I’ve been listening to old Tyler Wright interviews in hopes of getting a feel for what the DRW prioritized during his time in Motown. Most of the time it’s not terribly useful to transcribe post-draft interviews, mostly because it gets tiresome typing “we really had a passion for this player” 12 times.
Wright’s insight has more nuance than the average and does in fact offer some clues about his approach with the Red Wings. Here are some snippets.
THE ATHLETIC!
The Athletic Edmonton features a fabulous cluster of stories (some linked below, some on the site). Great perspective from a ridiculous group of writers and analysts. Proud to be part of The Athletic, check it out here.
- New Lowetide: Oilers greatest areas of need for the 2020 draft
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Six bold (and not so bold) predictions as the Oilers prepare for the Blackhawks
- New Jonathan Willis: Oilers facing a bonus penalty for 2020-21 but the news isn’t all bad
- Jonathan Willis: Multiple choice: What might an Oilers trade at the 2020 NHL Draft look like?
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers return to play guide: How the NHL’s 24-team format impacts Edmonton
- Lowetide: Mike Green’s playoff role and possible future with the Oilers
- Lowetide: Oilers’ most likely recalls from Bakersfield for the playoff run
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘We rallied and regrouped’: How the Oilers won the 1990 Stanley Cup
- Lowetide: Why Kailer Yamamoto represents ‘Money Puck’ value for NHL teams
- Lowetide: Exploring hidden-gem draft options for the Edmonton Oilers
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: ‘He set his place in history’: On Bill Ranford’s Conn Smythe run, 30 years later
- Jonathan Willis: Why NHL teams should gamble on defencemen over forwards later in the draft
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers’ offseason decisions will be influenced by 2021 Seattle expansion draft
- Jonathan Willis: Ken Holland’s likely approach to the Oilers’ offseason goalie question
- Lowetide: Oilers GM Ken Holland should shop for picks at the draft
- Lowetide: Exploring Oilers prospect Ryan McLeod’s possible NHL path
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Ales Hemsky on his health, alumni games, tough opponents and the Oilers’ stars
- Lowetide: Swedish export Noel Gunler offers Oilers a worthy draft target
WRIGHT QUOTES
On the theme of the 2018 draft: “We tried to target defense going into this draft, but things kind of happened (Detroit didn’t take a defenseman until their fourth selection). We had Berggren really high on our list and we couldn’t pass up the skill.”
This is encouraging. If you have first-round value on the board, take it and fill for need later. Edmonton did it in 2010 (I just wrote about this for The Athletic) and chose Tyler Pitlick over Martin Marincin.
On Jared McIsaac: “A steady defenseman, hard-nosed player. Skates well, plays in all situations. He’s a good penalty killer, physical, plays against the best players.”
Generally speaking, drafting this player type in the third round makes oodles more sense than the first round. I had Dmitri Samorukov ranked in the fourth round, Edmonton took him in the third round and it looks good three years later. Even if it didn’t work out, the risk was not enormous. I had Berggren No. 27, McIsaac No. 43.
On speed: “You see how fast the game is played, when you look at Athanasiou and Larkin, they’re all skaters. We want to be fast, with speed, we want to get big, but at the end of the day skill was the theme going into this draft.”
If that’s the plan, then Oilers fans should be encouraged in a big way. It’s okay for teams to draft big players, but make them fast and skilled, please and thanks. Especially early in the draft, when the top junior leagues still have some meat on the bone.
Depth picks: “Once we get past the third round, we start relying on area scouts. My viewings go out the window, so our area guys started making picks and pounding on the table.”
You can take any draft season and identify when the quality evens out, when black and white become shades of grey. Most 2020 lists should have a lot in common through No. 20 and someone will list 25 of 31 picks in their first-round ranking. Maybe things stay tight through No. 40. As opposed to a year ago when the loud noises began right after the top-five overall.
On drafting two Swedish goalies late: “We have a goalie scout in Sweden as well, we all rely on him heavily. When you look back on goaltenders, it’s a crap shoot a lot of the time. We like these guys.”
Like catching lightning in a bottle. I’m in favor of drafting one goalie every year, as long as it’s not a first-rounder (and better if the pick goes after No. 90). Two goalies drafted in one year? I don’t think it is wise.
The 2019 draft
Let’s see if we can go back to the 2019 draft and if anything Wright said matches the proceedings under the direction of Ken Holland. Wright talked about skill early and then things opening up after round three. He also talked about speed and skill, and goalies. Here are the first three picks, their ranking and a few words from Red Line.
LHD Philip Broberg No. 8 overall. Red Line No. 12. “Huge, smooth skating defenceman has a terrific combination of great size and obvious skills. Terrific poise and has a calm presence. Still learning nuances of the defensive game, wants to impact the game at both ends.” Corey Pronman from The Athletic said “he’s a 6-foot-3 defenseman who is an elite skater. That combination alone is scary.”
I would have chosen Arthur Kaliyev, most would have chosen Trevor Zegras, but Holland grabbed the big, fast defenseman. I don’t see him developing into a 40-point defenseman but said the exact thing about Oscar Klefbom. Dreamy is averaging 34 points per 82 games in the NHL. Miles to go with Broberg.
RW Raphael Lavoie, No. 38 overall. Red Line No. 16. “Polarizing prospect is a boom or bust player. Tremendous natural sniper who buries his chances – deadly from the circles in. Gets great wrist snap on a lightning fast release around the slot– needs almost no time or space to get dangerous shots away. Tremendously accurate too, picking corners at will. Combined with his great size and knack for sliding into open ice at the right moment, he’ll be a scorer at every level. Outstanding hands for receiving and controlling pucks. Uses wide base to protect puck and buy time and space to make plays. More of a shooter but can also generate chances for linemates down low. Needs to compete much harder, much more consistently.”
This is the second skill selection, Red Line ranked him just four spots behind Broberg. Now that Kailer Yamamoto is in the NHL, Lavoie is the most promising offensive forward in the system. A great pick. Oilers probably got a little lucky that he was available in the second round.
G Ilya Konovalov, No. 85 overall. Red Line 123. “Classic late-bloomer was a dominant force in the KHL and blossomed into the league’s top rookie. Extreme battler who will stop pucks with any body part and refuses to lose. Lacks ideal NHL size, but is athletic, flexible, well balanced, and smart.”
Fascinating selection, he didn’t make a lot of lists (Red Line is just excellent boys and girls). I really like the bet, but it’s not a slam dunk. I’d love to know if this was a Holland pick and it does rhyme with what Wright mentioned above.
RW Matej Blumel, No. 100. Red Line No. 81. “Second-year eligible is a versatile playmaking winger who’s effective in all areas of the game. Explosive skater with the ability to fill lanes and get up the ice quickly. More than the sum of his parts -works his ass off every shift, never stops moving his feet, and outhustles defenders for loose pucks. Plays with lots of speed and jump and creates chances.”
That’s a helluva scouting report. I don’t know that Blumel is going to play in the NHL, and it’s likely to be in a bottom-six role (he has a nice range of skills). He scored four goals in the Czech league last year but would need to spike in 2020-21 to establish a trajectory that eventually lands him an NHL job on a skill line.
The final two picks in the 2019 draft (Tomas Mazura and Maxim Denezhkin) are exactly the kind of pick an area scout might be hammering on the table about late in the draft when the coffee is burned so badly the aroma offends your sense of smell. I could see that.
Skill pick LHD Philip Broberg played 13:59 in the SHL during 2019-20, age 18. He scored 1-7-8 in 45 games, 13:19 at even strength making him No. 6 on the even strength depth chart. He was 23-23 on-ice goal differential in the discipline. He had an 8.7 NHLE. At the same age, same league, Klefbom played 12:04 a night and had an NHLE of 3.0. Miles to go.
Darcy will join me today to explain the latest Puck IQ innovation and it’s already a valuable one. Why? Among other things it gives us another bullet in the chamber in finding out which players the coach values in specific situations. For years, we could evaluate defensemen using time on ice (most minutes=best defensemen) then possession stats (behind the net through natural stat trick) helped light the way.
Puck IQ gave us public binning, representing a major step forward in that we can know Ethan Bear played enormous minutes against elites as a rookie. The new shift start stat (Darcy will be on at 10:20) tells us that ‘on the fly’ shifts are a massive part of the game, and could reflect how much (or little) a coach trusts his third pair. It’s very cool to be in on this from a fan point of view, we’ll drill down and see what else Darcy found with this cool new tool.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
At 10 this morning, TSN1260. Bring your brain. Darcy McLeod from Because Oilers will join us to talk about the latest Puck IQ innovation ‘shift starts’ and what we can learn from them. At 11, Frank Seravalli from TSN gives us a lay of the land in the NHL after a frantic week. Jeff Krushell from Krush Performance will give me one good reason not to hate mlb more than I already do at 11:25. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
October is the start of flu season. We don’t know how strong seasonal effects are but October might be the worst time too start. This year and next summer playoffs night be their best option. A December start lets them delay if needed to catch the backside of a second wave. None of this is certain but that’s all we have on pandemic respiratory viruses
I agree that the response was harsh, but I get it. Mr Rondo just comes here to drop his take on a subject unrelated to the reason most of us come here.
There ARE places on the web for that. Not sure why he needs to do this, at least HH varies his subject matter and sometimes talks hockey.
Freedom of speech, cool.
Rondo dude, I love you man, you are kinda like family, been seeing you here at LTs place for years, but what do you think about the Oilers play-off match up?
Even if they cancelled the remainder of the 2019/20 season and playoffs today, there is almost no chance they’d start next season in October.
The league is still focussed on a complete 82 game 2020/21 season with full fans – to the fullest extent possible and they believe they can start as late as mid-late December and complete a full season and playoffs by mid-July with a week buffer prior to the Olympics.
Trying to get a playoffs in for 2019/20, at this point, has zero effect on the start date of 2020/21.
– Yeah, I guess so. I guess that means a December start, and hockey untill August?
– Anyway carry on, we wait…
Kinger_Oil.redux,
The problem with starting a new season in October is the possibility of playing in empty arenas. If they can delay the start of next season, there might be a greater chance of having fans in the stands. Bettman said that they would play a complete season next year, even with a late start.
– I don’t know what to think as a fan of hockey with this proposal. It’s of so little concern or interest to most anyone in my circles. Watching sports is always a nice diversion from the day to day.
– IF they resume practice in mid-July: so hockey playoffs into what September?
– Then an “off-season”, and new season in say December, or 2021? How long is that season?
– I get all the economic reasons for playing, and having a product to sell, and millionaire players deisre to get paid, and billionaires getting some, and some semblance of return to sport, and the importance for TV revenues, and the professional sport industrial complex.
– However, I’d rather a “full season” next year, with hockey starting in October or November rather then two *asterick* seasons
– Still not certain they can pull off this plan, but maybe things will be better, and we will embrace it
– But if they do, and Finals are on in the late summer or early Fall, no one but the local markets of the two teams in it will give a darn about it IMO.
As with any topic, no one is forcing you to read the comments. There’s really no reason to be a jerk about it.
Lighting it up may be aggressive but he’s got offensive skill and I don’t think he was given a “fair chance” curing camp and early in the season.
I thought he was clearly showing among the best of the “bubble forwards” but simply couldn’t get any ice with legit NHL players, let alone skill players – was constantly but on tweener lines in the exhibition games.
If I recall, he got a few games in the top 6, produced early but then tailed off and never really got another shot up the lineup.
With team finances in peril across the league, I’ll be stunned if they don’t expand the playoffs next year.
Safe is a relative term.
Every year over a quarter of a million people in Canada and the USA die from taking prescription medications as directed by their physician.
If people start self medicating as a proactive treatment their could be a bunch of needless deaths.
Talk to your doctor.
I am so sick of the BS postings regarding covid. Just fucking stop. We do not care. Talk Oilers or fuck off.
Most everything is toxic in large doses. That statement can be made about almost every drug. Safe dosages are determined by phase 1 trials. Because dosages no doctor would ever prescribe might will kill you does not make a drug unsafe, or we wouldn’t have many drugs.
Well they’ve been talking to Broberg so they’re at least somewhat seriously about it.
Jurco would make some sense if he’s fully recovered and in shape.
I wouldn’t mind Broberg either over the depth F options though. Like Godot said, another D COULD be needed.
17F and 11D is 5 injury replacements each. And you’d certainly rather your D playing 4LW than a F playing 3LD.
No expertise. Google is not research.
I try to provide links. Here’s a metasearch preprint by authors that tend to be fairly skeptical about serology IFR studies in low prevelance areas. The biggest value in the preprint is that they have expanded their search and the discussion has become more accepting that the wide range of estimates represents that the serology work isn’t advanced enough yet to converge much. On page 14 you’ll see that 2.0% is at high end of most confidence intervals or outside it:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.03.20089854v3.article-metrics
At the other end the .26 is possible but the CDC paper isn’t about IFR. it’s plugging it into scenario exercises without any visible source. Likely a bit low:
“For one thing, the virus has already killed 0.2 percent of all New Yorkers, and obviously a much higher percentage of those who’ve actually been infected in the city. For another, if we’ve had 100,000 deaths nationwide and a CFR of 0.4 percent, that means we’ve had 25 million symptomatic cases; including cases without symptoms, more than 10 percent of the entire country has been infected, which seems out of sync with what we’re hearing from serology tests. Individual studies and reviews of the evidence tend to put the infection fatality rate somewhere around 0.5 to 1 percent, though there’s at least one dissenting review that puts it lower (while managing not to include any studies finding a fatality rate above 0.5 percent, of which there are plenty)”
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-does-the-cdc-think-the-covid-19-fatality-rate-is-so-low-and-why-wont-it-tell-anyone/
Cheers.
Thanks for your considered thoughts regarding things.
Do you have expertise in infectious disease? Or are your comments based on your own research?
To anyone reading: Please do not take any medical advice from any poster. See your doctor. Seriously.
It is safe if the proper dosage and timeframe are followed. It’s quite toxic in large doses. I just had a chance to search for zinc’s potential to enhance hydroxychloroquine tx. There are certainly in vitro studies that support the idea. There are a handful of human trials currently underway; the earliest completion date is July 31st for one in Tunisia (N=660). The others target completion dates range from September to December. One cannot make firm conclusions on the proposed treatment until the evidence supports it, in my opinion.
Buffalo was down to their 11th defensemen in 2006.
Speaking of road trips no home games so here’s the regular season road results for the play in teams:
Nashville .667
Edmonton/Calgary .632
Winnipeg .597
Chicago .563
Arizona .545
Minnesota .531
Vancouver .469
Watch Jurco somehow light it up in the playoffs. I had high hopes for him heading into the season (when I say high I hopes, I mean him potentially settling on the 3rd line, with bump ups to second if there were injuries). There’s skill there.
Interesting – one would think the 7-8% less of their 2020/21 comp they have to give back would be financial compensation.
So, how would that work. I mean, quarantine doesn’t start unil stage 4, after training camps.
For 8 teams, they play two exhibition games and then 3-5 games and they are done.
7 games is like an Eastern road trip for the Oilers…..
Lets count:
McDavid
Drai
Nuge
Kailer
Kass
Ennis
AA
Sheahan
Archie
Nygard
Haas
Khaira
Neal
Chiasson
P. Russell
So, ya, that’s 15 and I would expect Granny and Benson to be the other two.
My guess is they don’t go with Broberg and bring another forward – potentially Jurco if he’s recovered.
I’m pretty sure the hockey players will want to play the hockey and make the money.
That is an easy bluff for Bettman to call. Fortunately, Fehr isn’t as full of himself as Overhart is.
Would throw a wrench into next year’s escrow with rightsholders being owed games to televise. The first votes suggests players are interested in Return to Play, But I’d assume that the PA will only ratify a deal with a high consensus.
Just listened to today’s interview with Bettman on Ray and Dregs.
When asked about the hub cities, Bettman was clear that they cannot shut things down after stage 3 (training camps) and stage 4 (enter the hubs and start playing) for a 14 day isolation. So, if that rule is in place in Canada without flexibility then, unfortunately, Edmonton, Toronto, Vancouver will be out. He was clear that he wasn’t “asking Canada to change its rules” but it is what it is.
Personally, I think they’ll be able to work around the 14 day by allowing teams to be cohorts and maybe even dual team cohorts. There is going to be a couple exhibition games so perhaps two team cohorts that play each other twice can be used – it may not be 14 days but, with prior testing, maybe the period can be shortened.
Anyways, he mentioned he’ll need to make a decision on the hubs in 3 weeks and will probably need to narrow it down after 2. Be interesting to see what Freeland (Truds) agree to, if anything, in this regard.
————————–
Asked about innovative tech for the broadcasts and he did say they are actively working on that with the networks. Could be some interesting things but its all discussion right now.
————————-
CBA talks – wouldn’t say if they were ramping up but did say he and Fehr speak essentially every day and they are getting very good information from the players with regards to needs and issues.
It will be interesting.
Much of the money will eventually come out of their pockets if they decide not to play…
Just listened to an interview with super agent Kurt Overhart.
He is saying the players are likely going to demand financial compensation for playing in this season’s playoffs.
His reasoning is that nowhere in the CBA does it cover players being quarantined, bubbled and away from their families potentially for months.
Could throw a wrench into Bettman’s plans.
this is long overdue .. The NHL is quite resistant to change. But a pandemic is not FORCING them to think outside the box ….
1 change that looks like it will come is the Re-seeding after playing and 1st Round. Fans and players have long been asking for this … I do hope it happens that way ..
Also, after this season, I bet we never see a straight 16 team playoff again. I bet there will be some form of play-ins every year. Might only be 18 or 20 teams, but there will be some excitement about deciding the last few teams for the playoffs..
It is interesting.
That would leave only Benson and Granlund(?) as the call-ups among forwards, I guess. (no Currie, Marody, Malone, Gambardella, McLeod etc).
Are we on the same page?
If so, what is false? There’s video evidence of much of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHkzqejFKbM
I say Tippett will ask Smith if his groin is good and if he’s ready to go he’ll start game 1.
They are thinking about bringing Broberg (if he is willing) which would be 11 d-man, leaving only 17 forwards available.
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
I think he have a pretty good idea of what coach T is going to do and I think it can be talked about with knowledge based on information.
Don’t pull a Yaremchuk!
Speculation can, will and should happen!
As per Friedman, phase 3, training camps, won’t start before July 10 and Pagnotta indicates the “target date” is July 14.
jp,
Yes
godot10,
https://tinyurl.com/yakwrh8e
Thank you for the clarification.
I could be wrong but I think you are wrong (or could be) because, as I said, they have not decided if its a bracket-style or they will re-seed – both after the play-in and after the 1st real round.
Sounds like the league will essentially let the players decide on this one and the players seem to not like the bracket so, we are likely to get a re-seed which would be good.
Mike Smith will help with experience – Mikko Koskinen should help with the goaltending.
I do think Tip will play Smith, his guy, the veteran – Smith could very well get hot and help win – at the same time, Mikko was the better goalie in the regular season.
Try creating a preview link at tinyurl. Anyone who clicks that gets to see the full link before travelling.
Like this:
https://tinyurl.com/y7cuq7th
The meta searches in preprints currently have studies with very wide ranges, but 2% seems high for IFR.
You need a large representative sample and I’d be very concerned about false positives where they would swap measured values. Quite a few reports from areas estimating seroprevellance at 5%+. After that the issue is how random/representative and comparing to dissimilar populations elsewhere.
godot10,
Bloomberg reports Youtube admits it shouldn’t have removed the videos and reinstates them. I tried linking to the article but it’s in moderation (due to having Tru*p in the url?).
Yeah that seems odd. The info appears freely available on google as well as on pubmed and other places that list scientific papers.
People need to know they can overdose on hydrochloroquine, and too much Vitamin D isn’t good either. But I think it’s clear these things may help at least somewhat against Covid…
The known cases are not reflective of the general population. We won’t know that the fatality rate is until there is antibody testing of a large sample of people respresentative of the general population, and that looks like it will be certainly far less than 2%.
Hydroxychloroquine is safe. It has been around for 50 years. One shouldn’t use it with antibiotics, as that comibination is known and has been known for a long time to pose some cardiovascular risks.
One shouldn’t be giving hydroxychloroquine to people who are already severely sick. But then again, nobody “pro”-hydroxychloroquine has ever advocated that. The “pro” people argue that it should be used a prophylactic or very early in the infection, preferably with zinc, and then stopped after a fixed period of days…usually a week or so.
N64,
Thanks
This practice has been stopped, at least in New York, but it’s too late.
We have an elderly relative in a ~250 bed care home in New York, every day we get an email notifying us of new Covid cases in the home. So far there are about 150 cases, split pretty much evenly between residents and staff. Something like 10 deaths so far… it’s almost inconceivable that there won’t be 100% infection rate in that home by end of summer. It’s running rampant.