Edmonton Oilers Talk: Replicating a Championship Formula in Edmonton and the Latest 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!

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Lowetide.ca

It sounds like Kassian will be ready soon, so the IR list (LTIR in some cases) will be Oscar Klefbom, Josh Archibald, Dmitri Samorukov, Dylan Holloway and Alex Stalock. Colton Sceviour remains unsigned, and that could still impact Benson or Ryan McLeod.

It could come down to Benson versus McLeod. McLeod to Bakersfield would be my preference, if only because he didn’t push during preseason and 20 games in the minors might get him back to where he was last year when the team recalled him. Jay Woodcroft does wonders for young prospects pushing to the NHL. We’ll find out in the next 24 hours or so which way the wind blows.

I don’t expect Edmonton to make any waiver claims.

BLH’s Thoughts: When Kassian returns, the Oilers will have too many forwards if Sceviour gets his contract. It only makes sense to send McLeod to Bakersfield as opposed to losing a different player on waivers given he’s waiver exempt for another year.

I’m quite curious why Sceviour hasn’t signed with the team yet? If he doesn’t would the Oilers circle back with Alex Chiasson or perhaps Bobby Ryan? Neither of those NHL vets caught on with the teams they were trying out for. Although, they’re not the types to help you on special teams at this point in their careers, whereas Sceviour is definitely a penalty killer.

Edmonton Sun

Does Ken Holland have the Edmonton Oilers on the verge of greatness?

A month from now, Ken Holland will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame for everything he accomplished in the Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup era.
Two things, Holland said, first had to happen in Detroit.
- “The core players had to grow and learn from their experiences to get to this point. And the management and coaches had to make changes.”

“As we go into Game 1 Wednesday, you can now see what we’ve done here. I tried to bring in some veteran players to overhaul the team. I’ve made the team older. We tried to get bigger on the wings. You’ve got to be able to grind. You’ve got to be able to cycle. You can’t be just a rush team — a team that rushes up the ice and scores a goal. You have to be able to wear teams down.”

- As for the other part of the equation, having the core grow into it has clearly happened.

“Every championship team has to have an engine and a nucleus. You have to have those four or five players that drive your team. We have the engine. We have the nucleus.”

Has Ken Holland, finally out of salary cap hell, made most of the right moves? Is he about to direct another Stanley Cup era? We begin to find out now.

BLH’s Thoughts: Honestly, I don’t have a lot to add here. I dig what Ken Holland is doing with the Oilers. Clubs have found a method to stop the Oilers’ rush game, so the next most logical decision was to develop another style of attacking in order to keep the other teams guessing.

When you look back at those championship rosters the Red Wings had in the late 90s and early 2000s, was the defense and goaltending elite?

In 1997, Ken Holland had 38yr old Slave Fetisov, 35yr old Larry Murphy, 36yr old Mike Ramsey, and 32yr old Bob Rouse skating on his defense alongside Anders Eriksson (22yrs), Vlad Konstantinov (29yrs), Nik Lidstrom (26yrs), Jamie Pushor (23yrs), and Aaron Ward (24yrs).

His goalies were Chris Osgood (24yrs) and Mike Vernon (33yrs). What you might not know about this duo is Osgood played most of the games for Detroit in the regular season (47) but in the playoffs Vernon was the no.1 goalie. The former Calgary Flame suited up for all but two games in the postseason that year.

In 1998, Holland’s defense didn’t change all that much. The returnees included Fetisov, Lidstrom, Rouse, Murphy, Pushor, Ward, Eriksson and they added some new greybeards in Jamie Macoun (36yrs), Dmitri Mironov (32yrs), and Yan Golubovsky (21yrs).

Mike Vernon was dealt and Holland decided to go with Osgood and Kevin Hodson, a couple of 25 yr old homegrowns.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that the defense and netminding don’t necessarily need to be made up of all-stars or players in their primes and if there’s anybody that can attest to that theory, it’s Ken Holland.

Personally, I’m expecting the team to get older when it comes to acquisitions as the team gets better. Maybe we see Holland start to pluck veterans off of the more successful teams we’ve seen in the past five to seven years and it also wouldn’t shock me if Ethan Bear wasn’t the last well-liked young player the Oilers ship out in the Holland-era…

The Hockey Writers Trade Rumors

Head coach Jeff Blashill said Ryan has been released from his PTO. According to Daniella Bruce, Blashill said “it was a tough call, he’s a good person and a good hockey player.”
During the first live stream for Daily Faceoff, Frank Seravalli said his prediction is that Eichel is going to be traded before Christmas. He called one sneaky team to watch here is St. Louis Blues, even though they don’t necessarily have prospects or picks to give to the Sabres.
The NHL will obviously do what they can not to move an NHL team, but Seravalli predicts that the Arizona Coyotes will relocate to Houston after 25 seasons in the desert. He notes that the City of Glendale has already notified the Coyotes it intends to terminate the team’s lease at Gila River Arena after this season and that leaves the organization in a bind.
…the Sharks have had cordial discussions with Tomas Hertl’s camp, but it looks like an extension is unlikely.
Chiasson has shown well with the Canucks on a PTO, but has yet to sign a deal with the Canucks… Ryan Rishaug of TSN reports that the “door remains open” to get a deal done after, but as of now, there have been no talks between the two sides.
Both hosts of the Daily Faceoff show say that this Brady Tkachuk drama could drag on if he’s not signed by the opening night of the regular season.