My article at The Athletic today focuses on 36 men who I consider prospects and their possible future. I think this year’s group most resembles the summer 2003 talent pool. Sam O’Reilly may become Jarret Stoll (with better speed and a lesser shot), Max Wanner could be Matt Greene without the draft pedigree. Matthew Savoie? He could be the slightly less electric Ales Hemsky, who had already graduated as a prospect by the summer of 2003. The rugged soul of the Oilers was a concern then, you can see Coke Machines down every aisle of the 2003 top-20 prospect list. Will the current crop of physical Oilers develop as well, or better, than the 2003 group?
TRUCULENCE
As someone who has observed the Oilers franchise since 1972, I can say with some confidence that we are seeing a change in the weather. It has happened many times in the past, in fact the 1972-73 Alberta Oilers featured rugged defenseman Allan Hamilton and some willing combatants up front in Jim Harrison and Ken Baird. That Oilers team also featured a true gentleman in Val Fonteyne, by the way.
Through the years, the toughness marbled through the roster came from Doug Barrie, Barry Long, Frank Beaton, Dave Langevin, Peter Driscoll, Dave Semenko, Cam Connor, Dave Lumley, Pat Price, Curt Brackenbury, Lee Fogolin, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey (seriously, he took a lot of penalties), Kevin Lowe, Ken Linseman, Don Jackson, Kevin McClelland, Pat Hughes, Dave Hunter, Steve Smith, Marty McSorley, Jeff Beukeboom, Esa Tikkanen, Kelly Buchberger, Craig Simpson, Dave Brown, Adam Graves, Dave Manson, Scott Mellanby, Louie DeBrusk, Luke Richardson, Shayne Corson, Scott Pearson, Jason Arnott, Bill Guerin, Bryan Marchment, Bo Mironov, Doug Weight (oh yes he was), Ryan Smyth, Drake Berehowsky, Bill Huard, Sean Brown, Georges Laraque, Mike Grier, Jason Smith, Ethan Moreau, Igor Ulanov, Steve Staios, Scott Ferguson, Chris Pronger, Raffi Torres, Matt Greene, Zack Stortini, Laddy Smid, Sheldon Souray, J-F Jacques, Shawn Horcoff, Jason Strudwick, Theo Peckham, Steve MacIntyre, Ben Eager, Darcy Hordichuk, Mike Brown, Luke Gazdic, David Perron, Matt Hendricks, Andrew Ference, Keith Aulie, Zack Kassian, Eric Gryba, Darnell Nurse, Patrick Maroon, Milan Lucic, Jujhar Khaira, Adam Larsson, Evander Kane, Klim Kostin, Leon Draisaitl, Vincent Desharnais, Corey Perry, to name a few. I didn’t include guys like Connor McDavid and Taylor Hall, although both are plenty tough and can dish it out.
I listed these names to make a point. Going back to Glen Sather’s days, the Oilers have always been tough but had that toughness marbled through the lineup. Most of these boys could play. I love finding out about NHL history, and two stories have stayed with me for these 60+ years.
First, Sather. During the final WHA season, Slats observed a skinny Mark Messier win a fight over Oilers’ center Dennis Sobchuk easily, and drafted him. I have zero idea if Sather knew Messier would be Messier, and the draft day reports included old timey sayings like Messier was ‘raw boned’ but that decision gave this Edmonton Oilers franchise the rugged soul so many of you fret over to this day. Messier, no one will argue against me here, could play in any situation. He was a mur-diddly-urderer on the ice, but he could play the game well.
Second, Sam Pollock. Tired of watching his beautiful skill Canadiens get pushed around, Pollock acquired John Ferguson and Ted Harris, and elevated Terry Harper and Jacques Laperriere over a two-season period in the early 1960’s. The Montreal Canadiens became a lot more difficult to play against. I should mention their captain, Jean Beliveau, was universally respected but no shy violet (based on my father’s reporting). In my own mind, I think Leon Draisaitl maybe plays a similar style in terms of physicality.
I don’t object to rugged players, in fact I love watching them help the team gain an edge. I know for a fact that Milan Lucic was highly useful with the Boston Bruins. He was less so for the Oilers. The Bruins acquired Lucic for a second-round pick, the Oilers spent millions and compromised the roster to get him to Edmonton.
I don’t object to rugged players. I do object to fracturing the roster to get it done. No to Rasmus Ristolainen.
36 men pushing to make the Edmonton Oilers over the next few seasons. Here’s the state of the prospects list.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5771349/2024/09/20/edmonton-oilers-prospects-stock-watch-2024/
…
Game Day!
Puljujarvi with the hat trick for Pittsburgh to open the season. 😎
Important correction, to open the pre-season.
Meh. The season starts when they drop the puck.
When they drop the puck for games that count in the standings played with NHL players…..
Article on Ethan Bear and his struggles with anxiety and depression:
https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/washington-capitals/features/washington-capitals-ethan-bear-opens-up-time-nhl-nhlpa-player-assistance-program
Glad to see that Bear is in a better place. I’m cheering for him.
I actually have some time for Risto. He’s been a massive disappointment and has had a whole slew of problems (injuries, covid etc etc). But his numbers seemed to turn around last season in a positive way. He’s one of the few RHD who might be available. Drafted right after Nurse who has been better, but I wish we had Nurse on Risto’s contract. Not sure what the “fracture the roster comment alludes to? I’d take him at the deadline if we have space and sort out the cap next summer.
Your post has me thinking. This is a math blog and the posters here tend to look at things as black & white.
Have there been instances when a player with underlying numbers that seem to be beyond the pale are turned around when said player meets the right opportunity?
I have a lot of time for people here who question the wisdom of adding someone who just seems to be a real head scratcher. But perhaps there is a time where we should reconsider and be more open to situations that say “take another look”?
His raw numbers last year were actually pretty good.
https://www.naturalstattrick.com/playerreport.php?fromseason=20232024&thruseason=20242025&stype=2&sit=5v5&stdoi=oi&rate=n&v=p&playerid=8477499
Never looked deeper than that or watched a lot of Philly, but there might be something there. This is the kind of guy we need to be on the hunt for.
His numbers improved because he played way less. His toi has decreased significantly over the past three seasons. That is a huge tell. He might do well in a third pair role but the Oilers don’t need another expensive third pair dman.
Dissapointing, but inevitable, that the Nucks signed Lankinen.
After picking the “break out goalie of the year” the last two years, Kevin Woodley has Lankinen as his pick for this season.
They stuck to their guns and he finally signed for $875K.
Demko just interviewed at camp says he’s getting close but this is an insurance policy.
Demko is butter soft he’ll be a thorn in a no monkey business Tocchet all season.
Demko was also close to returning for the playoffs.
I take any timeline on his return to game action with a grain of salt.
This was a good signing – a needed one.
Did you listen to his interview?
He says he is very close and has had two weeks without symptoms.
The past predicts future performance. He’s a bandaid who now has a chronic injury that will never be fixed.
Sounds promising.
He also said he was close to returning in the playoffs.
Canucks see the value in $2M Desharnais and triple down on decent goaltending. Oilers placing serious bets on Coyote defenders and offering PTOs to formerly elite forwards. Definitely Oilers deserve some HH wrath here. Skinner is fine. Not great. But given an injury, are you really riding Pickard to a banner season?
Further to this, is it coincidence or did Kassian play a part in all of these coyote acquisitions?
Kassian would have only played with Stetcher and Brown in Arizona though it is curious how we targeted so many Arizona defensemen.
Lets see:
“This is the most confident that I’ve been in the rehab process to date…I’m not going to sit here and give you a timeline because it might create some problems for me.”
So he’s saying he’s confident in the process, but not enough to give a timeline. Not exactly confidence inspiring.
“He described it as “rare” and “unique” and said he isn’t aware of any other hockey players who have ever dealt with the same injury, though their research found a handful of soccer players who dealt with something similar.
“When I first felt the injury, I wasn’t too sure what it was and, as we dived into some research and things, it was a little ambiguous,” said Demko, adding, “There’s a lack of research. I don’t know too much about what this looks like, full picture, at the end of this whole process.””
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/canucks-hockey/canucks-thatcher-demko-clears-air-regarding-rare-and-unique-injury-9544778
Considering how unique of a position a hockey goalie is and the ailments that come from it, this also doesn’t inspire confidence.
“Hey guys, I have a unique injury and no one to compare it to in my position so I have no idea how to totally avoid it coming up again, or how to improve it, and also can’t get surgery for it, and I also can’t confidently give you a timeline on recovery but can say, I feel better-ish for now…”
You have to be a fanboy to think this isn’t concerning.
Or you know, be actively trying to spin every Oiler narrative one way and every narrative about every other teams the opposite way.
“Anti-Oiler Fanboy Club.
No girls allowed”
Sometimes that opposite spin is refreshing. The Emberson spin from Seravalli and Stauffer was a bit much this week. We’re supposed to believe a player who’s passed through three other NHL organizations and played a grand total of 30 NHL games is a sure thing as a breakout player, and is going to jump to 2RD and float a sinking Darnell Nurse. Stauffer already talking contract extension and we’ve not seen a single game.
The Emberson watch is the most important story out of TC I would think. A lot of reputations on the line over how it turns out.
For sure. Though in this case the spin is so pervasive that anything stated has become meaningless.
I haven’t heard them. I certainly agree Emberson is no lock as a strong 2RD though.
Seravalli called Emberson something like “his breakout player of the year.”
While Interviewing Bowman, Stauffer said something along the lines of “if I were GM I would extend him on a bridge contract right away.” Bowman handled it well. But you could hear the eye roll trough the phone. Never heard a broadcaster tell a GM what to do in an interview before.
Friedman talks about this at 37:00 on the latest 32 Thoughts. He says “you have to listen to the quotes, instead of reading the quotes.” His take is that Demko is very optimistic, but that the Canucks are taking a long view, preparing for a return later in the season, “…to get ready for game 83.” He emphasized optimism…
Summarizing!
Berry was denied soup, finishing even on the day with 1 SOG and an interference penalty in a 4-2 loss.
Edmonton Oilers
@EdmontonOilers
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29m
Warren Rychel has been promoted to #Oilers Director of Pro Scouting, Zack Kassian has rejoined the organization as Pro Scout & the team has also added Aaron Nagy, Erik Elenz, Dominik Zrim & David Evanochko to their hockey operations staff.
Wow. That is a lot of hires. I guess details on responsibilities will surface.
https://www.nhl.com/oilers/news/release-oilers-announce-hockey-operations-promotion-additions
Thanks.
OilersNation has a fairly detailed article with backgrounds on these the hires.
Clean house bring in a crew that will draft better than the wrongs of the wright era.
I think Nagy, hired as an amateur scout, is the only new hire directly related to the draft.
The Mahe brothers must have survived 5 palace coups by now.
They were the ‘analytics guys’ for the Oilers back when I was asked to evaluate the market potential of some scouting software the Oilers were using at the time and I have been retired for 17 years.
Does Zack Kassian as a pro scout induce confidence for anyone? Guess I’m skeptical on this hire.
It is a bit curious but scouting is on a level of secrecy the diamond traders in Antwerp only hope for. Nobody really knows who did what until long after or who wanted who and management made a different choice.
I’m not sure who would still be around to offer this to him as a favour though.
With pro scouting, as opposed to scouting amateurs, I would think contacts would be a big part of being able to do the job. The Oilers have 11 guys scouting amateurs and 4 scouting pros. I assume the pros do the AHL and the NHL? I don’t really know. Who scours the pro European leagues for example because 4 people isn’t a lot.
I do believe depending on how spry Podkolzin is for the first 1/4 of the season whether are not obtaining some turbulence is needed. Podkilzin has been given his wish with a fresh start I do believe he hits it out of the park. If Emberson-Podkolzin-Skinner-Ardvisson-Stecher-Brown all have a plus after their name look out N.H.L
@frank_seravalli
Among a series of hockey ops promotions, #Oilers announce they have hired Dominik Zrim as Director of Hockey Strategy.
Zrim is one of the brains behind the now defunct @CapFriendly
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1:48 PM · Sep 21, 2024
·14.4K
Views
And the hits just keep on coming.
— David : he was hired before the summer. I’m known him a bit over the years.
— It’s amazing how media has to be sooon fed this stuff.
— To be sure some smart hires in this. Merit based. Not bleed Oil and your in. Even Kassian: great as a scout. Progress : no Ed-oiler or family member in this group promoted way above experience.
Per Stauff:
Casual observations through first 3 days on ice @EdmontonOilers Training Camp:
Noah Philp 6’3″ RC and Jayden Grubbe 6’3″ RC have had some good moments.
Phil Kemp 6′ 3″ RD battling to be a depth D.
Matt Savoie has shown some flashes on RW.
Victor Arvidsson works!
97/29 good!
Coach says seeing Philp, there will be an opportunity for him “in the future” – doesn’t sound like he’s in contemplation to take Ryan’s spot out of camp.
Makes sense. He’s been off for a year and needs time to get his game back.
Would have been very concerned if he was able to take a year off and be immediately in the mix.
Knobby continues to get asked about the PP and if he’ll use PP2 and, today, once again, he essentially says there is not going to be any material changes. The first PP unit will stay in tact and will get the vast majority of PP time. He’ll try and work to get PP2 a bit more involved.
I don’t think Kris will think twice in starting PP2 depending on the circumstances and I do think they’ll get more minutes if PP1 goes stale in a game or a period of games. Our PP2 will obviously have a different look and strategy which may be needed but they will have scorers with skill on it. Stone hands McLeod-Foegele-Holloway have all vacated the premises
Knob has talked about it in response to the question at least 2-3 times in the last few weeks and has been very clear he’s not anticipating any real change in units or deployment.
I do hope they zoom Skinner who will get another multi year contact for bucks if he has a 30 plus goal season. I want Edmonton to be a 1 year pit stop for aging stars to inflate Goals for their next contract.
Skinner is a 5 on 5 goal scorer much more than a PP guy.
He had one season of 11 PP goals and, other than that, career high of 8.
Henrique and Ardvisson are also good 5 on 5. Our second PP might be better than half the leagues first unit.
I’m thinking, well, no.
I’m going to take the coach at face value on this one.
Riffing off the Jamie Drysdale comment below. A quick google shows that he had surgery for a sports hernia in April. He is now skating and ready to start the season. That puts it at about 5 months recovery. If we apply that to Evander Kane, understanding everyone is different and Kane had additional injuries requiring repair, it would put his return at late February. Just in time to get up to speed for a playoff run.
Might be a better guess to say that would be the earliest we’d see him
LT: nice truculent list. Toughest guy missing IMO is Jamie Troy, a hard-as-nails RW from the 1977-78 squad.
That was the year that the Birmingham Bullies had 4 guys north of 240 PIM, none of whom played as many as 60 games. Legends like Gilles “Bad News” Bilodeau, Frank “Seldom” Beaton, Steve “Demolition Durby” Durbano & Dave “Killer” Hanson of Slapshot! fame.
All other WHA teams had at least 2 goons with further redundancy recommended. The Oilers had the rookie Dave Semenko & thuggish d-man Ron Busniuk, but brought on Troy at midseason to toughen up the roster.
There was a fan club in the old Section 2 that used to chant: “We want Semenko! We want Troy! Come on Sather, put out the boys!”
I can vouch for that chant. We heard it loud and clear from the opposite side of the Coliseum, and joined in.
A memory undisturbed from 45+ years ago, now fresh. Thank you sir.
Love it!!
Sather would laugh and once in a while put them out after the chant.
Messier as the 3rd round pick throw-in in the trade Sather had to make to re-acquire Semenko for the NHL is both pure luck and pure genius.
it’s not as though Lou Nanne & the North Stars struck out with the #42 pick they got in that deal. Last pick in the second round.
Neal Broten, 1099 GP, 923 points.
but he was no Mark Messier
He’s the wrong Rasmus
The wrong Risto too.
Let us not forget the 2nd rounder for Lucic was an Oiler pick for Samsonov. He did his job well, but a thought experiment:
If the Oil had taken Lucic, you wonder if all the coke machine picks would have happened.
Assuming Looch would become Looch regardless of circumstance, and that the Oil picked him would it be:
A) Even more Coke machines in later rounds because of a Looch hit.
B) Less CM picks because that need was fulfilled. The D was still filthy post 06 even without CFP.
All the ifs will drive a man mad. Happy Saturday from Banff for the first day if Autumn.
What am I missing on Risto Rasmusailen?
11 years in the league, never made the playoffs, a minus player every single season (-182 for his career), 40 points in 171 games in Philly while his ice time dropped from 21 minutes to 19 to 16, still has three years to run at $5.1 million. What is the appeal?
Good question for Bob Stauffer, the source of the speculation/
As an aside – has Ristolainen’s name been thrown around much in the rumors?
Is he the only established D who’s been linked to the Oilers in rumors?
I know Giordano, Schultz and Barrie (others?) were all talked about as PTOs, but I haven’t seen/followed much else in terms of rumored trades.
Jamie Drysdale has resumed skating after sports Hernia surgery. Young right shot defenseman.
Not that he has been linked to the Oilers.
Just some Flyer RHD the Oilers might consider instead of Rootsy.
I think it has been Stauff that has brought him up a few times. Saying he is a right shot D that the Oilers could/should target and noted the fact the teams were talking at the draft given they made a trade.
To my knowledge, its Stauffer’s opinion that is the only place this has been coming from.
Thanks for the added context.
Ha! I did not expect today’s post to be leading there!
I think Ristolainen is a little better than his reputation (which isn’t to say that he’s good). But even if he’s a bit better than his reputation it’s still really difficult to envision a reasonable trade with him as part of it.
Too much salary unless the Flyers retained. And if they retain (for 3 seasons) that’s going to cost too much justify.
It’s a poser. I know Seravalli mentioned Ristolainen recently so I am guessing that this is where it came from since he and Gregor are pretty tight.
Actually, I think Stauff has been bringing his name up for a few weeks now – including when Seravelli was on with him.
I’m not so sure Rasmus is truly rugged.
He has size but I question his toughness.
I wouldn’t claim to be any kind of expert on Ristolainen but if I was asked to list his attributes I’m not sure ‘toughness’ would even occur to me. It certainly doesn’t show up in PIM.
I have to assume there is a rumour out there I have not heard concerning what the Oilers would offer in return.
No to Rootzy.
I do think Oilers management values Josh Brown’s toughness and, with Vinny moving on and Kane out for an indefinite period of time, the initial plan is for him to play more games than not at 3RD.
Can he be a nightly 3RD on a team with cup aspirations?
I think we are going to find out.
LoL. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for sometime now.
The regular-season Oilers and the playoff Oilers are two different entities.
We talked about this all summer, OP. Honestly.
Yes, and I’m posting that my initial position on the intent of the singing seems to have been wrong.
I’m not sold that he’ll be able to handle the role as the fanbase or coaching staff requires but we are likely going to find out and I am hopeful that my original position on his abilities is also proven wrong.
And I’m saying that this is a moment when we (both of us) can contemplate the value of repetition and the value of voicing an opinion once. Respectfully. I do it too. I’m sure folks are sick of my constant yammering about Max Wanner and Matt Savoie, as an example. Anyway, I’ll move on.
Prospectamity!
The last player the Oilers drafted gets to be the first NAmateur to partake of regular-season play, as Bauer Berry and the Jacks of Lumber open their season this day.
It’s unknown whether Berry has a future in the fire escape trade, but it’s more certain that his value will be in his own end of the ice. He scored but once in 59 reg season games yesteryear (along with one in 8 playoff games). Are more crooked numbers in store for him this season? We wait.
It’s at
onetwelve o’clock and time forlunchhockey (Girouxville time). Hum de dum dum dum…But I remembered a voice from the past, “Gambling only pays when you’re winning”
Looking forward to another season of timely prospect updates. Keep ‘em coming, Tarkus!
Seconded!