I’ve always believed (and Earl Weaver taught me) that when a young player is ready to compete at a certain level the best thing to do is elevate him to that level immediately. Don’t put him in a position to fail, but rather take the things he does well and place him in ideal circumstances at the higher level. What does that look like for Ike Howard? Let’s chat.
Last year you said “If Matthew Savoie scores eight goals in his first 20 AHL games, send for him” and he scored three in his first 10. You overrate prospects. Guilty as charged, but I do believe Savoie would have benefited from more NHL time a year ago. Organization would be better off now, as well.
You are projecting Ike Howard as an opening night player. Mistake. I suspect the organization gives Howard every chance to thrive in preseason, but it’s possible he’ll land in Bakersfield this fall. He should dominate there, but you never know with prospects. Maybe the adjustment takes time. As mentioned above, let the prospect tell you when he’s ready. Oilers would have done well in the case of Jesse Puljujarvi if they had heeded the words of Mr. Weaver.
Do you think Howard will flourish in the NHL this season? I have him projected for nine goals (Savoie 15) this coming season. Projections are here. I do have Howard on the opening night roster, but also project him to be a second-half contributor (as opposed to a feature role opening night).
Lots of great players come out of the Big-10, you know. Very true. However, most of the NHL impact players dominated the league at 18. Howard did it at 20. So did Georgii Merkulov.
You’re scaring me. Look, Howard led the league and he didn’t have a ton of help from his teammates. Plus he also had a strong Big-10 season at 19. I think you should enjoy watching young talent emerge, worry less about how this turns out.
Lots of prospect experts think Howard will struggle as an NHL rookie. I’m sure he will, and so will Savoie. It’s a tough league. Prospect experts tend to make strong statements that don’t allow for what is a wide range of outcomes. For instance, I thought at the time it was a mistake to put Jesper Walstedt in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but every swinging dick did it on draft day 2021. Let the prospects tell you what they are.
So ignore draft experts? Not at all. I’m saying that we can find out a bunch about prospects from math and from video. We should shy away from statements that imply more knowledge than we could possibly gain from both math and eye. I can say “I think Ike Howard is going to play in the NHL 20225-26, and if he can survive the early months, suspect he’ll start contributing offense by mid-season” without praise or burial. We’ve gotten, I think, too strong in our verbal, too certain our now opinions are correct. We don’t know a lot about these young players.
Well you sound certain about Howard. I’m reading the tea leaves, perhaps incorrectly. I’ve seen young players in the past decade pushed into roles because the GM made decisions (Griffin Reinhart, Jesse Puljujarvi) that handcuffed the coach. So, even if Howard isn’t ready, he could get games becase Stan Bowman brought him in to hurry up the time line. However, if Howard isn’t ready, the organization should send him to Bakersfield. Based on the Oilers own past, I don’t think we can say that is certain.
Edmonton Oilers AHL roster is coming into view. In the past, men like Vincent Desharnais and Matt Savoie have emerged to propel average teams to a higher level. Is there one on this year’s Condors team?
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6531257/2025/08/03/edmonton-oilers-ahl-roster-2025/
Hey LT, I don’t really have my finger on the pulse here anymore, but I had thought Howard wouldn’t sign with the Bolts because he wanted a clearer path to the NHL?
Is it fair to assume some promises might have been made to convince him to sign?
That’s the story out of TBL, yes. He’ll get a long look, but if he isn’t ready the Oilers will send him down. I have him on the opening night lineup and also have him contributing at a strong level in the second half. Not as sure about the early days of the season.
I’ve observed that players who are thrust into the NHL too early and struggle, are often jettisoned by their NHL team way too soon, not sure why. Is it because of a new management regime, an impatient head coach, poor development/poor organizational support system or is it all on the player?
In my opinion I think the team bears at least 50% of the blame. In the first place, they drafted the player, so they should know what they are getting in the player.
I immediately think of the Bourgault pick, so what exactly happened there? Was he simply drafted too high and did he ride the coattails of his older line-mate Mavrik Bourque?
No, I think XB had a solid season as a rookie, pro. However, in his second season, the club and the coach absolutely did not put him into position to succeed and he struggled.
He would have been better served with better linemates, and in my opinion there wasn’t much of a plan in Bakersfield to support the young players. It seemed to me that the young players primarily played on lines without veteran support and got less ice time.
Bakersfield was not much of an offensive team in his 2nd year, injuries were also a factor for the player, and he was rarely put in positions to succeed offensively, because Chaulk was so focused on winning games and ultimately his own job security.
The Oilers and the player would both have been better served if he was traded after his first season. I am also of the firm belief, which I expressed frequently when Chaulk was given the reins in Bakersfield that he was the wrong guy to be HC.
I still believe that, however this season Chaulk is getting an influx of experienced, young pros who have a offense on their resumes. This could work out very well for all of them. The problem withe Bakersfield, IMO, is the lack of key veteran mentors/anchors.
That Bakersfield team with the leadership group of Griffith, Brad Malone and Adam Cracknell was a special team. I don’t see that anywhere on this team.
I had really liked Bourgault in his first NHL preseason. He was a bit a day late and a dollar short on some of the plays, but he was a smart player always making things happen. He looked like a guy who needed half a step and a bit more size.
With the slower pace of summer, I thought it would be a good time to dive into a statistical concept I’ve been thinking about.
Scoring a goal in hockey is rarely the result of a single action—it’s the culmination of a series of smaller battles: passes, challenges, puck recoveries, and so on. Each of these events contributes to the outcome, yet most traditional stats focus primarily on the final result—the goal itself.
But what if we shifted focus to the moments that lead up to that outcome?
Hockey is full of one-on-one contests for puck control. By tracking these individual engagements, we could develop a new metric to assess player effectiveness in real-time situations. Let’s call this stat PvP (Player vs Player).
Here’s how it might work:
If Player A is skating with the puck and is challenged by Player B, the winner of that engagement is awarded +1 PvP, and the loser receives -1 PvP.If Player A is challenged by two opponents (say, Players B and C) and successfully retains the puck, A receives +1 PvP while both B and C are assigned -1 PvP.By breaking down the game into these micro-skirmishes and logging PvP outcomes, we could build a much more granular view of individual and team performance.
This data could then be analyzed across different dimensions: team PvP, line combinations, by period, zone of play, head-to-head matchups, PvP per hour of ice time, and more.
Even players with limited minutes—say, five minutes in a game—could generate meaningful data using this system.
PvP could also reveal valuable insights in scoreless or low-scoring games (such as playoff matches), helping us identify which team is consistently winning the underlying battles and potentially predict momentum shifts.
Pair this with pass-tracking metrics (passes completed, received, success rates), and you’d have a robust snapshot of a player’s individual capabilities, independent of goals or assists.
I’m pretty SportLogiq tracks won/lost puck battles already.
Billy Moores, former assistant coach for the Oilers and Rangers, often used to say that almost every situation in hockey can be broken down into a 1 on 1 or 2 on1 confrontation.
Yes. Ultimately, this is how NHL coaches watch the games. One on one battles, particularly 50-50 pucks. One player uses whatever advantage they have from physicality, intensity, smarts, to win the pack. There’s always an element of luck involved, but over the long run you need these diggers, they win a much higher percent of battles. That’s why Drai liked Poddy so much in my opinion.
I have proposed that skill wins offense, while grit wins defense.
I know the word grit is hard to define in hockey. Usually it’s applied to players with less skill, but still managed to play the game. Maybe, but I think it means more because a lot of skill players Also have a lot a lot of battle to their game.
I think we have more ooof on the forecheck which leads to turnovers which in turn gives us puck possession and more goals as a team.
I think the best way to break in rookies is to have them play with veteran centres. The Oilers play bad hockey when they stack the top two lines and leave the 3rd line to languish.
The key IMO is to transition Nuge to 3C.
Magpie – McDavid – Hyman
Freddie – Drai – Savoie
Howard – Nuge – Kapanen
Balance. Who says no?
Not saying no and agree with the premise, but I’d have Podz on 3RW over Kap to start. Podz and Freddy can be interchangable in that set up and give even more balance. Lots of fun options this season!
I’d rather have Podz play in the top nine over Kapanen.
I don’t envision Kapanen playing ahead of Podz, or even Henrique for that matter.
I like Podz as a substitute for Frederic or Howard but had Kap in the RW spot because handedness. Could easily see Podz play on line 2, 3, or 4.
Needless to say Knoblauch will have wingers in a blender, I just prefer Nuge over Frederic or Henrique as 3C.
“but every swinging dick did it on draft day 2021.” Love the No Country for Old Men reference….my favourite movie.
I would think between Howard, Savoie, Tomesek. One of the 3 is going to have an above expectation season. You could include Mangiapane into that group also to get back to his higher water mark. At least one or two of them are going to play with the best center they’ve ever played with and not let go of the situation.
I forgot Tomasek OMG he might be a difference maker also. He could be direct competition for Howard or maybe even Savoie. Possibly Frederic-Nuge-Tomasek, which would be beneficial with the potential of having a LHC & RHC on both of the bottom six lines. Tomasek could be a fit with Podz & Leon.
By all means if Howard isn’t ready, he should spend some time on the farm. Savoie has an advantage because he has a full season of pro experience and some NHL games already under his belt. However, I’m thinking we see Howard in the mix on opening night, and I’ve got a feeling he’s going to stick.
Mangiapane-McDavid-Hyman
Podz-Leon-Savoie
Ike-Nuge-Frederic
Kapanen-Henrique-Lazar
Philp
Kulak-Bouchard
Nurse-Walman
Ekholm-Emberson
Stecher
Stu & Cal
Unless some PTO’s work their way in, which is entirely possible
Apart from Kapanen having a role by default, this is pretty much the same lineup as I have in mind. It’s a modular set up that allows for easy adjustments as needed. Each of the following can swap quite seamlessly:
Mangy and Howard
Pod and Frederic
Kulak and Ekholm
Beyond that, it may even be possible to swap Nuge and Mangy provided they’re actually prepared to trust Frederic at C.
Fluidity seems to be how they like to roll.
With Skinner-Arvidsson-Brown-Kane-Perry departed and with Hyman and to a lesser extent Nuge on the mend. Howard and Savoie are going to get a good look at top 6 and definitely top 9. Howard does the hardest thing and Savoie as well which is scoring. If a 40 year-old Perry can score 19 then Savoie and Howard should be able to hit that mark.
These kids are up against NHL goalies and NHL defensemen and I highlight the “men” part of defensemen ..Howard could spend the first half of the season in the AHL I think