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Cult of Hockey
The 3 biggest potholes for the 2022-23 Edmonton Oilers to steer around: 9 Things
- The Oilers traded D Dmitro Samorukov Sunday morning, to the St. Louis Blues. The Oilers get depth F Klim Kostin. Kostin makes $25,000 less than Samorukov which will help Ken Holland with his cap space issue. Both had cleared waivers. The Russian defender was blocked in the Oilers organization, as a #7 LD behind Ryan Murray (4), Philip Broberg (5) and Marcus Niemelainen (6). Fresh starts, for both.
- 7. PTO Jason Demers remains in camp. Signing him to the league minimum would help the cap situation. James Hamblin remains in camp on merit.
- 6. There are two sides to the coin when it comes to Mattias Janmark clearing waivers. On one hand, the club gets to retain the services of a valuable depth forward. On the other hand, the team still has Janmark’s $1.25m one-way contract on the books.
- I suspect Kailer Yamamoto will start with McDavid and Kane. He was there most of camp and players do not often lose their slot due to a minor injury. Draisaitl-Holloway-Hyman looks baked, which would put Nugent-Hopkins, McLeod, and Puljujarvi on Line 3. That is a solid attack to have to contain.
- 4. Warren Foegele has performed much better than a 4th line winger in camp this Fall. But as we can see there is a lot of good competition for those Top-9 jobs. That is a good thing. But the problem becomes, barring an injury that allows him to sneak into the Top 9, that Foegele’s $2.75m cap hit is a lot (Read: Too much) for a 4th line player. On the outside looking in, it would seem that something has to give.
- 3. Marcus Niemelainen has been sent to Bakersfield. He outplayed Philip Broberg in camp. But there is a cap reason to keep Broberg to at least start the year.
- …the club without F Zack Kassian is arguably down a quart in that respect. The problem in today’s NHL is that your tough guys need to be able to play. Kassian is the poster child for this.
- On Goaltending, it is easy to be bullish as an Oilers fan of Jack Campbell and Stuart Skinner. But both have a lot to prove. For Skinner, the situation is obvious. He is a 23-year-old goaltender with all of 14 games of NHL experience. Then there is the imminently likeable Campbell who was given the 5-year contract to be the starter. Campbell’s resume only included one full season as an NHL starter (that was last year).
- …we all know the Leafs could not get out of the 1st Round of the playoffs. NHL goalies are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are gonna get. I do think that Campbell and Skinner are an upgrade…but we will see
BLH’s Thoughts: There are some nice highlights of Kostin playing a really entertaining brand of power forward hockey with St. Louis’ AHL club. Fighting, hitting, scoring… But my advice would be not to expect a lot out of this player. There’s a reason he’s yet to find his footing in the NHL. His potential intrigues me from those highlight clips on YouTube but at the same time, I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for him to become an impact NHLer.
It’s interesting the amount of players who were put on waivers in the last couple of days that were connected to Jesse Puljujarvi in the past. Yet, Ken Holland has held steadfast and kept the big Finn, watching him blossom into a 40pt effective top-nine NHL forward.
Also interesting, Warren Foegele was kept out of the last preseason game along with Dmitri Samorukov but no reasons were given. Now, Dima is a St. Louis Blue. I was told in the summer that the Oilers had basically given up on moving Puljujarvi and had turned their efforts towards trading Foegele. Will that come to fruition in the coming weeks or days? Leavins says you can’t have a contract like his on the 4th line and something has to give… I suppose time will tell on that regard…
Tough to see a scenario where Jason Demers hasn’t earned a deal with the Oilers seeing as he hasn’t been released from his PTO yet. He certainly has a lot of experience playing in Southern California, therefore, one could come to a conclusion that he’d be comfortable playing in Bakersfield.
James Hamblin… Jimmy H… Hammy… Jimmy the Ham… Is this the guy that will eventually replace Derek Ryan? He seems to have a Brayden Point-lite glow to him. Bob Stauffer calls him Colin Blackwell-like, but I’m not sure on that one. I will say this though, he tends to find himself in the right place at the right time an awful lot and that’s a kind of luck you probably shouldn’t pass on.
I do wonder if there are still a couple of trades coming down the wire that’ll see the Oilers get their functional tough guy. A lot of really decent 4th liners who’ve been known to drop the mitts got put on waivers yesterday and them clearing might be what Ken Holland has been waiting for.
I don’t know what to say about the netminding. So far in the preseason, it’s been pretty impressive, but that’s preseason. I want to believe that Stu Skinner will be better than Mikko Koskinen was and that Jack Campbell will be at least as good as Mike Smith was.
Now, the Oilers won’t have that 3rd defenseman on the ice to gather pucks and spray passes out to a breaking forward, so the tactics are going to have to change a bit there when it comes to puck retrieval and zone exits, but if Campbell can minimize the amount of bad goals this team lets in, I’ll be happy.
Exciting times people! These are the seasons that make plowing through decades of playoff-less hockey palpable. On top of that, Ken Holland will be hunting for big fish now that his team is in its Stanley Cup window…
