Sweet Jesus! Was yesterday not one of the most toxic days of the season so far on Oilers Twitter? Seriously, for a good week now fans have been watching the Oilers get caved in and begging for management to do something. Well, they did something and those fans still aren’t happy.
Yep. This trade makes no sense for Oilers. Team can’t score and trade one of few guys who has scored to add another Dman who isn’t any better than what they have. Unreal. https://t.co/W2gUj7NgMn
— Jason Gregor (@JasonGregor) December 30, 2018
Twenty-five goals against in their last five games. Let me say that one more time. TWENTY-FIVE F*CKING GOALS IN THEIR LAST FIVE GAMES and Jason Gregor is going on about how the Oilers traded their 4th highest goal scorer over the last gazillion years.
THE GUY HAS BEEN OUTSCORED BY RYAN SPOONER SINCE HITCHCOCK TOOK OVER!
But please tell us more about Puljujarvi’s stick length or how Milan Lucic should be visiting a skills coach. Actually, Lucic really should visit a skills coach.
Not only that but according to David Staples, the Drake has been the WORST winger defensively over the past two years.
Let’s compare him to Ty Rattie. Rattie has made twenty major contributions to grade A chances. He’s made six mistakes on grade A chances. So that’s twenty for and six against. Caggiula is twenty-three for and twenty-one against. That’s completely unacceptable. (source)
But yeah, let’s go on about how he’s been “helping” the team by scoring at the same pace as Lucic since Nov.2oth. Lucic, by the way, is second on the team for contributions to grade A scoring chances against… #Yikes
Don’t get me wrong, when Caggiula was on his game, he was very entertaining to watch but he hasn’t been on his game for some time now. Why would anybody expect the Oilers to keep him around?
Actually, here is a list of posts where we tell you that the Drake was being shopped and/or had interest from other teams.
- 12/23/2018 – Pre-Xmas Rumors
- 12/20/2018 – Five Players that Could be Moved in 2019
- 12/10/2018 – Five Players the Oilers are Looking At
The feeling I get is that most fans aren’t upset that he was traded. I mean most of them were just getting over moaning about how much Chiarelli overpaid him but now they’re irate that Connor’s boy was traded for the guy that hurt McDavid in 2015-16.
https://twitter.com/OilersPain/status/1079778294000627712
I don’t normally agree with Weebo and I that won’t stop here with his comments on Russell but the dive into Brandon Manning does let us in on a little more than what the great Jason Gregor has illuminated our lives with.
I like to look at a defenseman’s “Against” numbers when forming a judgment them and something interesting that I found when I was looking at Manning’s fancies from this season, is that his Scoring Chances Against per 60 (-3.21) and his High Danger Chances Against per 60 (-2.35) at 5×5 would place him 2nd and on the Oilers behind Caleb Jones.
So basically, Brandon Manning would be 1st on the Oilers this year in preventing regular and high danger scoring chances while he’s on the ice.
Compare that to Jason Garrison (SCA/60: +1.78, HDCA/60: -1.39) and Chris Wideman (SCA/60:+1.35, HDCA/60:+1.49) and you can see he’s a definite upgrade in that area.
If we take a snapshot of his 5×5 stats (relative) and narrow it down to defensemen who played 1800 minutes from 2016-17 to now, the picture becomes even more intriguing. I’ll put the best Oilers defender for the respective category in brackets beside the number for comparison.
- Corsi Against/60: -1.54 (Benning: -1.63)
- Fenwick Against/60: -1.64 (Sekera: 2.68)
- Shots Against/60: -0.65 (Sekera: -2.21)
- Goals Against/60: +0.21 (Russell: -0.34)
Now let’s do Alex Petrovic!
- Corsi Against/60: -3.04 (Benning: -1.63)
- Fenwick Against/60: -3.18 (Sekera: 2.68)
- Shots Against/60: -2.56 (Sekera: -2.21)
- Goals Against/60: -0.31 (Russell: -0.34)
Once again, an upgrade if we take his numbers over a larger sample size.
Petrovic’s possession numbers are putrid for this season and if you wanted to use that as your ammunition to fire at the trade, I think that would be fair but I think we should keep in mind that the acquisition cost was little to none.
- CA/60: +5.33
- FA/60: +2.42
- SA/60: +3.01
- GA/60: -0.38 (Hey there little fella!)
- SCA/60: +1.84
- HDCA/60: +0.14
You really want to have your “against” numbers with a minus in front of them if you can at all help it. Alas, I leave it up to you which set of statistics you’d like to use to judge the player with.
The fact of the matter is, these players ARE upgrades defensively on what the Oilers had. They’re younger, better skaters, better defenders, and if twenty-five goals against in the last five games doesn’t tell you the defense needed to get better, maybe you’re watching a different hockey team than I am.
What they AREN’T are puck movers or contributors to offense. So if you’re using their “For” metrics, you’re digging around in the wrong sandbox.
I will say this though, Petrovic and Manning wouldn’t have been my targets. I’m not their hugest fan but I don’t have to be. I like them better than Garrison and Wideman though. All I’m doing is attempting to understand the trades by unearthing some positives that the players bring.
If you want to join the mob and cry bloody murder, that’s up to you. I prefer to see the sunny side of things.
A Trade Next Week
I think that if the Oilers are going to make another move to bring in a forward or to trade Cam Talbot, it’ll be while the team is on their four-game road trip next week. Their farm team is in Bakersfield, CA, and it’d make the most sense to do so.
I’m hearing names new names recently though that are throwing me off a bit. Players like Wayne Simmonds and Jonathan Quick have been brought to my attention. That’s exciting and all but I’ll believe that when I see it.
When Peter Chiarelli was asked about bringing in a forward now that he’s augmented the defense, he said,
“We’ve got some options. Let’s just leave it at that.”
