Tippett Takes Shot at Ceci Critics: “It’s somebody looking at a numbers pack that means nothing at all.”

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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The Athletic

Expectations for Duncan Keith? Evan Bouchard’s role? Seeing the Oilers’ revamped D through the coaches’ eyes

Tippett and Playfair spoke to The Athletic about the changes to the back end and why they believe the Oilers are in a good spot because of them.

On the scuttlebutt of the pairings being Nurse-Barrie, Keith-Ceci, and Russell or Koekkoek with Bouchard …

Tippett: I don’t deal in the scuttlebutt, so we’ll figure that out when everybody gets here, and we see everybody up and going.

On how long it typically takes for new partnerships to mesh and how much time to give the pairings …

Playfair: The whole group of six has to mesh together then you get more consistent play. That’s what we look at.

On expectations for Duncan Keith …

Playfair: I don’t have expectations. I have anticipation of him coming in and being a very well-conditioned player, being a really good leader, a very committed guy to doing the right things consistently, every day, to give us a chance to win.

On Keith’s potential on-ice strengths …

Tippett: He has the ability to help our group recognize some of those situations to help us win hockey games. That’s the expectation for him.

On what the coaching staff wants to see from Evan Bouchard at training camp …

Tippett: He’ll be a player that takes a big step forward. As you go through these steps that he’s gone through, you mature. You read situations better. If you look at him right now, he’s gone from having a junior or boy look to him to looking like a man now.

On the skills Keith and Ceci will bring to the PK compared to the departed Larsson and Bear …

Playfair: When we have guys like Cody and Dunc, who have lots of experience in that area, they’re going to be really great additions to our penalty kill.

On Cody Ceci, the criticism he’s faced during his career, and the fit with the Oilers …

Tippett: Do you think it was warranted criticism? There’s a lot of criticism out there without any warranting. It’s somebody looking at a numbers pack that means nothing at all.
Playfair: Everybody reaches that next level in their career at different times. I think he’s going to be a real impactful player for us. His age is right. He’s in the right situation with our group. I’m looking forward to seeing his game continuing to grow.

On if the Oilers have a replacement for Ethan Bear, who sometimes stepped in for Barrie on that pairing late in periods or late in games when defending a lead, or if Barrie is ready for that role …

Tippett: That’s to be determined. There are some areas of Tyson’s game that can continue to improve. Defending in key situations is one of them. But then you’ve got the growth and development of Bouchard. We’ll see where he gets to. You have guys that can flip over to the right side if we had to for a shift or two. Those are situational things where, depending on who’s playing well at the time, we can find ways to make things mesh.

BLH’s Thoughts: Sounds like some things are set in stone (Bouchard/Keith) and some are not (Bear’s situational replacement).

It’s no surprise to me that the coaches sound excited about the additions of more veterans to their backend. Less chaos is the presumption I’m thinking.

What’s undoubtable is that this is Evan Bouchard’s year. He’s going to get a massive push from the coaching staff and he’s cemented his place amongst the cool kids in that locker room, so he’s safe from that perspective too.

The Edmonton Sun

Oilers anxious to get NHL season underway

…the team that Holland assembled to take to the ice for the start of camp Thursday has basically already been selected to start the season.
…to what extent will Tippett be experimenting early or getting his talented new players matched with Oilers core group players on the lines and defensive pairs.
Duncan Keith decided to become a vaccinated player — leaving one to go — and will miss the front end of training camp in quarantine and likely won’t play a game until the Oilers get to the last three of the eight on the schedule. And they’re good with that.
But for the pre-season games, how many fans might there be? With COVID-19 numbers spiking in Alberta with a fourth wave and money tight, they’re not likely to be playing before anything resembling capacity crowds until the regular season. They might have to wait until Kevin Lowe’s banner-raising night Nov. 5 against the New York Rangers.
You have to figure with the upgrades Holland added in the off-season and with the clear message that the Oilers are now going for it, most of the veterans will be of the can’t-wait-to-get-to-the-regular season mentality.

The Cult of Hockey

The Edmonton Oilers off-season makeover made up with an analytics brush

…it’s one thing to have an analytics team. It’s quite another to have someone in a position of influence willing to listen to that advice. Enter Edmonton Oilers pro scout Bradley Holland.
Highly educated as a critical thinker. Good traits to have as a pro scout. Holland then spent 2 years in the Toronto organization, where he was exposed to the Leaf’s analytics department as well as a young winger named Zach whom he formed an association with. He also put in 6+ years at the NHL video department.
Holland who came to the table this Summer with not only the observation that the club needed a fresh dimension but also with a list of players who excelled at executing that new vision. How? By going to the net.
Is this step up in the analytics game the dawning of a new age in Edmonton Oilers ops? While there is a long way to go, it is headed in a better direction.

BLH’s Thoughts: First off, I mean no disrespect to Brad Holland here. It may sound like I’m shitting all over him but he’s my dream job, so good on him.

“Is this step up in the analytics game the dawning of a new age in Edmonton Oilers ops?”

HA! If you say so…

Okay, so Bob Stauffer brought up Brad Holland recently saying that he had some execs in the league calling him wondering if the team’s pro scouting was going a different direction because they went out and signed top of the top-5 net crashers in the league.

Now Kurt Leavins does an entire piece on the GM’s son and the role he played in using analytics to prove the Oilers needed more players who were willing to crash the crease?

How in Sam’s Hell did the Oilers need fancy stats to come to this conclusion?

The answer is, they probably didn’t.

Anybody who watched the club could see that they didn’t have enough forwards who were willing to drive to the paint. They had a shit ton of skilled wingers and centers who were either perimeter players or were too small to make any sort of impact.

Add to that there were rumblings that Foegele and the Hurricanes weren’t seeing eye-to-eye money-wise and Bear wanted out of Edmonton so he could play in a quieter market.

Things aren’t adding up.

In Toronto, Brad Holland was basically their travel secretary and so he handled the off-ice day-to-day responsibilities. Before he arrived in T.O., he watched and programmed games for NHL.com and prior to that, given his junior status at Goodmans LLP, I assume he would’ve been a gofer for the senior execs at that firm. Now, he’s a pro scout (after all the years of watching hockey for NHL.com) being lauded for his analytics work as in pertains to the acquisitions of Hyman and Foegele?

I dunno, I’m calling bullshit on this one.

Maybe Brad Holland built a rapport with the players in Toronto considering he would’ve dealt with them often, and I don’t know this, but I find it hard to believe he installed himself into the Maple Leafs analytics department and gleaned some much valued information from them and then took that to Edmonton.

Why haven’t we heard of this analytics genius prior to this summer? Wouldn’t have all that knowledge been handy the last couple of years when the team was in cap hell? And what happened to Justin Mahe? Given that he’s the actual fancy stats guy for the Oilers, why wasn’t he mentioned?

This piece feels like it came at the request of the club, doesn’t it? We know that Stauffer works for OEG and for a couple of seasons now, the Cult of Hockey has had a weekly appearance on Oilers Now. Leavins is high up in the media game on the West Coast and has connections to Holland too…

Has old man Holland reached out to some friends of his for a favor? Are the Oilers trying to draw your attention away something unsavory?

Something smells a bit fishy here…

Then again, maybe I’m just making something out of nothing, getting all aggravated over the simplest of articles, and sounding like some conspiratorial asshole. I mean, what the hell are we really talking about here?

Maybe, just maybe, Brad Holland is a rising star behind the scenes and we’re all getting the heads up before anybody. Maybe the Edmonton Oilers ARE embracing an analytics movement.

Or maybe, in the grand scheme of things, none of any of this means anything at all.

Confused much? I sure the hell am… Ah well, I’ll leave you with the decision to choose which side you’d like to land on.