December 29, 2020 /

Edmonton Oilers Talk: Shore-ing Up the Center Depth

I woke up this morning to see that the Edmonton Oilers had signed free agent Devin Shore to a professional tryout and since I didn’t know much about the player, I decided to look into his numbers a bit.

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What I found is basically an older more experienced version of Jujhar Khaira. Which is sort of ironic since that is who he’ll be battling it out with for the Oilers 4th line center spot until Gaetan Haas gets to Edmonton.

This is a 5×5 comparison using the “relative” fancies over the past three seasons in order to tell us how these players did as individuals within that time frame.

(Numbers courtesy of Natural Stat Trick)

So as you can see, most of the “For %” stats are very similar aside from the Low-Danger Goals-For and a couple of the “Chances-For” categories. I guess one could say that Shore MIGHT be a tad better offensively whereas Khaira is DEFINITELY better defensively.

Now if we use PuckIQ‘s niche stats, we’ll find that both players were matched up against similar opposition. Meaning, they spent most of their TOI playing against other fourth-liners.

We’ll use last season’s numbers for this illustration.

Name TOI vs. Gritensity % of TOI vs Gritensity DFF% DFF%RC
Khaira 257.03 38.2 49.5 -3.20
Shore 189.83 44.3% 42.5% 1.80

​DFF% – Dangerous Fenwick For/Against ratio
DFF%RC – Dangerous Fenwick ratio relative to teammates for a specific level of competition
Dangers Fenwick – Weighted shot metric using shot distance, location, and shot type to give each shot a “danger” value.

One thing to note, it’s too small of a sample size to include above, but Shore played 6 games with the Columbus Blue Jackets last year and in those 21 minutes, he faced 4th line opposition 39.8% of the time. His DFF% was 55.0 and his DFF% Relative to Competition was -4.00.

Is there anything earth-shattering to conclude from these findings? No. I don’t think there really is. These guys are 4th liners. How much time should we be giving to this debate? Honestly.

I think what you’re going to get with Shore (IF he makes the club) is a skater who’s faster and much more skilled than JJ albeit less physical.

So what you sacrifice with one, be that offense, you’ll get more defense from the other and vice versa. Do you know what I mean? More or less, Coach Tippett can choose which center he wants depending on the team he’s playing against on a given evening.

But it’s clear to me that this is a direct challenge from the coaching staff and management to Khaira. They’re basically letting him know that it’s now or never.

I’ll leave you with two more things, some quotes from Coach Tippett and a referee saving Shore’s life after he got into it with Darnell Nurse a couple of years ago.

“Shore is a guy that could compete for that job (4C) also. He’s a versatile forward and I think Ken (Holland) just thought that we’re looking for some depth. It’s going to be hard to get through this season without getting nicked up a little. So those taxi squads are going to be valuable guys. 

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CategoriesArmchair GM Beer League Hero Edmonton Oilers NHL

TagsDevin Shore Edmonton Oilers NHL

Beer League Hero Written by:

I'm the Beer League Hero! I am from Camrose, Alberta but I make my home in Taipei City, Taiwan. I've been through the ups and downs and the highs and the Lowes, the Bonsignores and the McDavids, the Sathers and the Eakins but I'll never leave my Oilers, no matter what! They're with me until the end and then some. GO OILERS GO!