In his draft year, Matt Savoie scored 35-55-90 in 65 games (1.38 pts-60). He was chosen same year same round (but earlier) than Edmonton selection Reid Schaefer (66, 32-26-58 .88). Schaefer is just three months older than Savoie, but has a full AHL season (63, 7-14-21) on his resume. What should we expect, in terms of boxcars, from Matt Savoie as an AHL rookie at 20?
WHL TO AHL PROGRESSION (DRAFT YEAR TO ROOKIE AHL SEASON)
Leon Draisaitl was having an impact in the NHL by Halloween of his rookie pro season, so should be considered an extreme outlier. Tyler Benson had one of the best AHL seasons by a 20-year old in Oilers minor league history, and that was the peak of his career. I know he didn’t make it, but my goodness that was a strong enough season to warrant a recall.
The comparable for Savoie is Yamamoto. I think people have soured on him, injuries have had an impact and that’s a worry for Savoie, too. As an AHL player, Yamamoto was a screaming success. He carried the play, he was a magician with the puck, he tracked down opponents like a rabid dog, and he turned over pucks by the score. Seriously, if Yamamoto had been gifted with an exceptional AHL center, I think he could have delivered a point-per-game.
I’m guessing Savoie will have an exceptional AHL center, as the Condors will have more than one (Lane Pederson, Noah Philp). I suspect he’ll wow fans and be the biggest thing to hit town since Buck Owens. Traditionally, when a young player hits the AHL and scores extremely well, a recall is the next step. The Oilers have been a little wonky with the kids (see Benson, but also Philip Broberg and even Evan Bouchard) and that may continue even though the Ken Holland era is over. Stay tuned, we’ll be tracking this young man closely all winter.
WAIVERS TODAY
I think the Oilers path is clear. Sign Travis Dermott, make sure all the regulars have 10 fingers and toes, then get after it. A strong start is vital to this Oilers team, and they sure as hell earned it (but did not get it) based on the possession totals one year ago. I like this team. This group could win Stanley but will need a Kevin Lowe 2006 deadline.
My picks to win postseason awards are Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard. The heat is on Darnell Nurse and Stuart Skinner. The coolest outcome is Ty Emberson having success on the second pair. The top two lines are stacked, the third unit should suppress enough offence to play at par, and the fourth line is missing a piece (Noah Philp) but I expect he’ll be along shortly.
It’s waiver day so you know I’m in a great mood! We’ll have all the news that’s fit to vocalize at noon, Sports 1440. Our guests will include Rachel Doerrie from Betalytics and ESPN. We’ll chat about trade targets on defense and preseason records as a predictive tool for the regular season. Jason Gregor will drop in to talk Oilers, Elks, NFL weekend and MLB playoffs. I’m at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section here and on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly. We can be heard at sports1440.ca; iHeartRadio; Radioplayer Canada, we tweet out the show after it’s done and you can catch us on Apple and Spotify.
New for The Athletic: Where does the 2024-25 Oilers opening-night roster rank in team history?
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5822487/2024/10/07/oilers-roster-ranking-team-history/
Practice lines today have Janmark with Drai and Arvidsson and Skinner with Henrique and Brown.
I do not like that. I would swap Skinner with Nuge, if anything.
DNBSports
Jeff Skinner in the bottom six to start Oilers practice. Mattias Janmark up.
This team does not need a 06 Lowe deadline.
Mostly goalie ✅
Complete top 9 ✅
What they need is a right handed Ekholm deadline, which may be over the top depending on how young Emberson’s play holds up.
Maybe just a right handed Kulak.
Ty Emberson has come as advertised in the exhibition season – a very strong defender who closes gaps, has great positioning and a very good stick.
He gave up so very little at evens in exhibition. 65% metrics across the board including an expected goal share over 70%.
Yup, just exhibition but, for me, he has furthered the hope he can be a legit 2RD. I don’t understand those that have his arrows down based on exhibition – he defended so very well.
Spec reporting that the Oilers did not submit any waiver claims yesterday. No surprise at all (at least to me) that no external add is coming today.
I think this will lock in the Dermott signing at some point. I presume in the next couple of hours to days but perhaps they want until they actually want to play him – keep him off the roster until then – would kind of be a dick move to the player so I doubt that.
So, if they sign Dermott to league minimum that leaves them with just over a million in cap space. How much does that accrue daily?
I think it would be closer to $1.2MM and, if there were no changes through the season, that would give them close to $5.5MM at the deadline (rough math).
Of course, no changes is not feasible.
You go through the league and there are so few established RHD potentially available. The list is pretty damn short:
Pionk (pending UFA but WPG obviously tries to resign)
Andersson (CGY unlikely to deal with us)
Ristolainen (checks a lot of boxes but has he turned a corner?)
That’s the list if we are talking about being reasonably available. Everyone else is unavailable or 3rd pair. Sure Zub would be nice but why would OTT trade him? Build JJ a statue if he can pull that off.
This is why Emberson is such a big deal. If he can hang with Nurse on the 2nd pair it is absolutely massive. Could be a franchise altering trade if it works out. Wouldn’t mind another big Bobby Clobber on the 3rd pair either but maybe Brown can fill that role (yeah I know unlikely).
I would suggest the Oilers will continue to search for less established RHD’s along the lines of Ty Emberson. They tend to be less expensive. And there’s more of them around the league.
Sure but how many more 3/4 RHD do we need? We already have Stecher, Dermott, Brown, Kemp. Draft and develop is the way to go. Still unhappy we dealt Kesselring for peanuts.
Huge opportunity for Emberson and the team if he can fill that 2RD slot beside Nurse. Main storyline of the early season.
Emberson has looked good. He can either fill in beside Nurse or Kulak depending on if they need to further upgrade 2RD. So, it remains to be seen if they need a 2RD, or 3RD. Stecher & Dermott (if signed) are good insurance for the time being. They seem to be in an alright position, and they have a whole season to sort things out.
There are unexpected defencemen who become available every year. No need to start narrowing things down right now.
You can also always go out and make a hockey trade if that’s necessary.
Looking out too far ahead.
Yeah exactly this. Who had Ekholm as an available trade target when we got him?
Utah has an abundance of RHD. Durzi would be really nice. They also have two guys named Kesselring and Marino.
Will Borgen is an option.
Risto is not a 2RHD anymore. Please look at his toi. Huge red flag. Plus a bad contract.
— With all due respect to Brown v Stetcher or which guy is going to be the 14th F or of so and so should have earned a spot on the roster there are a few things that exponentially more important to the results this year that barely have been discussed:
— Not in any order but this is the stuff that matters that no one asks or surmises:
1) Is this team better prepared than the one that got blown out 8-1 and clearly had just awful lines of communication from day 1 and woefully ill equipped and poor execution
2) What have the players and coaching learned? What specifically has been different about this pre-season that might better prepare them for next season? Is third coach a charm?
3) Will McDavid score more than 2 goals in the first 11 games. What has he learned and doing different to be more effective out of the gate (or injured etc)
4) How committed is the team to McDrai on seperate lines. No ifs and or buts this time
5) what has Skinner learned or done differently so that he isn’t the worst goalie in the league for the 1st 2 months with a .870 sv%
6) How is Nurse going to do with an unestablished partner and a sub-optimal preparation
7) How are they planning on handling the G: or will they just ride Skinner hard because.
— A bunch more but I think to focus ought to shed some light on opinions and thoughts on these things that matter way more.
— An ode to the Honeymoon Suite reference yesterday :
Dear oil :
why must I always say it again.
It’s a new season now,
I got a new same team now.
And she’s a lot like the last year. A lot like you. just like you.
Understanding the ebb and flow of the competition is crucial in estimating the results of the good guys.
The ebb in the West and in particular the Pacific has been real and spectacular the last two seasons. The Canucks are ahead of where projections had them but L.A. Vegas and especially Calgary are markedly worse.
Head into the Central and mediocrity reigns supreme. Dallas is the cream of the crop. After that though. Nashville has revamped its approach, but only with guys on the wrong side of the age curve. The Jets are aging out, keep an eye on Schieffle’s decline this year. Colorado is the most top heavy team in the league. Utah and Minnesota have pieces but that’s it.
The West is in a pretty hard ebb right now. A conference of Bubble teams.
Also hard to make a case that anyone in the East got that much better defensively save Washington and the Devils.
Conversations around the 3rd and 4th lines should have this context close at hand. The Oilers don’t play last years Florida team in the SCF every night. For roughly 60% of their games they’ll be playing Western teams, 85% of which are worse than last year especially along their forward depth rankings.
Henrique has a knack for scoring, high shooting % over his whole career. I think its reasonable to suggest positive regression for the shooting % of his line-mates this year too. Or maybe the defense helps them out with a goal or five?
The bottom six will also get a 25 goal scorer back at some point in the last 3rd of the season.
Emberson is the wild card and I will admit to coming around. Big risk, but I like it.
Folks are underselling Skinner and Arviddson. You can tack on >150 more shots from the top six this year to last. I betcha the zone time element is going to swing hard + for that 2nd line too. Less defending overall.
The Oilers are easily the best team in the NHL this year.
Matt Savoie has been wonderful in the 2 exhibition games – a standout in a lineup of at least half ECHL players.
He’s looked good with Cam Wright and I wonder if they play together during the regular season. I would think Hamblin or Pederson will be the center.
They may even want to play Savoie with Philp. Would make sense to me. They could develop some chemistry together in Bakersfield. Then they could form a line with Kane, if he returns in time for the playoffs. But who knows?
Because it sounds like Philp might be in the Bake for a while, since they want to take advantage of all that cap space and accrue as much as possible.
My expectations for Savoie are for him to be on the Oilers’ roster by the playoffs. That means success (>0.8 pts/gm) in a short to mid-length stint in Bakersfield.
Skinner McDavid Hyman
Nuge Draisaitl Arvidsson
Kane* Henrique Savoie
Janmark Philp/Acq. Brown
That is a stacked forward group. Need to see who Philp gets along on the PK in both the AHL and NHL. Philp should be getting #1 PK duties with the Condors.
Podkolzin might fit in well in the playoffs too. I could see a winger combo with Kane & Podz. I still think Savoie is going to need to get stronger.
This is an amazing forward group. You could swap Acq. with Savoie if he doesn’t develop as per your expectations.
If you are right that Savoie, Philp and Kane are all on the roster come playoff time, we may just need to get a decent 2RD at the deadline and then Bob’s your uncle.
I think this is exactly what happens but there is a 5% chance they are waiting to see if anybody else comes available through the waiver wire before putting ink to paper.
I was expecting them to sign Dermott over the weekend so I find it a little bit strange that nothing has been announced just yet.
I’ll probably post this and see that the announcement was made while I was typing. 🥸
Instead of signing Dermott, wouldn’t it be better to keep paying him on a PTO, keep him with the team, accrue cap space, and then when he is needed in 2-4 weeks, sign him then?
That might work if he doesn’t get offered an NHL contract from someone else or even a solid European offer. For Dermott it’s like musical chairs and he might not want to wait to see if there are enough chairs when the music stops.
PTO’s are peanuts compared to even a league minimum contract. Even waiting just 2 weeks, Dermott is giving up close to $60,000 in gross salary. And if the Oilers try and pay him the full amount from the start of the contract 2 weeks in, it would gross up the cap hit.
Is that a little hyperbole?
That bar would mean the equivalent of a #1 goalie (Roloson), top 6 forward (Samsonov) 3rd pair D (Tarnstrom), and arguably a top 4 D (Spacek), though he was slightly ahead of the deadline.
I agree one strong deadline add will be needed, but Lowe 2006 would involve 2-3 adds to the core 12 spots.
Point taken on hyperbole but I’d take a Lowe 06 deadline 10 times outta 10. Can never be too good. I think the equivalent would be an Andersson Weegar-esque trade where the impossible suddenly becomes possible.
Sure, more is better, but deadline additions aren’t free either.
I was thinking a Holland 2023 deadline might be more the hope.
The D wouldn’t need to be at Ekholm levels, but adding the difference to Bjugstad would give you quite a nice forward.
Beat me to it. They need a top 4 RHD and some 4th line muscle with a bit of skill (Kostin). Needs may change over the next few months but 2RD is the only critical need for now.
This team is closer than the team in 2006. This team already has their goalie and their top six is exceptional. They sure could use today’s versions of Tarnstrom & Spacek though.
Bakersfield is an interesting town. In many ways, similar to a number of oil towns in Alberta. But hot as hell. One of my sons lived in Santa Barbara for awhile and I would go visit. We would drive across the pass and the difference in weather is astonishing. 20C to 40C in 10 miles! Some absolutely incredible dive bars/classic saloons, really nice people. And of course, Buck Owens! My Heart Skips a Beat! And the immortal Dwight Yoakam! 1000 Miles From Nowhere!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu3ypuKq8WE
And how about both Buck and Dwight in “Streets of Bakersfield”
My dream.
I might have misunderstood your response but just in case; on Dwight’s single/album song “Streets…” Buck is singing with him.
I spent many, many weeks in and around Bakersfield from 2000 – 2014 (oil patch). You are right about the people. The issue is pollution – most polluted city in the USA wrt air quality. A very strange place to put a group of professional athletes. When you fly in all you see is a brown layer of yuck until you get through it. The place to live is Tehachapi which is about a 1/2 drive up into the mountains, sits at 3900′ and is above the smog clouds.
Did Dwight do his own stunts!
My friend – ‘interesting’ may be too polite a term for Bakersfield. My theory is that the Oilers put their AHL team there to increase the incentive for players to work their butts off to make it to the NHL.
That said, the people were definitely nice as you mentioned. They are especially nice for those of us who have lived/worked in the Big Apple and are comparing them to New Yorkers. 🙂
I spent a few days there in January watching a couple Condors games. I’m not a country music fan but I did pop my head into the Buck Owens museum.