Edmonton Oilers Trade Talk: Zacha, Hertl, Chiarot, and the Latest NHL Rumors

This is your TL/DR (too long, didn’t read) summary post where excerpts are taken from the best of the best when it comes to Edmonton Oilers blogs. BLH gives you his two cents on the latest posts being published in the Oilogosphere! Including those from Lowetide.ca, The Athletic, Oilersnation, The Cult of Hockey, Copper N Blue, Oil on Whyte, and more!

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Cult of Hockey

Can the Edmonton Oilers turn it around by squeezing even more out of their Big Three: 9 Things

Two non-Oilers property names to watch: Noah Philp, a 23-year-old 6’3 195 Center with the Alberta Golden Bears and Ben King, an undrafted 6’3 19-year-old RHS Center with the Red Deer Rebels. Both peaked as point and-a-half per game producers in junior.
The job Dave did in Edmonton was far from perfect, or he would still be here. I certainly didn’t agree with all of line and lineup decisions he decisions in his final weeks. But in the end, I don’t believe Tippett had all the tools he needed to do the job.
The is the 2^nd time in 5 years that the franchise has fired a coach primarily because the roster wasn’t good enough.
You can teach quality defence. But defence is also not nearly as hard to find nor as expensive to acquire and keep as elite offence…Yes, Secretariat worked and evolved as a thoroughbred. But they didn’t ask Big Red to pull a plow.
At the end of the day I shudder to think what this club would look like without the Big 3. If McDavid and Draisaitl weren’t Oilers, I firmly believe that neither Zach Hyman or Evander Kane would be, either. And after being bridged twice I’m not so sure Darnell Nurse would have signed long-term if Connor and Leon weren’t here. And then who’s your #1?

BLH’s Thoughts: Dave Tippett and Jim Playfair had the best and deepest roster this club has seen in decades and couldn’t get the job done. I mean, one might argue that they did more with less with Joakim Nygard and Gaetan Haas were anchoring the bottom six… Leavins’ comment about Tippett not having the tools to do the job leads me to share this idiom with you,

“People say a bad workman blames his tools when someone says that something they have done is not of good quality because they did not have the correct things to do it with, to mean that it is really because they did not have enough skill.”

Say what you want, but this group tuned their coach(es) out and lost faith in them and can you blame them after being one of the worst teams in the league for two months?

Why would you shudder to think where this team would be without the big three? If they didn’t have McDavid, Draisaitl, or Nurse, they might still have Hall and Eberle, as well as Noah Hanifin, Sam Bennett, and Possibly Bo Horvat.

The team wouldn’t have the high end talent it does now, but maybe the club’s depth would’ve been ironed out quicker and they would’ve spent less time at the bottom of the league?

There’s also an argument that could be made that Nurse signing long-term for over $9M/yr isn’t that great for this team’s future salary cap structure. Is he a true no.1 right now? He was last year, no doubt about that, but is he in the same boat as Victor Hedman, Drew Doughty, John Klingberg, Aaron Ekblad, Adam Fox, Cale Makar, Miro Heiskanen, etc?

Look, I don’t think it’s much to ask for Leon and Connor to change their point of attack. Draisaitl always breaks into the offensive zone on the wing and button hooks at some point, the books out on him there, and McDavid either tries to take it through 3 guys down the middle or around them on the outside. Teams can plan for that and they do because when 97 or 29 are stopped, their wingers are usually too low and there’s a multi-skater counter attack that goes the other way.

Leaders do what is necessary to win. Simple as that.

Oilersnation

Monday Mailbag – First thoughts on Jay Woodcroft replacing Dave Tippett?

First thoughts on Dave Tippett getting fired and Jay Woodcroft coming in?

“From where I’m watching, the team needed a new voice because they looked incredibly flat over the last two months and it truly seemed like they were tuning Tippett out.” – Baggedmilk

BLH’s Thoughts: One game in and while some things look great (work ethic, tenacious play in the muck), other problems remain (porous defensive play). So, it’s only fair that we give this group a good month of hockey to see how things turn out. I’ve got a lot of faith in Woodcroft and Manson considering how well they’ve done with Bakersfield, so, we’ll see how things go and let’s revisit this question in March.

What do you think the Oil will need to do through the remainder of the season for Woodcroft to be the coach in September?

“If the team shows improvement the rest of the way but misses out, can you blame Woodcroft, who was given less than half of the season to get them in? If the Oilers do miss, will Ken Holland even be around to decide whether Woodcroft remains behind the bench?” – Lewis

BLH’s Thoughts: Nothing. I’m of firm belief that he’ll be retained unless Jon Cooper makes an explicit request to join the Oilers. Woodcroft and Manson have a lot of history with a good portion of this roster and it’d be an egregious error in judgment to not give them the bench for the next three seasons after this one.

Now that he’s fired a coach, how much pressure do you think is on Ken Holland to make other moves in an attempt to turn this thing around?

“With the coaching change and the Evander Kane signing, I think Holland needs to seriously look at moving this year’s first-round pick. Give this group a chance to go on a real run.” – Yaremchuk

BLH’s Thoughts: I wouldn’t be giving up the first for anything less than a starting goalie or a top-four defender with term. I’m talking trade targets like Scott Mayfield (NYI) or maybe even revisiting Columbus for Elvis Merzlikins.

At this point, is just making it to the playoffs this season going to be a win for Woodcroft, and be enough to be put in serious consideration to become the full-time head coach?

“Probably. Unless they get obliterated in the first round.” – Gregor

BLH’s Thoughts: Yeah, Gregor kinda sums it up here.

What is the biggest change you expect now that the Oilers have given the keys to Jay Woodcroft?

“How do you know a new coach won’t change how many easy goals they give up? Looking to see how long Woodcroft uses McDavid, Draisaitl, and RNH as centres. Also waiting to see how he uses Smith and Skinner in tandem.” – Brownlee

BLH’s Thoughts: I think we’re going to see players slotted into proper positions to succeed and I feel that the TOI is going to be distributed better and more tactically. I just wonder if Woodcroft is going to bring something to this team that we’re not used to seeing because we’ve had three veteran coaches behind the bench prior to him taking over.

The Daily Goal Horn

The New York Rangers have been strongly attached to former Blueshirt and current Canuck forward J.T. Miller.
- “Kravtsov is a player of interest for the Canucks and that interest may not necessarily be tethered to any of the flashy star-level players popping up in Canucks-centric trade rumours as we approach the NHL’s silly season.” – Thomas Drance, The Athletic
“The Vancouver Canucks have interest in, or at least curious about is Pavel Zacha,” Jeff Marek said.
- The Devils are loaded down the middle with Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, and Dawson Mercer leaving Marek to wonder where Zacha fits going forward.
In a potentially significant development, San Jose acting GM Joe Will told local reporters that conversations with Tomas Hertl and agent Craig Oster have both sides believing the player wants to stay.
“Anytime you have a player with as much interest as Chiarot has you worry about (injury),” Elliotte Friedman said. “Among the interested teams are St. Louis, Carolina, the Rangers, Florida, Los Angels and Calgary.”
According to Colorado Hockey Now’s Adrian Dater, the Philadelphia Flyers have been heavily scouting the Avalanche and their AHL farm team… This is fueling speculation of a rumored deal between the Avs and the Flyers for pending UFA Claude Giroux.