The Edmonton Oilers had 11 selections at the 2010 draft. Only one player (Taylor Hall) emerged as a difference maker. His ability to push the river five-on-five gave him great value, he was the best player of the decade in Edmonton until Connor McDavid’s arrival and Leon Draisaitl’s emergence.
The Oilers in 2010 didn’t have the intel available to tell them the man chosen between Martin Marincin and Curtis Hamilton had more value. Why did he have more value? Because he delivered 37-42-79 in 65 OHL games. Offense in junior signals expecations for the future. Based on simple math, how many Oilers picks had a realistic chance of an NHL career on 2010 draft weekend? What about now?
THE ATHLETIC!
- Lowetide: How Oilers’ veteran roster, cap issues could impact Raphael Lavoie
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s Oilers legacy and the magnitude of next summer’s moves
- Lowetide: What the Oilers are getting in 2023 NHL Draft pick Beau Akey
- Lowetide: Oilers’ baffling 2016 draft takes another hit
- Lowetide: Oilers’ 2023-24 season has potential for loud noises
- Lowetide: Jay Woodcroft is (still) the right man to coach the Edmonton Oilers
- Lowetide: Should the Oilers sign Filip Zadina?
- Lowetide: Oilers’ roster utility for 2023-24 could use a final tweak
- Lowetide: Ideal roster positions for young Oilers in 2023-24
- Lowetide: Making sense of Oilers’ free-agent haul after initial flurry
- Lowetide: The Edmonton Oilers still have work to do this summer
- DNB: The Oilers roster is improved but evolution must continue into next season
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers top 20 prospects, summer 2023
- DNB: Connor McDavid’s top-5 moments from another awards-laden season
- Lowetide: Oilers’ Jayden Grubbe and his organizational importance
- DNB: 10 questions with director of amateur scouting Tyler Wright
THE 2010 DRAFT (HARVEST MOON)
- #1 overall LW Taylor Hall: Immediately the best prospect in the system, the Oilers have an outstanding young player ready for the fall. If he gets enough powerplay time and especially if the Oilers can find a way to send him out with good players against the soft parade, this guy could win the Calder.
- #31 overall C Tyler Pitlick: Big, physical center with skill. The Oilers have a few of them in the pipeline now but you can never have too many of this player type.
- #46 overall D Martin Marincin: Tall, lean 2-way defender with good speed and the ability to think on his feet. Needs to be more consistent, but that’s something we can say about pretty much every prospect taken today. ISS and speeds ranked him at 40, McKenzie at 71. I don’t know that he was BPA at this spot.
- #48 overall LW Curtis Hamilton: A wide-bodied winger with solid skills (OK skater, good shot, has a nose for the net) he endured injury problems which cut back on scouts ability to “see him good.” He’s 6.02, 211, and Smarmy Boss has a nice description of him and his season in Hamilton’s draft post comments section. ISS60 and Bob McKenzie57, which makes him a slight reach pick.
- #61 overall C Ryan Martindale: Tall C with speed, Redline (at the top prospects game to scout this year’s talent) said: Until he rang a quick release snap shot off the crossbar in the third period, you could have told us he wasn’t dressed at all. ISS61, BM58 so it would seem to be a saw-off in terms of value.
- #91 overall D Jeremie Blain: Had a fine season in the QMJHL and has good size for a defender. Oilers have had success in the Q, but it has been awhile.
- #121 overall G Tyler Bunz: Redline had him #178 overall but I’m fine with using a depth pick like this one. In fact, I think the Oilers should use one every year in this range.
- #162 overall D Brandon Davidson: ISS had him #74 and Redline had him #204. That’s a wide range, but Remmerde (a great fricking blog, buddy was our guide today folks) is a straight forward scout and says there are some things to like. Based on his words, I’m counting this as a value pick.
- #166 overall L Drew Czerwonka: There’s not much to say about a pick like this one. There are no expectations, it was probably a pick for the area scout and if he turns out holy hell that’s a great pick. The only negative is that there are still some names on the board at this time who graded out better and that’s something this organization does at certain points in the draft: select for need. Having said that, it wasn’t like Slava Trukhno shot the moon.
- #181 overall F Kristians Pelss. Poster Buddhaa over at hf boards: Pelss played for the farm team of Riga Dinamo – the Riga Dinamo Junior which played in the Belarus Open League (+/- ECHL level). Was the youngest player on the team. Didn’t score much. Long shot, but an interesting story.
- #202 overall L Kellen Jones: Undersized skill player who performed well for the Vernon Vipers. Has a twin brother and they’re both heading to the NCAA (Quinnipiac) this fall. His brother’s name is Conner, but I think we should call him “Chipper.” Like the Czerwonka pick above, they either “saw him good” or this is a hat tip to some regional scout or bird dog who has done good work in the past.
2010 DRAFT VIA PICK224
Taylor Hall posted numbers that scream impact player and did it on a fine team in the world’s best junior league. Others who indicated quality were Tyler Pitlick (solid scoring, impressive outscoring as a college freshman), Curtis Hamilton (his P1/e60 showed promise) and Brandon Davidson (his outscoring at even strength was music).
I would suggest Ryan Martindale’s lack of outscoring was a concern and Jeremie Blain was an offensive spark but defense was a rumour.
We didn’t have enough on Martin Marincin, although he would show some quality during the following years.
Note: P1/e60 is “total primary points per estimated 60 minutes of time on ice” and we’re looking for individual performance so I’m using it today. I don’t know for certain if it’s the right measure, would prefer estimated pts-60 at five-on-five or even strength, but it’s quick and tidy.
RECENT PICKS VIA PICK224
Xavier Bourgault is the class of the group, his numbers suggest pro success and he’s already delivered a solid rookie season in the AHL. Jake Chiason’s P1/e60 is a surprise, but came during the pandemic season (as did the numbers here for Bourgault, Petrov and Wanner).
The 2010 draft numbers signalled Hall, Pitlick, Hamilton and Davidson had both enough offense and enough outscoring at evens to be considered substantial prospects.
The recent selections run through Pick224 (a remarkable site) hilite Xavier Bourgault, Jake Chiasson, Max Berezkin, Reid Schaefer, Tyler Tullio, Matvey Petrov and Max Wanner as substantial prospects. Beau Akey’s outscoring leaves him in the Ryan Martindale aisle and we’ll see what the morning brings.
All this to say the following: Oilers scouts in 2010 were going exclusively by “saw him good” and the current scouting staff has incorportated some math into the process. The two Russian picks are music, and I believe players like Bourgault and Schaefer indicate some astute drafting with math as a guide.
It’s encouraging, because someday soon the draft will matter again and will be key to avoiding another decade of darkness.
Sail on, Tony Bennett.
New for The Athletic: There are several truths about the 2023-24 Oilers. All of them serious, some of them unthinkable.
https://theathletic.com/4706674/2023/07/21/edmonton-oilers-stats-success-2023/
The Washington Commanders were sold today for 6.05 Billion. The most expensive sports franchise sale price ever.
The NY Mets sold for 2.4 B
Premier League Soccer clubs are going for record prices
90% of the Ottawa Senators went for 950 Million
Sports seems to be exploding
Now check this out, the gaming company that makes Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and others (Activision/Blizzard) just sold for 69 Billion!
All the NHL teams put together aren’t worth that
Those games are entirely immersive for so many people. Their identity and social lives are centered around these games in many cases. Sports can’t compete with that at a fan’s level, but they certainly can do something to increase fan engagement.
I posted a concept that I put down on paper regarding this on this blog about 5 or 6 years ago to get some feedback, but it was nothing but crickets.
For such an engaged group to have nothing to say about it, it was deflating. I don’t have the time, energy or motivation to do anything with it right now, but I do think it would have a massive positive impact on the NHL.
One day perhaps it’s time will come….
@EricJFriesen
NHL Most Coaching Wins Since February 11, 2022:
𝟭. 𝗝𝗮𝘆 𝗪𝗼𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗳𝘁 – 𝟳𝟲
2. Bruce Cassidy – 76
3. Sheldon Keefe – 74
4. Rod Brind’Amour – 74
5. Jared Bednar – 74
6. Dean Evason – 71
7. Gerard Gallant – 69
8. Todd McLellan – 67
9. Jon Cooper – 67
One win was different for Bruce, Jared and Jon than Woody
Rather surprised Flat Top made that list.
Jon Cooper, with no prior NHL head coaching experience, was hired by the Tampa Lightning in 2013. It took him 7 years to finally win a Stanley Cup. He had Hedman, Stamkos and Kucherov the whole time and got Vasilevskiy in year 3. Tampa continued to have faith in him, despite missing the playoffs in 16/17, 2 seasons after going to the cup final.
Jared Bednar, with no prior NHL head coaching experience, was hired by the Colorado Avalanche in 2016. The team already had Nathan McKinnon, Rantanen and Landeskog. Took him 6 seasons to win a cup, and he started with having the worst record in the NHL in the salary cap era, then followed it up with 4 second round exits. Colorado continued to have faith in him, which paid off last season.
After a short stint in Washington, Cassidy coached the Boston Bruins for 6 seasons, always competitive and in the playoffs including one finals appearance in 18/19. Boston fired him and proceeded to have a great regular season under their new coach, only to lose in the first round. Meanwhile, Cassidy jumps over to Vegas, a team that had been to the final 4 or further 3 of the prior 5 seasons and coached them to a Stanley Cup victory.
Two of the 3 stuck with their first-time NHL coaches to win a cup. Maybe Boston should have kept Cassidy. Nothing in Jay Woodcroft’s coaching over his season and a half indicates he is not up to the task. Has he been perfect. Nope, but Cooper, Bednar and Cassidy haven’t been perfect in their careers either. Holland is going to stick with Woody and it is the smart thing to do.
— meh: we don’t know what we don’t know. Bunch of coaches have been replaced mid season and or mid ascent and won cups: Pitts twice. Blues. Kings. Going back a bit further Devils. Vegas turned over coaches before winning. Habs and Stars changed coaches and went to final last few years.
— Hope he wins it all but half way through season and team struggles he’s done. A quick exit from playoffs next year he won’t survive either IMO.
He should of started Campbell after everyone knew Skinner was physically and mentally tired. He was also blind to the fact that Yamamoto was not the right forward on the 2nd line against the heavy Vegas Bruisers. These 2 easily seen mistakes are just stubborness on his part cost us the series and the Cup.
— yeah he’s fine as a coach. Has blind spots. Things to poke at for sure. Supernova McD and Drai and healthly wingers with a non brutal Campbell and he will dine for free in Edmonton forever…
We possibly only have 1 year left of Leon if he tells management he’s going elsewhere then the wise thing to do is trade him after this year. You can’t piss away opportunities a 4 year old child could see Yama was getting killed by the big dogs.
Woody had 10 years in the NHL on a good team before getting his gig. He said he wasn’t really a rookie
His playoffs were not good coaching. Widely thought not just me. He’s not terrible but I have yet to see anything but a competent coach with better top players than the other coaches that you mentioned
Al Arbour said the player talent makes the coach. Also, the GM in Tampa made a big coarse correction on team make up. Sakic took a while to assemble his team
So for me in the Oiler’s situation which is their unique build to a cup hopefully, I feel Holland needs to take a step. Maybe he’s hamstringing Woody as Yzerman to Cooper with his skill teams with no size or snarl
We’ll see of course, but last year and this summer don’t leave me feeling they necessarily learned the lessons that were taught
Pretty sure Bednar and Rod Brind’Amour would be 1 and 2 on that list had they not lost some of their best players to injury last season.
Amazing that Gallant keeps getting canned.
NHL Watcher
@NHL_Watcher
Friedman on Erik Karlsson (NHLN): “At times I’ve had people tell me they think it’s more likely that Carolina’s going to be destination at other times, including the one most recently, I’ve had people say to me, no, they kind of think it’s tipping a little bit towards Pittsburgh”
It is wild to think the Taylor Hall draft is closer to the Jani Rita draft than it to today.
Where does the time go? Who is this old man in the mirror?
A very long rebuild.
I can’t remember if it was the Jani Rita or the Jesse Ninimaki pick where the TSN crew just had like 5 seconds of awkward silence followed by “uh…the Oilers going off the board here…” as they scrambled for their notes to find something to say about the guy.
It was the Niinimaki pick. At least Rita was in the range where he was chosen.
Even Bob McKenzie was caught off guard with Niinimaki, and this is the guy who knows who every team will pick before the selection is actually made. That may have been one of the biggest first-round reaches ever.
Niinimaki was No. 50 European ranked which is about No. 125 overall. So, that’s fifth round. Amazing.
Who is this old man in the mirror?
=============
For all the Gahan Wilson fans this one is my favourite.
The ink drawing is of an old man sitting on a park bench leaning on his cane feeding the pigeons.
The caption underneath.
“Inside of every old man is a young boy wondering wtf happened.”
I have a dog days of summer crazy trade proposal… because there’s no real hockey news now.
oilers get Erik karlsson 50% retained
sharks get nurse 25% retained, Xavier bourgault and Raphael lavoie
why the oilers do it: I’m not a nurse hater, but I do think he is overpaid by a couple mil. And with their cap situation that makes a big difference. If the oil want to maximize
the roster for the next 4 years, this saves them $1.65 mil per year, and I would say gives them the better player for the next few years. They could then let Broberg and kulak fight for 2 left d, and accrue cap space until the deadline where they could bring in an ekholm clone and make a serious run for the cup.
why the sharks do it: although they add 1.65mil per year for the next 4 years, they aren’t contending now so it shouldn’t be a big issue. They still have nurse to help shelter the young d, and 4 years from now, when they are probably aiming to be competitive again, the Karlson cap drops off, and they have 3 seasons off nurse for $7.4 million. He should still be a good 2nd pair d, and the cap hit should be decent consider the expected cap increase. They also get bourgault and lavoie to help with their rebuild.
Nope
A couple reasons this won’t work, Nurse has a NMC and would veto this trade.
I don’t believe SJ values Nurse as much as Bouchard.
Now, the bigger question is, if Bouchard Demands are more than EK is at 50% retention does Holland pull the trigger on that trade knowing he, or better yet the Oilers window is only two to three years?
I’ve been wondering about this too….
1) Important question, would Nurse do it?
2) I’m not sure swapping Nurse for Karlsson makes the team better……….
and I’m not one that will rag on Karlsson’s defence – he had a 50% goal share at 5 on 5 last year on a team that was -52 at 5 on 5 – he’s a player driver (at least he was last year.
3) With Bourgault and Lavoie gone, well, what is the asset currency to make this Ekholm clone acquisition?
Damn if Taylor Hall was not a fun player to watch early in his career – remember when he was young and reckless? It was scary but he pushed the play, that’s for sure.
Anyone watching Dylan Holloway in the AHL likely sees a strong resemblance to a young Taylor Hall – I know I do.
Here is hoping he can stay healthy and translate some of the play driving at the NHL level.
As an aside, who has had the “better” post-trade career, when taken as a whole, Adam Larsson or Taylor Hall.
Don’t get me wrong, Chiarelli didn’t get value in the trade, there was no way Taylor Hall didn’t have more value than Adam Larsson on the date of the trade.
At the same time, while Hall had the one 93 point season dragging the Devils in to the playoffs and winning the Hart, I’m not sure his full career has lived up to expecations. I think in the number of years following the trade, he still pushed the play alot but his production was just never really there – he was hurt alot and I think he topped out at like 61 points (aside from the Hart season).
Larsson had some ups and downs as an Oiler but was REALLY good in 2017 and has been fantastic for the Kraken.
Even if they made the same money (and Larsson is cheaper), I think Larsson is currently the more valuable player on the ice.
Interesting how these things go.
Hallsy spent a ton of time on his ass/60 before age 21. Up and down all shift, up and down all career. Holloway seems more stable on his feet but less likely to *pop* any given shift. That said not sure where he ends up in his career but I could see Holloway give 81-20-41-61 (Hall’s 21-22) a pretty consistent run by age 30, something Hall can’t seem to offer.
I remember LT mentioning this lots over the year, and I think it is worse than “saw him good”. This could have been part of the problem with team building. There is likely value on the board late in the draft, and pleasing a scout with a pick may make the scout happy, but poor long term. The Oilers only had 3 picks, imagine if they kept with this philosophy to distribute the picks among the scouts. Maybe part of the reason we couldn’t make good trades is that we didn’t have a Tier 2 prospect another team might like to throw into a deal. Schaefer was important to get Ekholm. Sammy got flipped for Kostin. Last season might have looked different if we didn’t have more in the pipeline.
Reward the scouts by paying them well to keep good ones around (scouts don’t count against the cap), and track their picks. Give good ones raises and responsibility to ensure that they feel valued and stick around so that good decisions are made when the time is right.
Regarding Jeremy Coupal’s departure:
———
Ryan Rishaug@TSNRyanRishaug·6m
Sounds like Jeremy left on great terms with the organization. Made the decision for personal reasons and was very happy with his seven years with the club.
The proof will be in the pudding. If the Oilers remain a steady bet on video challenges then he left them with a method, not just smiles.