‘Twas an eventful day for the Edmonton Oilers for good reasons and bad.
Unfortunately, the Oilers family lost one of their own in an automobile accident. Vaclav Burda, the Oilers chief European scout who’d been on the job less than a year, passed away when his car went head-on with a truck in his native Czechia.
He was 45 years old. Condolences to the Burda family.
But now for some good news!
Evan Bouchard signed his first professional contract with the Oilers today! Hooray!
I’m very excited to see how Bouchard does versus some better competition. I’m not one of those who have him penciled into the lineup for game 1 though. Bob Stauffer seems to think that he’ll be going over to Sweden and Germany with the Oilers because they’ll need some extra bodies but I wouldn’t put it past Ethan Bear to make a push to be that 7th defender and don’t forget about Kevin Gravel or Keegan Lowe.
It’d be nice if Bouchard could force his way into the lineup due to his play but I don’t agree with the idea of having a taxi squad of veterans sitting in the press box each time Todd McLellan feels the need to put his teenage dman into the lineup.
Now we do know that injuries happen and if that is indeed the case, then fine. But like I said before, Ethan Bear might shock some folks this year and you can’t sell a former WHL defender of the year short, right?
To me, sending Bouchard back to London to terrorize the OHL alongside Adam Boqvist and potentially Brady Tkachuk would be good for him and for Team Canada at the World Juniors.
We can’t gloss over the fact that Bouchard still has some issues in his game that need improvement. The biggest of them, consistency. With the addition of Boqvist, the Knights could afford to give Bouchard fewer minutes per night and that would afford him the opportunity to work on said consistency.
What’s one thing you usually don’t get right off the hop with young players? Consistent play. Have Bouchard work on that and bring him in for the 2019/20 season as a full-time NHLer in the same way the Oilers did with Yamamoto.
And the one thing you do not do is trade a veteran to make room for a teenager. Unless his name is Rasmus Dahlin.
Speaking of our little ninja. It would not surprise me if the lines looked like this going into game 1 next season:
RNH-McDavid-Yamamoto
Rieder-Draisaitl-Puljujarvi
Lucic-Strome-Caggiula
Khaira-Brodziak-Kassian
Extra: Aberg, Rattie
I just think the writing is on the wall for those young RWers. If the Oilers really thought the RW depth was a problem, they would’ve signed a guy to fill the role. They look to be very comfortable with Jesse and Kailer starting in the top-6 and they should. I expect them to be putting up 40pts each.
If you’re interested in knowing what Pulju is up to this summer, check out this link. You’ll need to translate it but it sounds as if Jesse is working very hard to balance his upper and lower body strength so he can get rid of that “Bambi on ice” look he sometimes has. He’s gonna be a beast in 2018/19!
Lucic will be an interesting cat to follow next season. He’s going to bounce back (hopefully not the dead cat bounce back though) that is pretty clear but where he does that in the lineup is unclear. You’d have to think the coach will try him in the top-6 from the get-go to gauge where he’s at but personally, I’d have zero qualms with him on the 3rd line with Strome and Caggiula or whoever plays RW.
Khaira/Brodziak/Kassian could be a revelation if Todd McLellan chooses to that line properly. If I recall, he likes to shorten his bench quite a bit but that 4th line could really cause some issues for the other team due to its physicality and ability to hold onto the puck.
What will they do with Aberg and Rattie?
I imagine they’ll be perfect players to draw in from time to time when Caggiula needs to sit out or Yamamoto needs a night off.
Darnell Nurse has yet to re-sign with the team so far. His agent wants a long-term deal north of $5M per year which I wrote about here and so it looks like the Oilers and Nurse will be going the bridge contract route which is fine by me.
Patrick Olsen from Copper and Blue wrote a fantastic article with all the relevant comparables to Darnell Nurse and it really gives you a clear idea of what kind of money Nurse should be getting in his next deal (if Chiarelli is smart about this).
Read Patrick’s post here.
What are your thoughts? Leave them in the comments below!
Before you do that though, go to my good friend SPR’s (The Oil Knight) blog today. If you’re someone who wants to get into blogging or covering your favorite sports franchise, he has a very important message for you to read. Check it out here.
