Edmonton Oilers Draft Speculation: Trade the Pick? Use it? What Should Edmonton Do?

Coming from an Edmonton Oilers point of view, BLH provides you with excerpts from the latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation from all of the internet’s best sites including Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, Sportsnet, The Athletic, TSN and more!

From the Edmonton Sun (Rob Tychkowski)

Edmonton Oilers scouts brave pandemic in search of talent

• “I’ve probably been tested over 100 times,” laughed Edmonton Oilers amateur scouting director Tyler Wright. “Every time you go across the border, every time you get on a plane — and rightfully so, you’re trying to do your part to get a handle on this thing. You do what you can within the rules and off you go.”
• “I would fly into the U.S. and then travel basically by car throughout the U.S.,” said Wright
• “It was a lot of driving, a lot of take-out food in your hotel room and isolating. The various states and provinces all had different regulations in place, so it was everywhere from erratic to stressful.”
• “Agents even had their clients doing their own workouts and sent out the videos with testing numbers. Everyone is trying to be really creative to help us get to the best decision we can. There’s been collaboration throughout the whole industry to get this thing up and running.
• “Once you’re watching video, you’re at the mercy of the quality of the video and the person running the camera,” said Wright. “You’re trying to watch a defenceman and the person who’s doing the shooting won’t have him on the screen at all. You don’t have a sense of gap control.
• “The feeling in the industry is that there is going to be some good value later on,” said Wright. “With no second and no third, we’re limited in the high end of that, but with a fourth, two sixths and a seventh, we’ve got to make these picks count.”

BLH’s Thoughts: I can’t even imagine the shit the scouts had to go through this year, and last year for that matter, but I feel pretty decent about the job Tyler Wright has done since he joined the Oilers in a scouting capacity. That said, a lot of the young players that are coming through today are from the Chiarelli/Bob Green regime. So we’ll be waiting a few more years before we will be able to judge the work of Wright and his crew more fairly. 

As for this year’s draft, the feeling I get is that there’ll be a strong European influence. Edmonton’s done pretty good with Swedes over the years and Holland loves a Russian, so I’m going to expect at least one from each country getting picked by the Oilers this weekend. 

Here’s a list of the more prominent Swedes and Ruskies that are slated to go in the first couple of rounds of this year’s draft,

Oskar Olausson (HV71, SHL)
Simon Robertsson (Skelleftea, SHL)
Fabian Lysell (Lulea, SHL)
Isak Rosen (Leksand, SHL)
Nikita Chibrikov (SKA-Neva, VHL)
Prokhor Poltapov (Krasnaya Armiya, MHL)
Aleksandr Kisakov (Dynamo MSK, MHL)
Fedor Svechkov (Lada Togliatti, VHL)

From The Cult of Hockey (David Staples)

Three big questions on how Edmonton Oilers should best use 1st round pick this week

1. Will Cossa still be there when the Oilers pick at 19th overall?

2. Should the Oilers go against the grain and use a first round pick on a goalie?

3. If not Cossa, which other players might the Oilers take? 

BLH’s Thoughts: Let’s go ahead and answer these questions from Mr. Staples,

1. No. He’ll be long gone by then. Cossa’s star has been shooting up the draft boards all year and the word is one of Chicago or Ottawa will take him.

2. They absolutely should go against the grain. With the way that young netminders are trained now and the quality of that training, I think they’re a bit easier to project. So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we started to see a run of drafts where one or two goalies were selected in the first round. 

3. If Cossa is gone the Oilers need a forward. So it’s up to you to decide what kind of forward you’d like.

• If you want a power forward, maybe you’d go with Oskar Olausson, Simon Robertsson, or Tyler Boucher.
• If you want pure skill, you go with Nikita Chibrikov, Isak Rosen, Ville Koivunen, or Fabian Lysell.
• If a good two-way forward is what you’re looking for then you should look at Aatu Raty, Zach Dean, Franceso Pinelli, or Brennan Othmann.
• Need snipers? Matthew Coronato, Xavier Bourgault, Logan Stankoven, and Samu Tuomaala can shoot the pill. 
• Does the team requite some grit and sandpaper? Zachary L’Heureux and Chase Stillman would be your men then.

There’s one more question Mr. Staples failed to ask, do you trade the first round pick? The answer to that is yes IF you can get a 3C like Christian Dvorak or Nazim Kadri or you can get a team to give you multiple draft picks in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. 

From The Daily Goal Horn

From NHLTradeRumors.me

• The Los Angeles Kings may be making a big trade this week. According to Bruce Garrioch, they are willing to trade the 8th overall selection of this year’s NHL Entry Draft.
• It also is important to note that an Eichel trade would require much more than just this pick. With their strong prospect pool, though, this shouldn’t be much of a problem for them if they truly want him. 

Give us a follow on the socials!

• • Youtube: Beer League Heroes Channel
  • Twitter: @beerleagueheroe
  • Instagram: @beerleagueheroes
  • Facebook: Beer League Heroes