Edmonton Oilers Talk: Drafting NHLers Beyond the 1st Round and Depth Scoring in 2021-22

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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Cult of Hockey (McCurdy)

Edmonton Oilers’ struggles to fill depth roles from within are both real and spectacular

If a team doesn’t get to the third D in “draft, develop, and deploy”, what have they really accomplished?
It’s undeniable that the Oilers have built their core through the draft, but almost all of that has come with high-first-round picks, themselves earned on (de)merit coupled with a wee bit of luck in the draft lottery.
Holland had the reputation for doing just that in Detroit, where he was the incumbent for so long he essentially was the institutional memory. Draft, develop, deploy. Not just the famous steals like Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, but long-term support players like Valtteri Filppula, Johan Franzen, Jimmy Howard, Jonathan Eriksson, Justin Abdelkader, Darren Helm, Gus Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, and more. Day 2 selections, all.
Where are those players on the Oilers? Holland hasn’t had enough time to develop the new ones, he’s turned the page on several of the old ones, and the list was thin on the ground at the best of times.
I remain convinced that the organization sorely needs to develop a few “lifers” from the shallow end of the talent pool who beat the odds to first make the club, then stick around for a while.

BLH’s Thoughts: I encourage you to read this article in its entirety because Mr. McCurdy goes on to contrast how the Oilers dynasty teams were built with the team that is currently attempting to become a dynasty. He talks about current teams in the league whose rosters are stabilized by homegrown draft picks from the 2nd round on like Tampa, the Islanders, and even the Calgary Flames.

It’s no shock to anybody that this current version of the Edmonton Oilers is propped up by first round picks and it’s not yet at that point to where we can say, “Look at all the players selected in the latter rounds of the draft that are populating this championship team!”, but I’d say it’s coming.

The likes of Tyler Benson, Rafa Lavoie, Ryan McLeod, Dmitri Samorukov, Stu Skinner, Ilya Konovalov, Carter Savoie, Markus Niemelainen, and Tyler Tullio have been drafted, their being developed, what remains is to see if they’ll be deployed… Nevertheless, that’s a fine list of hockey players

The Athletic (Mitchell)

Oilers’ reasonable expectations for 2021-22: Goal scoring

In order to have success in the coming season, the Oilers will need to rely on Leon Draisaitl (18.5 shooting percentage last season) and Connor McDavid (16.5) to carry the team to new heights.
Add in Ken Holland’s summer moves, almost all designed to increase scoring at the expense of defensive play, and the Oilers will draw blood early and often in 2021-22.
I’m projecting an increase (25 goals over 82 games) for the Oilers forward group. In looking at the move from the Canadian division, the condensed schedule, and other factors, the increase in goals will likely be spread across the roster
The depth of the offensive ability on defence is substantially more powerful the moment Bouchard gains the confidence of the coaching staff and is allowed to wheel. That should come this season.
I have the Oilers scoring 289 goals in the season to come; an average of 3.52 goals per game.
Edmonton should be among the highest-scoring teams in the NHL next season. Most of the moves made by Holland over the summer were designed to improve the Oilers in this area.

BLH’s Thoughts: Lowetide is also of the opinion that we’re going to see a resurgence of some 1980’s scoring from the Oilers. I’m not sure if he tossing in some hyperbole or if he actually believes this team is capable of winning some 10-7 games. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt since he was there to watch the dynasty Oilers and if he says scoring is coming, then you’d best believe Connor McDavid and Co. will be twinkling the twine more consistently this season.

Now, my question is, who, aside from the usual suspects, will be increasing their goal output in 2021-22? Where is the goal scoring going to spread out to? Warren Foegele is expecting to contribute from the 3rd line, Derek Ryan is being touted as somebody who’ll score more than Gaetan Haas and Jujhar Khaira have for the Oilers in the past, I think Zack Kassian, Kailer Yamamoto, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will rebound to some extent, and then there’s the ever-developing Jesse Puljujarvi. Pulju should be good for at least 20 goals, no? How many goals is Zach Hyman good for?

I’m sure the defense will see the offense spread out as well, but I’ve got a more pressing query. Who’s going to regress? Nurse? Barrie? McDavid? Draisaitl? Picking those guys to come back to Earth is a bit like swiping the low-hanging fruit though since they did so well last season.

I don’t know, what do you think?

Spector’s Hockey

SPORTSNET:In their latest “31 Thoughts” podcast, Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek discussed the aftermath of the Jesperi Kotkaniemi offer-sheet saga. Friedman believes Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin may have called around asking about San Jose’s Tomas Hertl, Washington’s Evgeny Kuznetsov and Calgary’s Sean Monahan. Bergevin acquired Christian Dvorak from the Arizona Coyotes almost immediately after declining to match the Kotkaniemi offer sheet.

BOSTON HOCKEY NOW: Jimmy Murphy reports multiple sources confirmed the Bruins, on more than one occasion, explored what it would take to acquire P.K. Subban from the New Jersey Devils. At the same time, they hope to convince the Devils to pick up half of his $9 million cap hit for this season. Murphy also said the Toronto Maple Leafs had “more than lukewarm interest” in Subban.

Nicholas J. Cotsonika believes the Seattle Kraken still needs more firepower up front. He wonders if they have enough depth at center with Yanni Gourde sidelined for at least the opening month of the season recovering from offseason shoulder surgery.