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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Lowetide.ca
- “If you treat an employee unkindly, at any time, that’s a reflection of you. There’s no way around that truth. Now, people will blow it up and perhaps that’s unwarranted, but you can tell much about a company by simply observing their practices.” – Lowetide
- “Many seem to assume that the Oiler’s are immediately guilty of deliberately not telling Perlini about waivers. I am sure he did find out about it from his mother, but does anyone know that the Oilers did not attempt to contact Perlini directly and had been unable to contact him? They had a deadline to get him on waiver and then it goes out on twitter. There’s two sides to every story, but many on here only seem to want to see one side. If the Oilers made no effort to contact him, that would be inexcusable. Making a poor effort or having an unintentional breakdown in communication might signal the organization doesn’t value it enough, but one tweet from Perlini’s Mom hardly gives full proof of any of this.” – Redbird62
BLH’s Thoughts: Redbird62 hits the nail right on the head. There are so many out there that are quick to jump on the franchise for every little thing it does without even a modicum of proof to backup their rage. I get it though, they’re still butthurt from the decade of darkness and the Gretzky and Hall trades, but you don’t know what you don’t know and let’s keep things in perspective here, While Brendan Perlini is a fantastic athlete and a nice young man with an incredibly optimistic attitude towards life, on a good NHL team, he’s not good enough to make that roster and considering that even under Woodcroft he can’t get any TOI, what’s the hullabaloo really about here?
Perlini knows where he stands by now and any news of waivers (that doesn’t necessarily means he’s going to the AHL) won’t be a shock to him. If he’s lucky, somebody will claim him and he’ll get a chance with another team. A chance is what we all want for him, right? We all want to see this young man get the opportunities he deserves. So we should celebrate him when he plays and has a good shift instead of acting like pompous entitled children on social media towards the franchise. More positive, less negative.
Now, if you’re one of those that got on Twitter yesterday and lambasted the Oilers for not having any “class”, you might want to reconsider your position seeing how Mrs. Perlini has since deleted that tweet. Oh, you didn’t know. Yeah, it’s gone now, so I wonde, do you think she might be in the wrong here with that action? I guess cooler heads could’ve prevailed or maybe humiliating her son like that blew up in her face because you can be damned sure that it didn’t help him with his current employer or any future ones now that everybody in the hockey world knows he comes with that kind of baggage.
Completely off topic, but does anybody know what’s going to happen with Matty Petrov with everything going down between Russia and the Ukraine? I read that the CHL might bar Russian and Belarussian players from the CHL import draft, but I wonder about current junior players. In addition to that, Petrov might be too good to return to the OHL next season but he’s not old enough to play in Bakersfield yet, so that would mean he’d need to either head back to Russia to play in the KHL (who knows if he’d be eligible to leave again) or Edmonton would need to find him another team in Europe.
Oilersnation
Monday Mailbag – Does Mike Smith get too much leash from the coaches?
Does Mike Smith’s standing as a veteran give him too much leash with the coaches?
- “I think that’s certainly part of it. He also has a history of going on runs where he looks very good so I think if you’re Jay Woodcroft, you need to keep giving Smith chances because if you can get him on one of those rolls, he’ll help you win games. You also have to remember that you can’t run Koskinen into the ground.” – Yaremchuk
There have been a number of contributors on this site that say that Holland needs to go “all in” at the deadline. Should he go “all in”, whatever that might look like? The last time the Oil went all was in 2006. Lowe traded for Spacek (in January), signed Rem Murray, and traded for Roloson, Samsonov, and Tarnstrom at the deadline. They went to the Cup final, then did not make the playoff for a decade.
- “I’m not a big believer in all-in, especially in the cap era where most teams don’t have much cap space. Holland needs to add a D-man if he can, but I suspect they promote Stuart Skinner instead of paying big time for a goalie who might not be a clear upgrade over their current tandem.
I believe Ryan McLeod’s play has improved by leaps and bounds this season. What do you think his ceiling is in terms of the lineup card and points totals over the next few seasons?
- “I see him as a third line player who helps on the PK and can chip in at 5×5.” – Gregor
Do you think it’s realistic that the Oilers are able to trade for a goalie between now and the trade deadline?
- “It’s possible but I don’t know if it’s probable. Who falls out of contention that has a goaltender they’re willing to trade?” – Brownlee
BLH’s Thoughts: It’s 100% realistic the Oilers are able to trade for a goalie but that question doesn’t include a very important detail, the netminder needs to be an upgrade on the current trio Edmonton has at the moment. They could go out and trade for Scott Wedgewood tomorrow, but that’s not who they need. They need Dallas to shit the bed and for Jim Nill to do his old mentor a solid by trading him Braden Holtby. Likelihood of that going down? Not likely.
I’ve said time and time again, the Oilers are not in a position to start trading their top futures assets yet. If there’s even a 5% chance that one of 97 or 29 leave after their contract is up, Edmonton needs to have the depth to absorb that sort of loss. I mean, on an individual player basis, that’s impossible because we’re talking about two of the best NHL players in the world right now, but if they deal their first rounders and the Brobergs, Holloways, and Bourgaults, they won’t have any young talents ready to walk onto the roster in that frightening scenario.
The other thing I’ve said this year is that this Oilers build may just be akin to the Capitals’ Cup winning version. It took Washington years and years to fine tune that team to the point to where they became Cup contenders and even then they had to deal with Crosby and the Penguins, the Bruins, Flyers, or the Islanders.
If you trade those kids and high picks just to creep into the playoffs so you can lose in the first round, what’s the point? Keep stacking up the first rounders, keep developing players properly as Ken Holland likes to do, and in the future the Oilers are going to have a team that can afford to trade a 1st rounder for Brandon Hagel or Ben Chiarot. Players like Marc-Andre Fleury will ask to be traded to Edmonton to join such a powerfully deep franchise.
If you’re the type that’ll get all pouty because Holland won’t make a bad trade, well, sucks to be you. I’m glad that he won’t bow down to fan pressure because I’d like this team to be as good as it can be down the road, plus I’ve not tied anything personally to the team. So if they lose, meh. Try better next time. If they win, great. I’ll be happy for everyone involved. My personal well-being won’t be affected in the slightest either way.
Ryan McLeod is trending to become this team’s Roope Hintz. You watch, Woodcroft will be using him as Nuge’s replacement while RNH is out of the lineup. McLeod obviously isn’t that good, but he’s the type that you can play in every situation because of his hands, his size, his speed, his work on the dot, and his work ethic. I hope he can gain as much as possible from playing with Derek Ryan with regards to hockey IQ though because there’s so much more that he can grow into if he shows he can handle it.
Mike Smith’s deployment under Woodcroft never changed. He’s still the team’s no.1 goaltender and the new coaching staff sees him thusly. My question is, has that changed since the MIN and TB games? Yesterday on Oilers Now, Woodcroft said he sees the netminding rotation as a meritocracy and that pleases me. I love me some Mike Smith, but I also want to see Mikko Koskinen get the opportunities he deserves. Stuart Skinner is no.3 for me because no matter what you say or how you try to sell me on him, his .913 SV% should have an asterisk beside it and I’ll tell you why.
Skinner didn’t get that .913 SV% playing three times a week for a month straight, he got in playing three times a month. His workload is a fraction of what Koskinen and Smith have had to go through AND he’s a rookie.
Most people want consistency, right? Well, check out those SV% numbers below. Is that what you would consider the kind of consistency an NHL team needs to make a run in the playoffs?
Also, stop with the Jordan Binnington comparisons. Right now, the Oilers defense is nowhere near what the Blues had the year he stepped in and guided St. Louis to the Stanley Cup.
Spector’s Hockey
- TORONTO SUN: Steve Simmons believes the Maple Leafs could be among several clubs (Edmonton, Boston, Washington, Colorado) lining up looking to acquire Marc-Andre Fleury from the Chicago Blackhawks. The 37-year-old goaltender wouldn’t mind getting traded to a contending team.
- DAILY FACEOFF: Frank Seravalli recently listed five depth players who could help a club win the Stanley Cup… The Montreal Canadiens’ Artturi Lehkonen topped the list, followed by Chicago’s Brandon Hagel, Columbus’ Alexandre Texier, Arizona’s Lawson Crouse and San Jose’s Noah Gregor.
- NEW YORK POST: Larry Brooks suggested Colin Miller as a possible blueline depth acquisition for the Rangers. The 29-year-old played two seasons under Rangers coach Gerard Gallant with the Vegas Golden Knights.
BLH’s Thoughts: Please, let the Oilers trade for Noah Gregor. His uncle covers the team on TSN1260 and I’m here for that chaos.
Actually, if I’m being completely honest, Noah Gregor would probably be a better 4th line option than what Woodcroft has been trotting out as the 10th and 11th forwards recently.
For shits and giggles, let’s say Ken Holland does decide he’s going to make a splash, what would it cost to make a massive deal with Chicago to bring in Fleury (UFA), Ryan Carpenter (UFA), Brandon Hagel (signed through 23/24 @$1.5Myr), and Calvin De Haan (UFA)?
I know, it’s not the early 90s anymore, all I’m saying is that in those four players the Oilers get the goaltending shored up, they get the bottom six upgraded, and their defense goes up a tick with Kris Russell 2.0. Also, you’re only responsible for one of those players going into 2022/23.
