Edmonton Oilers Talk: “We are officially into the ‘greybeard era’ that doomed the Red Wings to the bottom of the NHL.”

TL/DR (too long, didn’t read) quotes 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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Oilersnation (Brownlee)

ABOUT KAILER…

Yamamoto, 22, is coming off a season in which he had an AAV of $1.24 million (he had a base salary of $832,000 plus bonuses) and one that was unquestionably difficult. He scored 8-13-21 in 52 games and had just one goal in his last 25 games. Over the life of his entry level deal, Yamamoto produced 20-32-52 in 105 games.
If I’m Holland I’m offering a look-see contract with a $1.5 million AAV that protects the team and gives Yamamoto the opportunity to raise his stock for a better deal two years down the road. Would I move on $1.5 million? Sure, but not much.
The way I see it, Yamamoto has the chance to make a boatload of money playing for the Oilers. He’s a promising, talented young player. But he’s not going to hit the jackpot in the summer of 2021 coming out of his entry level contract. Nor should he. Get a deal done, kid. Bet on yourself this summer and show us more.

BLH’s Thoughts: If Yamo is smart, he’ll take Brownlee’s advice here. If not, Ken Holland has quite a bit of experience in these matters. What you fear the most is another Ethan Bear situation where Killer comes to camp late, out of game shape, bitter, and it impacts the rest of his year because the Oilers have the depth to replace him pretty handily.

My personal feeling is that Yamamoto won’t develop into the kind of player that demands huge money in the future. I don’t see him producing at the NHL level like he did in the WHL because he’s not a line driver like smaller statured players in the past were. I’m talking about the Martin St. Louis-types or Theoren Fleury-types. If I had to make a projection today, I can see him topping out just under $5M/yr and becoming an elite middle-six forward who contributes on special teams but isn’t a feature on them.

Copper n Blue (Czechboy)

Bear’s last game!

It was game 4 in round 1 of the playoffs… There were about 15 minutes left in the game and we had a lead!.. Bear really screws up here and sets a sequence that would send us into Overtime…
However, Bear didn’t play the rest of the period… Or the first overtime… Or the second overtime… He finally got a shift in the third overtime… a full 60 minutes (a full NHL game!) later…

Bear is no longer an Oiler so I’m assuming Tippet and Holland had a chat. I’m assuming they agreed Bear was to blame.
I always pictured Tipp and Holland having a beer and Tipp saying ‘everytime I put Jones or Bear on the ice, the other team scores’.

BLH’s Thoughts: If you don’t think Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl weren’t in that conversation too, you might have selective information consumption syndrome.

Bear was drafted and developed by us. He was cost controlled and would seemingly have a nice career ahead of him. The Oil D is not very good and has not been very good in a long time.

BLH’s Thoughts: The Oilers have allowed 3.06 goals per game (19th overall) in the Tippett/Holland era according to NHL.com. That puts them in company with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Washington Capitals and I’d be willing to bet that the clubs GA/GP will improve next season and continue to improve as the club’s defensemen get better.

Something the Oil had been poor at till this last 2 years when we started seeing 2nd to 6th round picks donning the Oil Silks. This was a great step in the right direction.
It is disappointing though when we think 4 years of Tyson Barrie entering his 30s at more money is better than a cost controlled Bear in his 20’s.
We are officially into the ‘greybeard era’ that doomed the Red Wings to the bottom of the NHL.

BLH’s Thoughts: I agree that it’s been some time since the team started producing NHL players that’ve been selected after the 2nd round of the draft. Getting Jones and Bear in the mid-rounds of the 2015 draft was some good drafting and they developed them properly, however, it was just their bad luck that the team’s development outpaced theirs.

I will say this though, I will take 4yrs of the NHL’s highest scoring defenseman on a value contract over that of a 3rd pairing defenseman who’s seeing contract values skyrocket as his is set to expire. Bear and the Oilers already had a tough negotiation last summer that set the stage for this season… I’m more than happy with Tyson Barrie and I’d be willing to bet the players on the hockey team are as well.

Embrace the “Greybeard Era” folks! It’s here for a while…

That said, what do you think of the Islanders’ roster construction from their playoff run?

Cal Clutterbuck – 33yrs old

Leo Komarov – 34yrs old

Andy Greene – 37yrs old

Travis Zajac – 35yrs old

Semyon Varlamov – 32yrs old

Braydon Coburn – 36yrs old

Josh Bailey – 31yrs old

Jordan Eberle – 30yrs old

Anders Lee 30yrs old

I bet you if the Oilers go as for as Barry Trotz’s club has the last four years, nobody will say shite about how old Edmonton’s skaters are…

Spector’s Hockey

TWINCITIES.COM: John Shipley reports Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin isn’t concerned about the possibility of Kirill Kaprizov signing with KHL team CSKA Moscow. “It’s not my decision, it doesn’t bother me at all,” he said. Asked of the report of the 24-year-old winger signing a one-year, “eight-figure” deal with the Russian club was true, Guerin said he couldn’t tell if it was true or not.
NHL.COM: Tom Gulitti believes the Columbus Blue Jackets need a right-shot defenseman and perhaps a center with Max Domi sidelined until November by offseason shoulder surgery.