Edmonton Oilers Talk: Who Will Koekkoek Replace?

Now that the Edmonton Oilers have the defence in order, we can start to predict where GM Ken Holland and Coach Dave Tippett might want to slot everyone. There’s a lot of talk that new signing Slater Koekkoek will replace Kris Russell on the left side, but what if I told you that the former Peterborough Pete was insurance for Ethan Bear on the right side?

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I’m sure that we’re going to hear very soon whether or not Bear is in Edmonton, but as far as I know (and I could be very wrong on this), I haven’t heard any news that he’s arrived in the Alberta capital. I did read that he was supposed to be in town by Saturday if he was to start training camp on time with the rest of his teammates because of quarantine protocols and whatnot.

If we assume he’s going to be late for camp, can we not also assume that Tippett is going to have to fiddle with his d-pairings a little bit?

Now, the good thing about this group of defensemen is that I can count up to four of them that play both sides, Caleb Jones, Russell, Theodor Lennstrom, and Koekkoek. So, that should make it a little easier to decide who takes reps with who and I mean, it’s one pair that really needs attention.

Earlier this week, Allan Mitchell aka Lowetide, wrote a piece for The Athletic detailing last season for Koekkoek. Basically telling us what kind of opposition he’s played against, what percentage of his TOI he played against them, and where he was most successfully deployed.

“He averaged 16:45 per game and split his minutes fairly evenly among elite, midlevel and depth opposition. According to Puck IQ, 30.5 percent of Koekkoek’s minutes were against elites. That’s a high number for a third-pairing defender (he ranked No. 6 among regulars) and suggests the Blackhawks were rolling their pairs fairly equally.”

Bear with me for a moment, Olli Maatta and Koekkoek were really solid for the Blackhawks and Stan Bowman is without both of them going into this year… That’s quite the “Power”-ful statement…

Getting back to LT’s comments about Koekkoek, I’m very intrigued by his findings here. The Oilers are going to be down exactly one Oscar Klefbom and what they’re going to miss with his absence will be felt 5×5, for the most part, I feel because Tyson Barrie will take care of the Swede’s PP production. Can Mr. Koekkoek, who, I’d argue, is good-to-very good defensively based on his defensive fancies, fill Klefbom’s shutdown void?

Just take a look at four defensive metrics comparing Koekkoek to the rest of the Oilers’ left-side defenders from the past three seasons at 5v5. It’s a very simple comparison, so it’s not meant to draw a complete conclusion because there are many many different aspects to take into consideration. I only want to illuminate a point because when I first thought about this player coming in and bumping Russell out of a spot, I thought it was an asinine suggestion.

Metric	Koekkoek	Nurse	Russell	Jones
CA/60 Rel	-1.76	1.04	2.2	-4.3
FA/60 Rel	-3.16	1.28	-1.23	-3.29
GA Rel	-0.03	0.05	-0.46	0.01
xGA Rel	-0.33	0.12	-0.05	-0.29

The conclusion here? Of the four available NHL dmen on Edmonton’s roster, it’s Caleb Jones in his 800+ minutes that is the true defensive dman but Koekkoek is a close second and Darnell Nurse for all of his 5v5 offense (Thanks Connor!) and toughness (Two fights last year and 48 PIMS…) is the worst…

Lowetide went on to say this about his possible deployment for the Oilers,

“Koekkoek has some size and can skate very well, so he can be paired with any of the right-side defenders. Ideally, he plays on his natural side, but as he proved in Chicago, he performed well on his off side. His utility may come in handy after a compressed offseason that could lead to many defencemen heading to the injured list.”

You know what screws this all up? Nurse needing Bear because he and Larsson didn’t mesh well in the past and the fact that Tyson Barrie needs a trusted defensive dman to clean up when he jumps into the rush… Could it be possible that Koekkoek partners Nurse? I mean, that’s a massive jump to go from 3rd pairing defender to top-pairing in Edmonton but he’s young (27) and seemingly he’s adept at handling elite competition…

That would leave Jones to pair up with Larsson and Rusty with Barrie in this scenario.

In the event that Ethan Bear actually makes it to camp, that would change everything and I would at that point guess that Jones might partner with Barrie and Koekkoek with Larsson. Leaving the Cochrane Cowboy on the outside looking in…

Realistically though, is this season the kind of year that it will be acceptable to have a $4M cap hit as your #7 defender? I’m not sure that is how you would treat a veteran like that unless your name is Mike Babcock…

What would you do with Edmonton’s pairings? Let us know in the comments below!