Edmonton Oilers Talk: “a fairly sizeable portion of the nation are actively hoping he fails.”

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!

The latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation comes from all of the internet’s top sites like Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, Sportsnet, and TSN just to name a few!

If you’re short on time but want to keep up with the day’s Oilers news, you’ve come to the right place!

Give us a follow on the socials!

Lowetide.ca

THE TRUTH AT 20

I always say we need to wait five years after a draft, but there are indicators along the way. Let’s have a look at a ‘decade of 20’ for the Oilers draft picks.

Jujhar Khaira (14-15 Oklahoma City Barons) 51gp, 4-6-10 .196 He didn’t play much at all during his first year pro, but increased his production and gained more playing time through his Condors career. He hit the ‘sail on’ portion of his career this summer and I’ll miss watching him play.
Tyler Benson (18-19 Bakersfield Condors) 68gp, 15-51-66 .971 The best scoring season at 20 this century for an Oilers forward prospect, Benson has been unable to parlay that success into an NHL job.
Kirill Maksimov (19-20 Bakersfield Condors) 53gp, 5-8-13 .245 A surprising lack of offense from a dynamic junior, sometimes (Marco Roy, Greg Chase) a player gets lost a little as a rookie pro. Clock is ticking, but he has talent.
Raphael Lavoie (20-21 Bakersfield Condors) 19gp, 5-5-10 .526 He got some feature time but it was a whirlwind and I wish he’d played all 68 games. If you add his playoff stats, he went 25gp, 6-8-14, .56 pts-game. He’s one of the players I’m most looking forward to seeing this winter in Bakersfield.
Martin Marincin (12-13 Oklahoma City Barons) 69gp, 7-23-30 .434 Marincin had a massive wingspan and his scoring rate at 20 was exceptional. Unfortunately, he was being zoomed by the lockout, as men like Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Justin Schultz were NHL talents on an AHL team. It was a short lived offensive spike.
Darnell Nurse (15-16 Bakersfield Condors) 9gp, 0-2-2 .222 Nurse didn’t get much time to adjust to the AHL before jumping right to the NHL. I think he would have benefitted from 40 games with Bakersfield, but he has long since established himself as a quality NHL defenseman. More offense than first thought, matching the Klefbom story.
Evan Bouchard (19-20 Bakersfield Condors) 54gp, 7-29-36 .667 Easily the class of the group offensively, he also improved defensively in the second half. Bouchard was -11 five on five goal differential in the first 27 games, +1 in the final 27 contests. I’m anticipating his arrival as an NHL regular more than any other Oilers related change from a year ago. He’s an exceptional talent.
Philip Broberg (21-22 Bakersfield Condors) Broberg is somewhat unusual among recent Oilers first-round picks, as a fairly sizeable portion of the nation are actively hoping he fails. That’s silly of course, it isn’t Broberg’s fault he was chosen by Edmonton, but it does speak to the unusual state of Oilers fandom. I think Klefbom’s first season should be a decent guide, I don’t see Broberg getting tons of PP time so the boxcars will be mid-range like Klefbom’s.

BLH’s Thoughts: LT has at least 30 players on this list, so do yourself a favor and head on over to see the rest of what he had to say. I just wanted to pick out some bigger names and contrasting performances for you, but the list is chalked full of fine research and analysis from Lowetide that you really should read.

I don’t have too much to say on the topic other than I’m a little surprised that scoring at the AHL level hasn’t seem to have correlated with NHL success with Edmonton’s selections over the last decade.

Oilersnation (Brownlee)

Off the Top of My Head

Should Edmonton Oilers’ GM Ken Holland consider trading Jesse Puljujarvi now because his value is relatively high? Channeling my best Dustin Nielson and Baggedmilk, I said, “pardon?” Snap. Lose it.

I’m guessing what we saw from the big Finn last season is far from “peak Puljujarvi” and that Holland does, indeed, believes he’s capable of more. Don’t you?
…if I’m Holland I want a longer look to see what Puljujarvi’s ceiling might be before I even contemplate the possibility of moving him.Can he score 25 or 30 goals alongside McDavid? If he can, that’s a player you can win with now, which is Holland’s mandate.
Considering the drama and disappointment that marked his first three seasons, Puljujarvi exceeded every reasonable expectation after returning from Karpat.
Talking to coach Dave Tippett last week it’s obvious he loved what he saw. No question in my mind Tippett thinks Puljujarvi is capable of more.

BLH’s Thoughts: Is there anything to add to this really? Unless the plan all along behind the scenes has been to get Jesse back from Finland only to move him to another team down the line, it really makes no sense to trade him right now. Next summer might be a different story, but for today, it shouldn’t even be a conversation.

A big catch.😋 Hopefully a good sign for the coming season! pic.twitter.com/D4ZVFB8IaY

— Mari Lönnberg (@LonnbergMari) August 29, 2021

The Daily Goal Horn

On Kotkaniemi

Apparently prior to the offer (sheet), the Canes were trying to trade for the 21 year-old Finnish center. That’s because there were rumblings coming out of Montreal that Kotkaniemi wanted out after being scratched in the Stanley Cup Final.
Habs GM is now looking at several options that may include:
- Letting Kotkaniemi go and try to find a way to acquire Jack Eichel (Elliotte Friedman)
- Matching the offer sheet and then flipping Kotkaniemi in an Eichel trade
- Letting Kotkaniemi go and using the compensation to acquire Christian Dvorak (Eric Engels)
- Let Kotkaniemi go and offer sheet Elias Pettersson (Engels)

On Jack Eichel

One team that was ruled out of landing Eichel due to cap constraints were the Boston Bruins. In truth, very few people have considered Boston a legit contender to land him, and most connections are being made because Eichel is from Massachusetts.
…previous report also claims a source says the Rangers are still in it, and that no one should be counted out. The Ducks have also resurfaced in the rumor mill.

On Seattle’s Search for a no.1 center

At one point there was talks of them trying to trade for the Rangers’ Ryan Strome, however there also rumblings regarding Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov.