Which NHL Team from the Past Does This Edmonton Oilers Club Remind You of?

Coming from an Edmonton Oilers point of view, BLH provides you with excerpts from the latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation from all of the internet’s best sites including Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, Sportsnet, The Athletic, TSN and more!

Give us a follow on the socials!

Edmonton Sun (Van Diest)

Stuart Skinner to continue development with Edmonton Oilers

The Edmonton product signed a two-year, two-way contract extension with the Oilers — announced Sunday — which will play him an average annual salary of $750,000 per season.
Stuart, 22, had his best season as a professional last year in Bakersfield, backstopping the team to the Pacific Division championship in a COVID-19 shortened season. Stuart led the AHL in appearances (31), wins (20), minutes played (1,787) and saves (753). He had a 2.38 goals against average with a .914 save percentage and two shutouts in 31 games.
Stuart then posted a 2.68 goals against average and .907 save percentage, helping the Condors get past the San Diego Gulls and the Henderson Silver Knights in a modified playoff tournament.
The Oilers are hoping Skinner is eventually able to make the jump from the AHL. Whether it’s this season or next season will be up to the six-foot-four, 206-pound goaltender. The Oilers are currently heading into training camp with Skinner behind Smith and Koskinen on the depth chart.

BLH’s Thoughts: I’ve said it before, but for me, last year was a mirage/outlier for Bakersfield and I’ll be paying much closer attention this year when the team is younger in key spots. Plus everybody who was on their top line will most likely be playing elsewhere, right? Ryan McLeod will in centering the Oilers’ 3rd or 4th line, Tyler Benson might be on Edmonton’s 4th line, and who knows where Cooper Marody will be? I just don’t expect him to be on Edmonton’s roster or Bakersfield’s.

That said, I don’t mind if they aren’t a top team in the AHL. I’m more interested in watching Philip Broberg, Dmitri Samorukov, Phil Kemp, Dylan Holloway, Rafa Lavoie, and Ilya Konovalov.

If Stu Skinner’s performance rate continues to trend up, good for him! I’ve heard he’s such a hard worker and he’ll deserve all the accolades he gets, which hopefully include a promotion to Edmonton.

The Hockey Writers (Parsons)

Oilers Banking on Core 5: Success, or the Next Maple Leafs?

The difference between the Maple Leafs and the Oilers is that Toronto hasn’t won with this core and Dubas is going to have to invest in a defenseman at an age and time where the rest of his leadership core is coming closer to the end of their current deals before they potentially begin to separate.
Holland has opened a four-year window for the Oilers. These five players are at the absolute prime of their careers. Toronto’s window is closing rapidly and some will be leaving with their best years to come.
Some fans are concerned a new contract for Jesse Puljujarvi and Kailer Yamamoto will be hard to get done with so much money committed to five players. That’s likely inaccurate.
- The Oilers hold the hammer with both Puljujarvi and Yamamoto. At best, Yamamoto gets $1.5 million to $2 million on a bridge deal (he doesn’t have arbitration rights) and Puljujarvi $3 million (maybe a little more) if he explodes offensively. That’s an affordable thing for the Oilers to get done.
At the end of the day, it comes down to the five guys taking all the money. Are they the right five guys? While there’s still time for Toronto to win and prove the naysayers wrong, they’ve perhaps showed that if you potentially allocate all your cap to the wrong guys, it doesn’t work.

BLH’s Thoughts: I have been thinking about the similarities between the Oilers and Toronto with regards to their builds, but I feel like the Maple Leafs might’ve taken a step back on forward. Capfriendly’s mock lines have Nick Ritchie and Ilya Mikheyev on Toronto’s second line with John Tavares and the rest of the forward group kind of drops off from there. I suppose depending on how you feel about the additions of David Kampf and Michael Bunting, your opinion might differ.

The defense is an interesting experiment. The pairing of Muzzin and Holl looks like the team’s only true defense-first couple. After that things get a little vanilla from a defending POV. Edmonton doesn’t have a shutdown pairing anymore, so the Leafs got them there. With that in mind, I feel the Oilers will bring much more offense from their blue line than Toronto.

I don’t really know how I feel about the netminders on either team though. Petr Mrazek and Jack Campbell could be a really good duo for the Leafs next year, right? It’s not like Sheldon Keefe is going to have to worry about the health of those two…

Personally, I like the players coming up through Edmonton’s pipeline better than what Toronto has. Aside from Nick Robertson and Rodion Amirov, do the Maple Leafs have any more prospects who are projected to be impact players?

The Athletic (Willis)

Win or lose, these Oilers are built in Ken Holland’s image

A lot of people have written that the Oilers need to add players with experience, players who know how to win. A lot of people have written that the Oilers need to get bigger and tougher. If they’re right — and there’s a lot of overlap between those two points of view — then mission accomplished. Holland has busily added age and size and guys who have been around to the roster.
Holland will succeed or fail based on his vision of a bigger, older, wiser Oilers roster. He’s made additions that reflect his values. He’s ignored things that don’t.
Every decision a manager makes shows what he believes in. When push comes to shove, Holland doesn’t believe in analytics. He believes in experience and in proven achievement, not exclusively but often, as Keith and Smith and Kyle Turris and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins all show. He believes in size, again not exclusively but often.
For Keith, Smith, Nurse or any other NHL player, the beauty of the sport is that it really doesn’t matter what anyone says. What happens on the ice proves their value. The same is true for general managers. Opinions are inexorably pulled toward the gravity exerted by what the teams they build do on the ice.

BLH’s Thoughts: I think the Oilers now have the skill to get them through the regular season. What’s been lacking is the size, consistency, and lack of players who are willing to go through a wall to score or stop a goal for the team. Holland has addressed that lack (to a degree) with his work this summer.

Hockey isn’t rocket science, what worked 40 years ago could very well work again today and one thing I thought a last month that was kind of ironic was that this group of Oilers reminds me of the Colorado Avalanche team Holland competed against when his Red Wings were at the top of their game in the late 90s and early 2000s. Edmonton’s just lacking their Patrick Roy…

The Daily Goal Horn

NHL Rumors: Bruins eyeing Dvorak; leave door open to Krejci; Panthers likely to extend Barkov and Reinhart soon

Over the weekend the rumor mill continued to buzz about Coyotes center Christian Dvorak landing with the Bruins.
There are a number of teams interested in trying to acquire Dvorak. The Bruins have been rumored for awhile You can also add the San Jose Sharks and the New York Rangers. Boston is still believed to be willing to part with Jake DeBrusk in the right deal.
Longtime Florida Panthers beat writer, George Richards believes that both Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart will be extended this summer.