Yesterday the NHL gave the go-ahead for the Edmonton Oilers to hire Mike Babcock, and we’ll see the media avail early next week. I expect we’ll see some trade acitivity and some new free agents land in Edmonton over the course of the next few weeks. What will it look like? Please read this.
What will happen now? I think we’ll see some trades in a quick hurry. Darnell Nurse to the Penguins, a goaltender arriving soonafter, and I think a veteran center or winger following close behind.
I think Babcock will spend his first season in Edmonton getting to know the roster. Uh, no. Signing Babcock is an indication of how urgent the situation is in Edmonton. This could be the final season for the Glimmer Twins as a dynamic duo, and I’ve heard Jagger’s solo records. The dropoff is a cliff.
The roster is pretty much set, man. Oh come on. Babcock is going to have some influence. Maybe we see Fredrik Andersen as a free-agent signing, or an additional defenseman. Before he got to Columbus, the Blue Jackets turned over the defense in adding Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson. I can see the Oilers making a move for some additional help on the blue line.
That’s fine. When you are an aggressive buyer, there’s a tendency to overpay. Added to the fact Oilers general managers often overpay anyway, and it could be a mess.
Kind of like the TML today? That’s fair. Darren Raddysh had never gotten paid, so I’m glad for him. But that contract is going to turn on Chayka, we just don’t know the year. Raddysh is 30, and he had an outlier season. High risk.
Any other obstacles? If we make a list of Stan Bowman acquisitions, I’ll be interested to see how many Babcock features or fades. Vasily Podkolzin, Ty Emberson, Trent Frederic, Tristan Jarry, Jake Walman, Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson if they sign, Colton Dach, Ike Howard. Not all of those names will thrive under Babcock.
Can the Oilers thrive under Babcock? I think so. Bowman needs to make damn good and sure he has the goaltending nailed down, though. The defense is going to be under enormous pressure and the forwards will have to pay attention to the details.
There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. Babcock in his prime was an effective coach who won Stanley. He might be able to do that again. It’s been a long time. Meanwhile, the Oilers roster, as currently constructed, isnt a strong enough group (beyond the top line and pairing) to guarantee success.
What do they need? An out-of-this-world elite goaltender.
Every SC winning team needs that. Carolina won this week without one. No sir. The Oilers are a flawed coverage and possession team. The team doesn’t have depth, especially if 97-29 play togehter five-on-five. Babcock will need a monster goalie. Pretty sure. The Oilers don’t have one. Babcock better get one. Now.
On the Lowdown today, our feature guest will be Steve Lansky. We’ll talk about the end of Hockey Night in Canada and what that means to him, and to the country. We’ll also discuss Canada’s men and the big World Cup soccer win yesterday, plus Elks and Jays. Noon to 2pm, Sports 1440 and You Tube.
Why Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl will be key on a Mike Babcock-coached team
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7371596/2026/06/19/edmonton-oilers-mike-babcock-leon-draisaitl/
Draisaitl’s PDO, as you’ve posted for the 2024-25 season (.980), is very interesting. The SV% is very strong at .941, but the SH% is unbelievably low at 3.8 (this in a season when he scored over 50 goals and won the Rocket). The SV% I get: Draisaitl was getting Selke mentions by the end of the season. As many here have said, when these guys play responsibly, goalies (and SV%) look so much better. But 3.8SH%?
Bowman needs to trade for Curtis Joseph! If he fails to trade for Curtis Joseph he is incompetent and should be fired immediately!
My sincere hope is the coaching staff convinces bowman not to trade Nurse.
Does Raddysh’s contract gives me hope for the market on Nurse. Yikes.
I hope so that is one heck of deal by Toronto which should drive up Nurse value
After 10 years, the Leafs finally find their Dion Phanuf replacement.
Usually a new G.M tries to make a splash.
With the term and dollars the GM handed out, it might be more of a splatter than a splash.
Two questions:
1. Which organization is more of a tire fire? TOR for hiring Chayka? Or EDM for the Bowman and Babcock hires?
2. How much has the game changed in the last 5 to 10 years, from a coaching perspective? That’s one thing I think about when it comes to Babcock. There have been threshold shifts in tactics, analytics, video coaching, player, nutrition and management. Complex cap issues. These were sort of starting to manifest even more as Babcock left the show. Is he too much of a dinosaur to thrive?
I wish it was Joel Quenneville getting hired instead of Babcock. The mob was a little more proactive a few years ago.
IMHO Edmonton is way better off.
What stands out for me in your article today is that the defense will be under extreme pressure and the forwards will have to pay attention to details. I think Babcock will need to have a veteran line up. I can’t see him having any time what so ever for any youth on the roster.
Which leads me to wonder about Ike Howard specifically, Savoie & Samanski might be ok with their two-way games but Howard could become a target. He might rue the day he decided to come to Edmonton.
The defense will be a veteran group that will need to make life easy for the goaltenders becuase they certainly won’t be able to afford an elite tender.
The other thing is Connor & Leon have stuck their necks out for this coach and will need to toe the line because they could have vetoed this coaching hire in the first place.
Boone Jenner never stays healthy but Id much rather the Oilers pursue him than Dickinson if he makes it to July.
-Likes Babcock
-Hits, blocks, wins draws
-Posts even strength offense
-Provides better coverage for the team when they load up.
Drai/McD/Hyman
Podz/Jenner/Savoie
Howard/Nuge/Kane
Dach/Samanski/Goose
Savoie/McDavid/Hyman
Podz/Drai/Howard
Nuge/Jenner/Kane
Dach/Samanski/Goose
Jenner acquisition gives Howard a fair better shot at success, a loaded up top line not as much stress, 3 scoring lines, yadda yadda.
I added Kane as faint reports of Kapanens ask has him leaving town most likely with Kane’s agent saying nice things about Drill Sargent Babcock combined with his mostly successful run with the Oilers. 1yr cheap deal.
Boone Jenner wasn’t he the captain in Columbus? Do you think he will want to come to Edmonton and be coached by Babcock?
Boone Jenner talked glowingly about Babcock.
Did not know that.
If Kapanen wisely chases the cash I would sign Kane if it’s for cheap money. Kane is 34 lots of hard miles yet he still can get off that hard shot in the kill zone. Kane and Babcock might be a marriage made in heaven.
Kane is in the Milan Lucic stage of his career, meaning he needs to retire. Some team may give him a training camp invite, but I doubt that’s even going to happen
Had over 100hits wuth over 30pts in a 3rd line role last season on a broken team.
He’ll be in the league hitting and scoring next year.
Yes you’re probably right. Kane unlike Lucic did score some big goals for us and he’s always been able to skate. If all it takes is a million I would take a flyer on Evander.
I’m only signing Kane for a cheap 1yr contract.
Kane is a one way player. Not the droid, were trying to go past that
My head went immediately to Patrick Kane. lol
With the Nurse trade this may be the end of the core. If Connor wants to move on the trade needs to happen next offseason.
I would suggest Nurse isn’t a big peice of the core. He probably wants to skip town before Babcock gets a hold of him.
Anybody in here willing to give Bobrovsky 7m X 6 years?
What I should have added is that if he wins you Stanley next year is it worth the next 5 years?
I’d do 2x $11M, see if he would bite.
They need to move Jarry. We are still paying over 2 million for Campbell. We also need a cheap back-up if they sign Bob
Agreed. I would hope that Ingram could get another look, but I think there are some up and comers in the org who imo could play back up to Bob.
Unfortunately, not a chance. He might be worth it for a year, if we’re lucky to the extreme, maybe 4.
But since the 70s, once goaltending drastically changed and has become much more difficult on the joints, the oldest goalies have been:
And I think most would agree, the last year for most of these goalies was far below their career averages or expectations. If we’re extremely lucky, Bob makes it to 42, but not even Hasek or Brodeur could defeat father time.
2 years for $7Mil? I might have some time for, but even at that….
If they move out Nurse, it seems impossible they don’t add one more dman (in addition to Murphy).
Ekholm-Bouchard
Walman-Murphy
Stastney-Emberson
Carfagna or Leppanen
Play to the deadline. The worry I have is Walman. He’s going to be under a microscope with Babcock as coach.
What makes you think this about Walman? You’ve post this a few times.
Because the signing of Walman makes his man Nurse expendable.
Id like to see the Oilers bring Vinny back for some variety in the 3rd and 4th pairings. A big body pk muncher is missing from that group.
I’m thinking the blueline will be blown up and there won’t be very many survivors.
They might as well trade Lepannen, he won’t be appreciated by the new HC
There are a few posters here that should consider applying for PR roles with professional hockey teams.
Well, we do have DDF with the FTSMSNN (ForTheSimpleMindedSportsNewsNetwork) updates so anything is possible.
And an even more that could/should start an “I hate Charlie Sheen” website.
lol.
My post was initially a reference to DSF waxing poetic about how Raddysh is an undervalued asset. Sure. And pigs can fly.
People could watch Babcock slap a player on the bench and they would still be saying
“He “allegedly” hit that player. It’s just rumour and hearsay. You don’t know what the player really said. Maybe he deserved it. The players teammates all said the player said or did nothing wrong but, there are 2 sides to every story. Babcock won with lethbridge in the 90s and one of those former players said Babs would never do something like that. I mean, he’s an asshole – so what. So are other coaches, you know”
It’s pure coping.
It’s not impossible, and I’m wrong on plenty, but that would be a very surprising scenario to me. I don’t imagine McDavid isn’t here for length let alone the second year of his contract.
I imagine there’s a long line of GM callers wanting to talk to Chayka this morning.
What an utterly dumb move. Time to rob him blind.
And Raddysh will be wealthy, but he’s going to hate having signed that deal from a hockey perspective.
He will get “Nursed”, eventually
“Eventually” being 2/3 of the way through the season when he regresses to be a 30 point PP specialist earning #2 dollars?
Love the article but I don’t agree with the Oilers not having depth.
While the facts are the bottom 6 got caved in the regular season, I think that is due to underperformance more than quality of players. For a team like the Oilers, the biggest thing to measure is playoffs and back to back years the bottom 6 has been a huge net positive.
Looking at the below lineup, Howard is the only forward arguably placed above his pay grade but he is likely a good bet to be successful there. You have $14M to fill the rest and $23M once Nurse is out (and if you need to retain you’re likely getting a roster solution back). So you need a 2RW which typically can be done on the cheap b/c of Drai’s ability to float players, 3RW, 2LD, 2RD, and some sort of goalie. $7M up front, $3M in net and $12M to your D, and $2M to your extras builds a solid team with depth.
McDavid/Hyman/Savoie
Podz/Drai/***
Howard/RNH/***
Dach/Samanski/Fred
Ekholm-Bouch
Nurse-***
Walman-Emberson
I don’t see any elite goalies on the market other than Helley and do they have the pieces for that? Anderson is good, so is Stolarz, neither can stay healthy. The point of hiring Babcock is so that they aren’t a team that ignores the details when they lose interest, he won’t let them
If you hire a coach like that, you also have to get the right players. Might not be able to happen right away, but the guys who don’t like to work hard each shift, or can’t remember the plan, need to be changed out
Like the panthers and Canes do it
Spot on
Does Babcock line-match? That was an issue with Knobby.
Would certainly seem to. For comparison’s sake this year, McDavid played 38% of his TOI against elite competition, and Leon 35%, according to WoodMoney.
In 2014-15 (the first year PuckIQ’s site tracks), Datsyuk and Zetterberg each took on around 30-36% of their ice time against elites. They were among the leaders for ice time against the Elites, with only Justin Abdelkader joining them, before a fairly even split and decline through the lineup. this would make some sense with star, 2-way forwards like Datsyuk and Zetterberg.
Year 1 in Toronto, Michael Grabner, Nazem Kadri and Leo Komarov evidently formed a shutdown line, and played between 46-47% of their TOI against elites.
in 2016-17, Kadri and Komarov again formed the basis of a shutdown line, and played 45% of their TOI against elites, alongside Connor Brown who played 37% of his time against elites as well. Rookies Nylander, Matthews and Marner got some clean air and played 33, 31 and 28% of their time against Elites respectively. Marner got 28% of his time against bottom competition, and Matthews and Nylander got close as well.
2017-18, Marleau joined Kadri (47% TOI vs elites) on the shutdown line, 45% of his time was against elites. Komarov was reduced t0 40%, but interestingly, Hyman and MAtthews also chipped in 40% of their ice time against elite players.
2018-19 is fascinating for a few reasons. First of all, Kadri clearly had landed in the doghouse, and only played 25% of his time against elites this year, which is a massive shift. Komarov was no longer on the team, and so the new ‘shutdown’ line was:
Marner, Tavares and Hyman, who played 47-50% of their TOI against elite players. This did allow for much more clean air for the rest of the team, notably Matthews (33%), and Nylander (24%).
So he does line match, and I think thats likely indicative that Dickinson might be staying, and a shutdown line forming.
“Rogers Place is a kind and respectful place”…so they tell me on the monitors every few minutes.
hiring Babcock is a travesty. would love to see reporters boycott the press conference – i.e. why legitimize the hiring…
Better to have reporters show up to ask tough questions about how this hire reflects the team’s culture and further speak truth to power.
Agreed.
We have all had our opportunity to make our views heard. The organization is making its choice. Whether MB is a good choice, or not, that’s now in his hands. It will be up to the media to ask hard questions, and up to the team leadership (McD and his lieutenants) to keep their eyes and ears open in service to the more vulnerable members of the team.
Sports offers opportunities for redemption stories. I was not in favour of this hiring, but as a fan of the Oilers and as a fan of people learning and growing and redeeming themselves, I hope that the MB chapter is a positive one for Oilerville. A Cup would be a nice thing. The main win here, however, is if MB proves us doubters wrong, that he can be a decent human being, and especially with those most vulnerable and most marginal (ie. staff) to the core of the team. Fingers crossed.
Babcock is allegedly a bully with major boundary issues.
But saying the reporters should boycott the press conference makes no sense for two reasons:
The operative word in this discussion is “allegedly.” All based on rumours and innuendo.
The difference between Bowman and Babcock is that Bowman was not involved personally. Babcock was and was very cruel to certain people, to the point of breaking Franzen
A few weeks back when Vegas decided not to let Cassidy interview, I said something like “Hell, interview Babcock”. At the time I didn’t think it would actually happen. However, at one time I highly respected him as a coach, mostly with Team Canada. Then, not so much. I was only reading about the rumours surrounding the cell phones etc. Regardless, he does seem like our guy now so best to forget and forgive, in that order. I hope I can respect our new coach this coming season, even more paramount is the players. As LT pointed out today, there’s a lot on the line, the biggest, oh captain my captain, our franchise player.
“He had nasty reputation as a cruel dude, they said he was ruthless, said he was crude”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR07Jku_MA4
I don’t know whether to face palm emoji or shoulder shrug emoji 🙂
I see nothing to do other than accept it and move forward with cautious optimism. They are hiring a coach that undoubtably knows the game of hockey, knows how to implement structure, knows how to inspire his players to commit to it and knows how to win.
Maybe this blows up. Maybe they win Stanley.
Two player agents, one with a top 5 book, providing full endorsement and indicating no player they have had have any issue with Babcock. No agent that has another view or experience has gone public……
Let’s get on with the off-season. Sign those incumbent UFAs they want (within reason), get that Nurse trade done early enough to ensure the ability to backfill and spend with the full picture of roster and cap space.
Connor, Leon, Zack, Ryan, Mattias and the rest, continue to enjoy the hell out of your summer, recharge and, when it’s time, ramp up that training and mindset.
Let’s Go!
Babcock’s process did NOT involve “to know how to inspire his players to commit”. It was more like “to play mind games with his players to get them to commit”. We are talking an old school authoritarian coach…
No agent who has anything bad to say is going to say it publicly.
Bullies last because they have friends in high places.
Well said godot, just because media is reporting items to make light of the situation, doesn’t mean it isn’t a bad one.
Similar to why players didn’t speak up publicly while Babcock was their coach, why would people do so now? Hockey is a small world, there is fear and recycling of old heads is of a high quantity. People like to keep jobs, not lose them. Fear.
Every post OP makes about Babcock is like he is convincing himself this isn’t a bad hire, no actual dick and balls opinion on the matter.
I’m 100% depleted of cautious optimism.
I honestly, almost, feel bad for the TML.
JFreshHockey
Raddysh’s contract with TOR comes to 8x$8.5M.
Once, that was #1 defenceman money; not anymore.
For sure that cap hit is not bad for 22 G and 70 points. The risk of course is one season like that. 8.5M for a 30ish point guy is not value
Matt Larkin:
Some rising-cap perspective:
By year 2 of Raddysh deal, cap will be $113.5 million.
By that point an $8.5 million AAV will be the equivalent of $6.59 million last season when cap was $88 million
That is all true. It’s still a bad contract.
What happened to not signing 30 year old players to 8 year deals?
Remember the Oilers have that horrendous Draisaitl contract on the books for an aging player.
Oh that’s right, but this is a contract signed by one of the other 31 teams, so it must be ok.
While there is certainly risk involved, let’s remember that Draisaitl’s cap hit is $6.5 million higher.
lol, comparing Draisaitl to Raddysh. You never cease to amaze…and embarrass yourself.
This is likely a better contract than the Walman contract.
How do you figure?
Sure
The Oilers provide more drama than Big Brother.
What is the likelihood Babcock gets canned before training camp haha?
I mentioned this yesterday if Vegas releases Cassidy this weekend Oilers should fire Babcock and hire Cassidy. If Vegas is going to play high stakes poker we need to ante up and get in the hand.
Vegas is paying Cassidy not to coach and will only ok teams to interview him on a case to case basis. Doesn’t look like Vegas will allow Edmonton access to Cassidy while he’s under contract with them.
Vegas is setting a precedent for all coaches right now.
You know if it all goes to Hell, Draisaitl’s got a Talk is Cheap up his sleeve if he needs it.