Edmonton #Oilers Talk: Can Ceci and Keith Fill the Gargantuan Hole on Edmonton’s PK Left by Adam Larsson?

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!

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Copper N Blue (Agnihotri)

Killer minutes

The Edmonton Oilers are currently entering the 2021/22 season with a weaker defence core than they had last season. And one specific area they’ll probably take a hit on is their penalty kill, unless they address their blue line prior to training camp.
Two of Tippett’s go-to penalty killers are gone, with Bear and Larsson having each played over 34% of the team’s total penalty kill time. Klefbom isn’t likely to return and another handful are signed to play elsewhere.
At this point it’s pretty safe to assume that these vacancies will be filled by Cody Ceci and Duncan Keith…
The problem I see is that based on their history they probably won’t be able to post the same penalty kill numbers as Larsson who had been excellent for the Oilers the last two seasons.
Ceci does have some potential considering last season in Pittsburgh he led the team in penalty kill ice time among defencemen and had a positive impact.
- Ceci played an important role there as the team allowed a lower rate of unblocked shot attempts against and goals against with him on the ice.
With Keith on the ice last season, Chicago’s penalty kill allowed an additional 14.96 unblocked shot attempts per hour and 13.50 shots against per hour.
- With Keith killing penalties next season, expect the rate of shots against to go up.
Unless they’re expecting one of the youngsters like Lagesson or Bouchard to play a bigger role on the penalty kill next season, the Oilers should probably continue looking to add depth to their defence core.
- One player that the Oilers could potentially look at as a low-risk, low-cost option is 34-year old defencemen Jordie Benn who is currently an unrestricted free agent.
Among 119 defencemen who have played at least 150 minutes since 2019, Benn ranks quite highly when it comes to shot metrics relative to team numbers.
- Fenwick against per hour relative to team: -11.56 (9th)
- Shots against per hour relative to team: -11.26 (3rd)
- Goals against per hour relative to team: -3.14 (4th)

BLH’s Thoughts: The Oilers have done an interesting thing this offseason in that they’ve really bolstered their PK from the forward’s perspective with the additions of Hyman, Foegele, and Ryan. I never really considered that something like that would be considered a weakness on the club considering over the past three years they’re only averaging about 4 penalties per game and killing 80% of them.

Maybe it’s worth while digging into there’s some sort of correlation between styles of PK and overall success? Hyman, Foegele, Ryan, and Duncan Keith are all pretty aggressive checkers and I would think they’d be asked to utilize that attribute when Edmonton is a man down and they’re on the ice, no? Will an aggressive penalty kill bring Edmonton’s PK% up another 3% to be on par with the #1 team over the previous three years (Tampa)?

Yet one more aspect of this overhauled Oilers team to keep an eye on in 2021-22…

Oilersnation

The Hometown Kid

Is Edmonton Oilers’ prospect Stuart Skinner ready to make a serious bid for more time in the blue paint with the Oilers this season and script a hometown boy made good storyline?
Without much of a market for Koskinen, GM Ken Holland will be hard-pressed to move him even if somebody like Skinner can push the issue this coming season.
At the very least, Skinner is at the front of the line in a young trio with Olivier Rodrigue and Ilya Konovalov looking to inherit the crease in Edmonton.

BLH’s Thoughts: I love the story of a local lad getting his chance with the Oilers but if you hear how players born in the area who’ve played for Edmonton spoke about their times with the club, you’d know it’s not as glorious as one would think… People always bothering you for tickets, there are certain expectations from the locale of you since you’re from the city (or nearby), and if things aren’t going well… Times can get dark…

That said, after Skinner’s current deal is up, he’ll have had five years in Edmonton’s system and if he’s not ready by then, he’ll probably never be ready. On top of that, the Russian… Konovalov is a real wildcard here that some are comparing to Anton Khudobin…

Cult of Hockey (McCurdy)

Edmonton Oilers ink Tyler Benson to one-year, two-way extension

Benson was a Restricted Free Agent without arbitration rights and with little track record at the NHL level, so this was always going to be a club-friendly deal. He’s now re-upped for one year at the NHL minimum of $750,000, with an AHL component of $100,000 as reported by PuckPedia.
That’s considerably lower than the figure on the qualifying offer the Oilers tendered last month, which by my math would have been $913,500.
The best chance for players on the fringes of the roster to actually make the NHL squad is to be as cost-effective as possible.
Both Benson and Marody (who received a qualifying offer but hasn’t yet signed) have run out of waiver exemptions, meaning both should receive a serious shot at an NHL job this fall.
In Benson’s case, the battle for jobs on the port side just got a lot tighter with the recent additions of Zach Hyman and Warren Foegele who along with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (or Leon Draisaitl) are all slotted for the top nine.
That leaves a spot on the fourth line, where Benson’s primary competition consists of veteran LWs Devin Shore and the recently-signed Brendan Perlini, both of whom recently signed low-cost contracts of their own.

BLH’s Thoughts: Jason Strudwick was saying on the radio yesterday that it’s fair to question whether or not Benson has the quickness and the speed to play in the NHL but intimated that his skill level and hockey IQ are very high.

So are we looking at another Anton Lander? The Swede was a very successful minor league player but didn’t have that extra step in his giddy-up and at the NHL level he was always a step behind, chasing the game, if you will.

For me, it would be a shame if Benson didn’t come to camp with that extra gear because this skating thing has been an issue for many years now and if it’s not sorted by now, either he thinks it’s not a problem for him or he’s topped out physically and it’s simply not possible for him to get any faster than he is. Then, at that point, the story’s been written, right?

NHLRumors.com

Kurt Leavins of the Edmonton Journal: Would expect the Oilers to bring in at least one more veteran defenseman on a deal around $950,000. Two options could be Slater Koekkoek and Jordie Benn.

Andy Strickland: (on Frank Seravalli’s tweet that Kirill Kaprizov has a $10 million-plus KHL offer) “One of the worst bluffs in sports history! CSKA budget has been spent plus there’s a cap that comes in around $12 million U.S.”

Larry Brooks of the NY Post: The New York Rangers will likely have some salary cap maneuvering to do for the 2022-23 season as they have $40.2 million committed to seven players, will need to pay Adam Fox $9 million or more and pay for a first- or second-line center.

Jimmy Murphy of Boston Hockey Now: Boston Bruins UFA center David Krejci told the team at the end of the season that he was going to head back home to the Czech Republic and that his stay could extend into next season.