Oilers Trade Deadline Target: Patrick Eaves

Eaves in Dallas is one of those unrestricted free agents along with Patrick Sharp that Jim Nill will have to make a decision on. His stats might actually stun you. Patrick Eaves has 19 goals this season. A career year, his best year in 12 seasons. So, maybe the Dallas Stars could find a suitor for him on the market as well. – Frank Seravalli, Oilers Now! (Feb.8th, 2017)

The bearded fellow on the left is a man by the name of Patrick Eaves. He stands 6′ tall and weighs in at close to 190lbs. He’s currently a member of the underachieving Dallas Stars ice hockey team but will be free to play where he likes on July 1st as he is an unrestricted free agent. This is a player I believe would be of much benefit to the Edmonton Oilers playoff run and he’s currently no.4 on TSN’s trade list.

Patrick Eaves has never really been much of a point producer in the past. Previously, his best year point-wise was back in 06/07 when he was in his 2nd NHL season with the Ottawa Senators where he tossed up 14 goals and 18 assists in 74 games played. In the current campaign whilst playing on the right wing with Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, Eaves has racked up 19 goals and 33 points, surpassing his career high in points and goals and is sure to top his career-best in assists (18). Only 5 more apples to beat that personal record.

How does this tie in with the Edmonton Oilers?

Well, the Oilers are looking for some help on the right side. Preferably somebody who can score. Patrick Eaves is doing just that this year. If the Oilers were to indeed acquire the Calgary-born winger, he’d give them some very nice roster flexibility and his cap hit, a mere $1 million dollars, could allow them to reach out and pick up another player who makes a bit more.

So what is it that Eaves does well?

He’s a jack-of-all-trades really. He can play a lot of positions. He can play both sides of special teams. He’s been a power play guy. He’s been a penalty killer. He’s got the ability to score goals,” head coach Lindy Ruff said of Eaves at the time. “Jim [Nill] knows a lot about him. I know a little bit less, but from what I’ve heard he’s a guy you can use in almost any situation and can play in a lot of different positions.” – Defending Big D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqWb8TokYL4

Admittedly, I don’t watch a lot of Dallas Stars hockey, so I can only go from scouting reports from the media and from the numbers available online.

Eaves looks like the type of player that Chiarelli would get in on for sure. He’s physical, he shoots, and he’s on a bargain contract. He’s not a big guy but he plays big and with that usually comes with critique from the analytics community but let us look at some of those fancies if you will and make a decision ourselves.

stats.hockeyanalysis.com is where I find my stats and I take the 5×5 numbers almost always and since we’re talking about a forward, we’ll keep using only the forward’s numbers.

Corsi For per 60 Relative to Teammates should tell us how he’s doing as an individual player with regards to getting shots to the net. In this case, Eaves is first on the team with a 3.74 CF60RelTM. If we tossed him onto the Oilers with that he’d be 4th on the team behind Maroon, McDavid, and Eberle.

Corsi Against per 60 Relative to Teammates should tell us how Eaves is doing on the defensive side of the puck. How good he is at keeping those unblocked shot attempts away from his net. On the Stars he sits 4th with -2.58 behind Brett Ritchie, Seguin, and Roussel. Slide that over to the Oilers’ roster and Mr.Eaves would be 3rd behind McDavid and Maroon amongst the regular playing forwards.

Let’s do the same with the Fenwick numbers. These are the unblocked shot attempts. Basically, any shot tossed at the net.

FF60relTM: 3.98 (#2 on Dallas, #4 on Edmonton)
FA60relTM: -3.72 (#2 on Dallas, #1 on Edmonton)

Look at that, he seems to do pretty well keeping the shots away from his net and getting them onto the opposition’s net… Sounds like a pretty good player to me. His fancies are not elite mind you nor might you consider them great but they are good. Patrick Eaves might be considered a solid two-way winger.

What we might not dig about Eaves is that he has a considerable recent injury history. A concussion from an obliterated jaw courtesy of a Roman Josi slapshot, an ordeal with his foot, and multiple lower-body and upper-body injuries have cut previous seasons short. Apart from that, he seems to be riding the highs of a sweet shooting percentage (14.3%) too and that’s not something you want to be on the hind-end of, right Mr.Eberle?

I believe that if you are looking for the Oilers to pick up Iginla or Vrbata, that you’d be just as happy with what Patrick Eaves could bring the team. He’s basically a smaller version of Patrick Maroon with an epic beard and he has shown, like Maroon, that he can keep up with Elite players.

At $1M, there are bound to be many many teams in the Patrick Eaves sweepstakes because they can fit him under the tightest of salary caps. So Peter Chiarelli would have his work cut out for him and from what I can gather online, this summer, there’s going to be some massive overhauling done in Dallas. Coach, goalies, and prospects cleared out in an attempt to improve the team on the fast track.

I’m not a fan of the Dallas Stars but if we could see some more Stars/Oilers playoff battles, that would be something!

Looking for more Oilers trade deadline targets, check out this previous post.