to it. Let’s say that is SJ right now – there is no stipulation that states that the Oilers can’t immediately waive Broberg as soon as they match the STL offer. And there is nothing holding SJ back from sending us players in return for “future considerations” – I would think that the first would happen, and then Broberg gets waived, because there is no way we could absorb more players with Broberg’s new contract sitting on the cap sheet.
Does someone have a direct line to Bowman and Co to pass this idea along?
I’ll give him a call right now.
SJ has first claim. They can take picks or non NHL players. They can’t waive until 12 days from season start. They should also dispose of more cap
I sent it to David Staples by DM yesterday.
Yes, there is – cannot place a player on waivers (subject to certain exceptions I believe) until 12 days before the start of the regular season.
You would still have to make a move in order to match, wouldn’t you? Matching right now would put them well over 10% of the cap. Also, I thought the team had to be cap compliant before a player could be LTIR’d, which would also force a move.
I could quite easily be wrong…(It’s happened before, just ask my wife).
The two are on the Oilers Cap still and they are good. They have to make another deal regardless, they are over the cap without the two. They can send a player down to get compliant but will running short on roster players. The need to clear salary out to get more than 20 players, for me it’s Ceci
Based upon all the positive comments here I have to assume that almost nobody reads my posts. 😎
what is your twitter handle @defmn . would like to give u a follow
Thanks, but I never post about hockey on twitter.
I follow a few sports writers there just to keep up with what is happening around the league a bit but mostly I use twitter to discuss political philosophy while making annoying smart ass comments on politics.
That said ‘defmn’ is my handle there as well as here.
defmn: Thanks for doing the legwork yesterday for today’s thread.
All credit to defmn for this idea. It was definitely under appreciated yesterday.
Thanks. Blind squirrel and all that.
Very creative idea, but you might want to explore Section 26 of the CBA “No Circumvention”. In Particular, 26.2 and 26.3 would probably put road blocks on a transaction like you have structured which requires an undisclosed agreement between parties. Have a read and see if you still think this transaction would fly.
Impossible to prove. The second trade between the teams can take place next summer or at the trade deadline for that matter. Hard to link the events.
Given what St. Louis did – and IF and only IF the Oilers decide they cannot match and keep the players because of cap problems – I would still sign them and put them on waivers and forego the 2nd & 3rd from St. Louis just to keep Armstrong from getting them because business is business and you never want to be seen as an easy mark.
So in your first paragraph you seem to concede they will be circumventing the cap, but just that the side agreement can’t be proven. What are the odds that Stan Bowman would risk being part of that as his first transaction back in the league given his past circumstances?
The above is one of the best ideas ever!
Taxes (just looking at the highest brackets)
Trading Broberg to the SJ bottom-feeders would also result in him paying an additional 340K in taxes.
Come on JJ – MAKE THIS HAPPEN!
Heh heh. They only pay home tax for home games, pay the rate for away games to that jurisdiction and their rate
When Lavoie stepped over the boards, took a stride forward eliminating a player from existence, I was sold.
I’ve gone back and forth on what I think the Oilers should do and I feel like any scenario is defensible from the position they’re in now.
If he walks, I would try to trade either Ceci Kulak before the season to be under the cap without LTIR so cap space coupe be accrued and add a real 2RD before the deadline.
There are other players who could take Holloway’s spot this year but I think he still has upside and I’m not aware of his relationship with the team being sour or see any reasons for the players being annoyed with him. His cap hit is also more reasonable and he’s more likely to stay at a value contract 2 years from now. And long term, forwards are a huge need on the team.
So I would try to keep Holloway and let Broberg go, as unfortunate as it is.
Good take. It has to be Ceci, one because they have his replacement in house and don’t for Kulak, two because of scarcity, RD have more value and other GMs would have less leverage
Other GMs now playing hard ball with the Oilers adds another lovely layer to this crap cake. They should have cleared cap asap, all of this avoided. They couldn’t have kept them all anyway
Three because Kulak is a better player all round
Who is Ceci’s in house replacement? Stecher? Brown? Risky business.
Janmark down on waivers is the easy play for cap compliance. He had a UFA chance the last three years and nobody came knocking and now he’s locked up for three years at nearly double minimum. Soon to be 32 year olds inked till they’re 35 scoring 4 goals in a regular season campaign aren’t exactly high end targets.
Apologies on the re-post
In the event they decide to let HollowBro go I think there’s a way to get cap compliant without having to trade anyone but it involves sending Janmark down before day 1.
You run
Nuge-McD-Hyman
Skinner-Drai-Arvidsson
Hamblin-Henrique-Brown
Perry-Savoie-Stonehouse (who’s contract dollars are perfect for this)
Kane
Ekholm-Bouchard
Nurse-Ceci
Kulak-Brown
Skinner-Pickard
A risk is losing both Stecher and Janmark yes. A risk worth taking vs trading Ceci and having zero cover on the RH side.
So why not waive Perry, unless Janmark gets picked up they are the same cap savings if sent down.
Cause Perry has bonus overages that would accumulate for next year. He and Savoie need to be up to make sure you aren’t adding additional dollars onto the Campbell scrap heap.
Isn’t Perry’s bonus something like $250K so minor on the scheme of things
It depends on how good you think Ceci is. I think Stecher is as good and a better fit for Nurse even if not perfect
The OS makes it different. They have to do whatever they can to keep the most good players. I think the team is better without Ceci. The argument below that the D group is what got them to the final is flawed logic
That completely ignores the team struggling to find cover for how poorly Ceci was playing, and Des. They ended up using Bro, remember? Tried Des over Ceci? The have been many sets of stats put up here about it
Brown as the worst D in the league has no back up, it’s just your opinion. We will see what he is. To me he will be no worse than Des because he can skate. It’s not like they have a lot of options here, unless they want to run very thin and hope they can sort it out later, but that will be expensive. I prefer sort it out now, be out of LTIR and accumulate cap so you can do something later especially if a good deal comes up as it does always. We’re just always too capped out to get in on it
There is no evidence that Stecher is that person and he’s coming off ankle surgery. What did Ryan Whitney, who was smooth skater and a puck mocver look like after a procedure like that?
Its not my opinion on Josh Brown. People way smarter than me announced it immediately and OP went on for days and days about it.
https://x.com/IneffectiveMath/status/1807841726909833448
You cannot cast off useful pieces with no cover. Way to dangerous given where the team is at in its window.
They already fixed the biggest issue from the playoffs and that was the 2nd line. A few weeks ago you were very happy to see Foegele and McLeod gone. They picked up Stars for Leon. This will make a massive difference to the defensemen cause the top six should be able to hold the ozone against anyone in the league. Way more so than last years grouping.
Whoa, I don’t think we should be comparing the procedure that Stecher got with Whit’s Foppa-ankle.
This was surgery for a structural issue – it was an infected cyst.
Stecher had a boil removed, not ankle surgery. He’s a useful limited player, but his limits are mostly size, and he is a better style fit for Nurse
I don’t think Brown is a great player, I don’t think Des is a good player either. Isolating a D like IM does removes context. Or that he played on a weak team that was in turmoil which affected the group according to the Coyotes players
The bottom line for me is things are messed up. To me they should not just try to limp through this, play 20 guys and spend the year trying to do things in LTIR when the other teams know they are vulnerable
The best chance moving forward to me to improve is to get 22-23 roster players, not go into LTIR, gain some cap and add later, in a better position with more picks to use
Who is Ceci’s replacement in this scenario?
There are seasons and multiple playoffs of evidence that Ceci is not the right fit for the Oilers. How can trying someone else be a bad idea? In a small sample I have put up the numbers for Nurse with Stecher and they were really good. It’s not out of the question
When capped out or up against the wall like now, finding cost effective solutions is the idea isn’t it? They can adjust as they go if they can get ahead of the cap and get better assets than the compensation
I’m not buying that Stecher is a 2RD on a Cup favourite team, and I’m certainly not rely on a teeny tiny sample size of Nurse + Stecher.
It’s about setting the framework for being able to do something later to get better. Being capped out using 20 players, and not accumulating cap space because LTIR is not the way to do that. It puts them at the mercy of other GMs. Unless they know for sure Kane won’t return until playoffs, and that is unlikely
Ceci hasn’t been good for ages, or good enough. ‘Maybe’ he’s better than Stecher, maybe not. The balance of a pairing is a big part of effectiveness, Nurse Ceci aren’t now. I would rather ‘start’ there than pay Ceci 3.25M to play with Kulak and be in that position
Ceci isn’t either, that’s why he fell to 3rd pair
And yet Ceci was a 2RD on a SC Finalist team. Saying he wasn’t is simply not true.
If you let Broberg walk and trade one of Ceci/Kulak, as you suggest, who’s playing D? Your suggestion has 2 projected Dmen out the door.
If you trade Kulak, it’s probably Ben Gleason for awhile. I’m personally fine with trying that.
If you trade Ceci, it’s probably 2 of Stetcher, Brown and Gleason.
In either scenario you need to upgrade 2RD before the deadline and your third pair could end up being a lightly used Gleason-Stetcher, or whoever of the tweeners steps up, or Wanner if he has a great first half, or another trade/signing for a cheap veteran bottom pair guy.
You;re getting rid of the defensive cover that’s landed you in the SCF for tweener or in the case of Brown literally the worst dman in the NHL.
A warning light is flashing at this idea very loudly.
No kidding right? Lots of wild suggestions being thrown out in regards to what needs to be a Stanley Cup caliber defense.
What is wild to me is folks ignoring that the last group was not Stanley Cup calibre. They didn’t win right? They went down 3 games and made a miraculous comeback to get to game 7 in the finals. They chased the Canucks to game 7, them without their goalie and a key forward, and won by a goal. That was not the way to do it with the talent the Oilers have, far more than either team
And the biggest problem was two D, one of whom is gone, because they were playing poorly and Holland’s back up plan came in with a health issue (really Ken?) and they couldn’t use him
I am sure Ceci would not have been used if Stecher could play and was doing more of what they needed, which was likely. They would have tried at least
This is a tough statement to argue for given, well, they made it to the Stanley Cup Finals and to game 7 where the difference was one goal.
Imagine if Nurse was near historical norms – Cup.
Imagine if Drai wasn’t so hurt he could barely play – Cup.
Not to mention that the “miraculous comeback” was no more miraculous than the 3-game start by Florida (in particular given the Oilers were the better team in 2 out 3 of those games).
So you are saying the finals comeback wasn’t historic and in the same vein as them winning the first 3? Or ‘if’ some players played better they would have won? They shouldn’t have had that much trouble with the Canucks, and shouldn’t have come back in the finals, and ran out of gas and luck and lost
That’s exactly what I am saying. If some players played better they would have won
Ceci
Desharnais
Foegele
McLeod
Nurse
Nuge at times
That’s huge part of the lineup to overcome. Single good plays dot balance off the whole. 3of them are D, so how is the D group good enough? Everyone discounting that when you have an historic player in prime you get a boost no other team does. And another guy crushing it in Bouch. The drag was too much for the two to overcome
You have to take in the whole picture for context
This is yet another completely false statement by you.
That is yet another completely false statement by you. You have no counter point other than opinion. It’s your’s to have, doesn’t invalidate mine unless you have something to prove it like stats. I have changed opinions with a good response that shows where I got it wrong
3 struggling D, one season regular ended up in PB, one top 4 demoted to least TOI in the finals both replaced by an 81 game player off hand. What am I missing?
It’s not a personal argument, just chatting sports, right?
Actually I’m proposing this:
Ekholm – Bouchard
Nurse – [Ceci upgrade]
Kulak – Stecher (or another depth D)
By trading Ceci and accumulating cap throughout the year, the Oilers would be able to afford an upgrade on him for the top 4. I don’t see a huge drop off between Desharnais and the other 3RD options.
There is less high end depth than last year with Broberg gone but a better top 4, presuming a trade for the Ceci replacement can be executed.
I understand that but who is the Ceci upgrade? Who is the RHD you’re dealing for that also comes in ~$385k less than Ceci to get cap compliant?
Guys like Barrie and Schultz are not upgrades at this point in their careers.
Not trying to be a smart alekc, just wondering who the target is and if they are in fact an upgrade.
It’s a risk but you don’t know until later. The thing is to be set up to be able to do it. We already know Ceci isn’t the one based on how the coaches chose
Does this have Kane on LTIR?
If so, no accumulating cap.
He may not be there all year but it would be shocking if he doesn’t start there for at least 2-3 months – no accrual.
That’s what I have been proposing they set up
Great write up and reminders on Lavoie thank you. It would be a wonderful turn if he showed up as a real option this fall.
If Lavoie or Savoie, for that matter, can potentially replace Holloway on the roster, the blow of losing him decreases. Broberg will be way more difficult to match and that was by design, because that truly is the target of the Blues. . Like I’ve been saying all along don’t match either of them.
A first-round pick? Forget it. At that point, you’re giving up a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for Broberg and Holloway.
A 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, played smartly, is enough to get a 24-year-old Dougie Hamilton, who is far superior to 24-year-old Broberg+Holloway.
— What would a signed to this contract Brah get in a trade is the calculation (we know he can’t be traded)
— But that’s how to calculate the loss of equity. Hint: it has to be more than the 2nd.
— The predatory pricing on the alleged cost you post to sell one of these other D that is the massive delta plus time value of a younger D.
— having to give anything additional up to trade a bona fide NHL D however is crazy. Add that to equity loss if they do take this route.
— Still believe they keep one move from other That’s CYA management 101
— Hope Stretcher or Lavoie guy works out depending on who they keep.
Luckily Bruce Garrioch has often reported that he doesn’t know sh!t from pudding.
I think it’ll be more like a 3rd or 4th, as the acquiring team can trade either player for a pick at the deadline.
At least ONE of the 30 teams will want to upgrade their defense.
At their salaries they are good value for other teams. Have to get a few teams into it to drop the added pick at least
We aren’t seriously going to take Garrioch’s info on the Oilers as fact, in particular when it contradicts both Friedman and Seravelli, are we?
Stauff seems to be setting it up for the fans that they will let Broberg walk – the segment with Friedman last night really suggests that’s the likely route.
Friedman also suggests that it was much tougher to get Holloway to sign the offer sheet.
Also Friedman mentions the Oilers did offer. Holloway a 3 year deal earlier. They wanted some cost certainty and are/were a bit concerned with the arb rights in one year as “Holloway can score”.
I think the Oil should match both and move Kulak and Ceci. Stecher is a good Ceci replacement, and Bro can play anywhere. Ideally, we keep him on the left and he can move up and down depending on Nurse/Ek performance and health.
Or he plays his off side but this isn’t great player management.
The right side remains a problem but can be resolved later in the season.
Holloway is less important to the team construct but we need his speed and tenacity (or a similar replacement). May as well be him if we can afford it.
Trouble is one cannot move Kulak and Ceci right now without a huge penalty.
Garrioch says so but Friedman and Seravelli both say the opposite.
Letting Broberg walk is the move, keeping Holloway and burning Flames merch infront of his stall is step 2 to that move lol.
By what Friedman suggests, it means the Oilers were trying to eff over Holloway, forcing him to sign a three year deal, and surrender two years of arbitration instead of one.
Man, if one wants to induce a player to go looking for and sign an offer sheet from another team, this is how to do it.
Operate by the Golden Rule, or win-win game theory. No the Oilers take the jackboot to their young players necks, because they can, and say sign. That is no way to treat people.
Both agents make reasonable demands $1.8 and $1.2. Everyone could have been happy with those deals.
The demands were technically a bit high, but, given the important roles the two stepped up to in the playoffs, those numbers are not high and given the future you do that all day long
But they are in love with a fine but 2.75M 3LD and a 3.25M RD who most people but them seem to notice is a problem in the playoffs. They would rather have them than such important ready to go, less expensive young players
Very poor work by the management group, especially strong arming people wanting low salaries whose chains you have been yanking for a while. So sick of this banana republic running of the team
Falling in love with prospects again.
Neither moved the needle significantly. You could argue Bro in a tough spot but he was still getting caved.
That thing that has never happened before happened to us, there isn’t exactly a playbook and by all accounts Bro didn’t accept anything knowing other teams would be interested come offseason. Bro didn’t play until the 3rd round of ploffs. He hadn’t done anything that would constitute 1.8M previous to that.
Agree – everyone seems to be ignoring that the sample size in playoffs was tiny, by comparison to his previous body of work in the regular season (during which he was a complete bust), while anointing him as the second coming of Charlie Huddy … he had some big moments, but he was still getting caved by any metric.
The pressure to succeed in St. Louis after signing that contract is going to be enormous. All they have is 33 year old Nick Leddy to shelter him. I would not be surprised to see him non-tendered a qualifying offer once this contract is done.
I’d rather have their 2nd round pick and the cap space flexibility to be able to add what I need at the trade deadline.
This is factually incorrect, he was not a complete bust.
This ignores that great play he provided for 15 games as 3LD in Jan-Feb 2023 and the circumstances that led to that being broken up and Broberg never getting a shot to play in a 6D set-up – one game after that (first game this season when Ekholm was hurt) outside of a 7D set-up.
Not in GF%
You know Chris Pronger didn’t start strong either. Not comparing, but calling Broberg a bust taking everything into account is a bit strong
He just turned 23. Most D don’t find the range until a few years older. Bouch is almost 2 years older. With Bro’s size and skating, his hockey sense – his Swedish coach said he was the best D he had ever seen at his age – it is more likely if the OS goes through the Blues got an elite skating big top 4 D, at least, than a non QO player, for a 2nd round pick
He should not be used at RD, Armstrong knows this and it was apparently part of the pitch, even if the Oilers don’t
It just goes to show the St. Louis Blues want Broberg & Holloway more than the Edmonton Oliers.
The only player that is off the table for me is Connor FYI
Neither was expected to do anything, and replaced veteran players and did better than they did. Given the way they were handled, which was unnecessary, even though they technically weren’t at the ask, how they stepped up does lead to feeling like something is owed back, and the loss of earnings from being held back after most said they were NHL ready
We aren’t talking very big overpays. At that point the GM should be thinking about risk, like an offer sheet, and losing two key young players where you have few, at the bottom of the pay scale, so you can keep a guy that has not helped twice in playoffs, for whatever reason, lost his place, and is 30. I don’t see that as smart, even if the kids aren’t perfect
Your management hate drivel gets more amusing every day.
Forcing?
They provided a contract offer for 3 years – an offer.
There is no indication that he had to take a 3 year offer or they wouldn’t sign him.
4 days ago most would have opined that $1.8MM for Broberg was an over pay and Bowman would have been getting roasted for the overpay. An AAV the player is likely to provide value for but higher than what it should have been.
Especially when we have other guys who are overpaid by $3M. Janmark might be a touch overpaid, but you’d need 10 or 20 of Janmark’s overpays to equal Nurse’s overpay.