Edmonton Oilers Talk: Draisaitl the Destroyer, the Ken Holland Player Development Plan, and More NHL Rumors

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!

The Athletic

How promising is the Oilers’ Russian prospect pool? What does Ken Holland’s history reveal about timelines?

Yakupov’s 252 games with Edmonton remains the outer marker for Oilers draft picks from Russia.
Success with Russians for Holland mostly involved being patient. There are two things about Datsyuk that Oilers fans may not know: He was 23 when making his NHL debut, and he didn’t spend a day in Detroit’s minor league system.
Swedish centre Henrik Zetterberg was handled the same way, coming to North America at age 22 and being inserted directly into the lineup.
The takeaway from Holland’s history with Russian prospects is a familiar one: Once drafted, prospects play a lot, moving up the chain in predictable and established time lines. Once they show a real spike, as was the case with Datsyuk, they are fast tracked.
Samorukov has shutdown ability and size (6.03, 197), plus Edmonton needs inexpensive contributors who can potentially move up the depth chart… he is close to a lock for NHL employment this time next season.
Konovalov is a fine goaltender who had a great deal of KHL success. He signed with the Oilers and is currently playing in Bakersfield, auditioning with Oliver Rodrigue for the starting job in goal for the Condors.
- On the surface, that looks like a situation that has no pressure on it, but if Konovalov spends the entire year in Bakersfield, things could change.
For Denezhkin and Berezkin, the next several years are likely to be spent in Russia, and if a deal with Edmonton is signed, they’re likely close to NHL-ready.
Perhaps the hockey Gods are about to make things right. Petrov is trending like a rocket.

BLH’s Thoughts: “Once they show a real spike… they’re fast-tracked.”

If you’re going to remember one thing about how the Oilers are going to run their player development system with Holland and Tyler Wright at the helm, it’s that sentence.

Niklas Lidstrom didn’t come over to NA until he was 21 and he scored 60pts in his rookie year and that landed him 2nd to Pavel Bure in the Calder Trophy voting. Funny, despite scoring 60 points from the blueline, he didn’t get one vote for the Norris. I suppose that pales in comparison to Brian Leetch who scored 102pts that year though.

Getting back to Edmonton, were the Oilers just waiting for Broberg to get his timing down before setting their sights on graduating him because he’s looked fantastic so far. He won’t be 21 until next summer, and I’ll say it again though, the game against Vegas should tell us a little more about his readiness or not.

With Holloway, who just turned 20, surely Holland will get him some games in Bakersfield before letting him loose on the NHL. Even if it’s only five or ten games (ideally, you’d like 30-40), he should get some time against that level of competition to see how his wrist handles things.

I’m guessing Holloway’s graduation will come down to how Benson, Perlini, or whoever else is on Edmonton’s 4th line is performing and where the former AJHL MVP’s form sits after the Olympics.

Cult of Hockey

Leon Draisaitl’s scoring feats continue to draw comparisons to some of the game’s all-time greats

The German star has raced from the starting gate to score 20 goals and add 20 helpers through the first 19 games of the season.
Only one other NHLer (Aside from McDavid), the ageless wonder Alex Ovechkin (15-18-33), is within FIFTEEN points of Draisaitl not a quarter of the way into the campaign.
20 goals+ & 20+ assists in a season before a player’s 20th team game:
- Leon Draisaitl (20-20 in 2021-22)
- Mario Lemieux (22-28 in ’92-93 + 21-30 in ’88-89)
- Bernie Nicholls (21-22 in ’88-89)
- Mike Bossy (22-24 in ’84-85)
- Wayne Gretzky (24-30 in ’84-85)
- Phil Esposito (21-22 in ’73-74)
…making Leon the first player this century to accomplish a feat that has only ever been accomplished during the high-scoring years of the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s.
Earlier this month we noted that Draisaitl was the first NHLer since Lemieux in 2002 to score 20 points in fewer than 10 games.
Two years ago we pointed out he was the first to score 25 points in October since Gretzky in 1993.
And as last season wound down we confirmed Draisaitl and McDavid to be the first pair of teammates to finish 1-2 in scoring in consecutive years since Esposito and Bobby Orr in 1973-75.
Emerging sniper Andrew Mangiapane of Calgary Flames is the only player with even half of Draisaitl’s number of multi-goal games, with exactly 4.
Make it 9 of 19 games with 3+ points for Draisaitl, well ahead of McDavid and Ovechkin who have 5 each.
He’s scored 6 of the club’s 12 game-winning goals (none awarded in 2 shootout wins), and chipped in the primary assist on 2 more.
He’s become more lethal than ever on Edmonton’s peerless powerplay, hammering home 10 man-advantage snipes to this early point, already halfway to the Oilers’ club record of 20 shared by Wayne Gretzky and Ryan Smyth.
He remains the Oilers primary faceoff man, averaging nearly 20 draws a game and winning over 55% of them.
So far Draisaitl has played about 46% of his 320 5v5 minutes paired with McDavid and primarily playing wing, during which time the Oilers have outscored their opponents 11-7.
During the other 54% he’s been a full-time pivot, and the Oilers have enjoyed an 11-5 advantage.
Overall it’s been an impressive goal share a shade under 65% for Draisaitl at 5v5, a step forward from last season’s excellent 62.5%.

BLH’s Thoughts: What can you say, really? This is beyond impressive. I suppose the only thing you worry about is an injury (auf Holz klopfen) or he burns out down the stretch.

That said, in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy this heater.

NHLTradeRumor.com

NHL rumors were floating around last week that the New York Rangers are looking to trade for a forward, they might want to add a backup goalie to their trade shopping list.
- Leafs goalie Petr Mrazek could be another option for the Rangers if he becomes available.
With the Habs continuing to lose and the likelihood of the team making the playoffs very slim, is it time for the team to tank, trade some assets and hope the NHL draft lottery balls fall the Habs way so they can draft Shane Wright?
- Eric Engels of Sportsnet reports the Habs have already taken a step towards Wright with their start… Engels went on to say, Bergevin can gauge the market on Paul Byron and Jonathan Drouin and try to move one or both, tell any player playing through injury to rest and heal and anyone in need of surgery to do it now before the Habs hurt their chances at Wright.