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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TheSuperFan.ca
- This off-season was a major disappointment as management failed to build a championship contender, spending lots of assets in the form of players and cap space but still having so many question marks across the roster.
- For things to go right this upcoming season, the star players need to be healthy, young prospects like Evan Bouchard will need to establish themselves as regular NHL players and some of the veteran players need to perform above what we’d expect from aging defencemen and goalies.
- That’s a lot of uncertainty and risk, most of which could have mitigated had management applied basic principles of talent evaluation and salary cap management.
- While it was encouraging to see them make the playoffs twice, they failed to get out of the qualifying round in 2020 and were swept by the Jets in 2021 – with the Oilers getting out-coached in both series.
- What was especially troubling is the Oilers poor performance in the regular seasons at even-strength (5v5), a direct indictment on the management group that assembled the roster and the coaching staff that handled the on-ice deployment.
- In the all-Canadian North division last season, the Oilers only out-scored two teams at even-strength – Ottawa and Winnipeg. They were outscored by everyone else including the Canucks and Flames – neither of which made the playoffs.
- …if management does get something right, like hopefully the Hyman signing, it’s hard to have confidence in the coaching staff to deploy them correctly just based on how they’ve mishandled things and what kind of players they value in the past two seasons.
- The biggest concern will be preventing goals with a weak defence core assembled, replacement-level forwards in the bottom six, two aging goalies sharing the crease, and a coaching staff that appears to be applying some flawed, outdated logic.
- …the Oilers need a lot of off-ice help to figure their mess out, make the necessary roster moves, and hopefully head into next season with a lot more certainty.
BLH’s Thoughts: This is what it sounds like when you go out of your way to be a contrarian. Looking for whatever bits of negativity that lends itself to your confirmation bias. Sunil’s post is a soulless and heartless hack job, but… Necessary.
It’s necessary because it’s important to see both sides of the coin, both extremes if you will. Agnihotri’s POV is really blunt and to the point and it hurts to read it, but it’s that kind of slap to the face one requires at the beginning of a season so that you’re prepared in case pundits like himself are right. Things won’t come out of left-field if you’ve read each side’s case.
I have a bit more faith in the moves Ken Holland has made this offseason to improve the team’s 5v5 depth scoring, but I too have concerns over Dave Tippett’s coaching style and I agree that he was outcoached in both post-season appearances his club has had in recent years.
I hope to high hell that “The Super Fan” is wrong on many many accounts, but if he’s right, hats off to him.
The Hockey Writers
3 Takeaways From the Oilers Preseason
- Each of the three goaltenders stood tall throughout the preseason, and look like they can provide a sense of stability heading into the season.
- Derek Ryan and Brendan Perlini were brought into the fold via free agency, and the team added Warren Foegele to the mix via trade, before signing forward Colton Sceviour to a Professional Tryout Agreement. All three of these players were key contributors to the team during the preseason while getting an extensive look throughout the preseason.
- Much of the Oilers’ success last season had to do with their league-best power play conversion rate, and they have picked back up where they left off last season. Through eight preseason games, the team has cashed in on 9 of the team’s 31 attempts on the man advantage for a 29.03 percent success rate.
- The Oilers’ penalty kill also improved thus far, operating at an 86.3 percent success rate through eight preseason games… The current preseason PK% if maintained throughout the regular season would rank as the second-best penalty kill in the league if compared to the 2020-21 regular season.
BLH’s Thoughts: The things that stood out to me were,
- The goaltending was quite good. Koskinen and Skinner especially.
- The Killer Ps (Puljujarvi and Perlini) scored at an incredible pace.
- Players who failed to elevate their games and claim a guaranteed roster spot like Tyler Benson, Ryan McLeod, Cooper Marody, and William Lagesson.
That PP was something else though, wasn’t it?
At the end of the day, finishing the preseason 6-1-1 is an encouraging sign but it doesn’t really tell us anything substantial. We should be using training camp performances to find those who’ve taken the next step or those who have taken a step back.
The real season-long indicators come in the first month or two, that’s where we’re going to see what the team is made of and in Edmonton’s case, their depth had better be improved because after Edmonton’s superstars return from China, they’re going to feel like a bag of smashed assholes and their performances may suffer if the club throws them right back in with the wolves.
Traveling that distance is hard enough, living in one of the most polluted cities in the world for a few weeks is going to mess with their systems. I hope they mask up and stay out of the open air because in the winter, the pollution it sits low and the reason I know this is because I’ve experienced Beijing in the winter.
In 2007, me and my best friend travelled to China (Xi’an and Beijing) and we’d go out for the day in the Chinese capital doing touristy stuff and then come home in the evening with bloodshot eyes, bloody noses, and feeling exhausted…
Anyway, all I’m saying is that the Oilers need to prepare accordingly for the week or two following the Olympics.
(If I had it my way, the NHL wouldn’t even be going)
Spector’s Hockey
- THE ATHLETIC: Pierre LeBrun recently reported Jack Eichel remains adamant about undergoing artificial disc replacement. While the procedure has never been done on an NHL player, some teams are warming to the idea if they can acquire him from the Buffalo Sabres.
- The Calgary Flames and Anaheim Ducks did their due diligence and LeBrun believes they’re still in it to some degree. The Ducks make the most sense as they’re rebuilding with youth but he wondered how much it would cost them to acquire Eichel. He also believes there are other suitors yet to be identified.
- NEW YORK POST: Mark W. Sanchez reports Rangers general manager Chris Drury is attempting to trade defenseman Libor Hajek.
