You Gotta Have Onions

I think that’s what former Toronto Maple Leafs GM Gord Stellick said on Oilers Now this week when asked about the Taylor Hall Trade. You gotta have onions sometimes. And I agree with him. Wasn’t it Todd McLellan that said,

“It’s insanity if you keep banging your head against a wall. We needed to shore up a hole. I know there is a lot of talk about (losing) that dynamic offensive guy, but we also needed a good shutdown 20-minute-a-night guy, and we believe we have that in Larsson.”

McLellan had another quote that I found quite telling but I’m having trouble rounding it up, maybe if you know the one I’m talking about you could leave the link in the comments below. But what I remember distinctly about the quote was that he referred to Hall as a “good” player not an elite player, not one of the best in the NHL but just a good player.

*There’s some fowl language in the post today, please be forewarned*

THE TRADE FROM ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

Sometimes I believe that trades are made not because the numbers the player(s) are putting up are a reflection of their abilities but because there are other circumstances that we as the fans aren’t privy to. For example, maybe a player’s personality just isn’t a fit with the club or perhaps they leave the coaching and management wanting with regards to a certain work ethic. Perhaps there are some off the ice issues or there might even be the dreaded character flaws that are something a GM or coach can’t be bothered with.

I’d just like to present some things for you regarding Hall and you can either read them and let me know your thoughts or just skip down a bit because there’ll be other Oilers topics to talk about.

• Taylor Hall had two VERY public run-ins with his coaches.
  • The water bottle incident with Dallas Eakins
  • The time Hall was sent to the end of the bench by Todd McLellan
• Did any of the other notable Oilers have confrontations like this? I mean in the NHL as a whole, how many times have you seen a team’s best player get reprimanded the way Hall has been in the past by multiple coaches.
  • And don’t give me the “Oh he’s a passionate player” bullshit either. “He wears his heart on his sleeve” rhetoric is fucking boring and if that is true, tell me how. Did he play like he was the next coming of Mark Messier or Wendel Clark? Was he out there banging bodies and making shit happen. Was he sticking up for his teammates in the scrums and telling it how it is after the game or was he towing the company line and letting others get their hands dirty?
• Taylor Hall played a full season in 2015/16 and that gave his GM the opportunity to evaluate him completely which can’t be said for most of his other teammates.
  • Hall only managed to put up 65 points. I say only because we expect more out of him right? This is a top 5 LW in the NHL, surely he’s not dependent on others for point production if he’s the type of player that pushes the river or drives a line on his own.
  • Hall disappeared for the 2nd season in a row in the latter third of the year… Yikes.
• This is getting into the tabloid newsy type of shit but it’s worth mentioning I believe.
  • Was Connor McDavid rooming with Taylor Hall for McDavid’s own good or was it for Hall’s?
    • Was that in fact an evaluation test of Hall’s off-ice ability?
      • What happened to Nuge and Ebs? I thought these guys were the Three Amigos?
  • Hall is no longer an Oiler and neither is his roommate Luke Gazdic… Coincidence?

THE TRADE FROM A HOCKEY PERSPECTIVE

• The left-wing was the most obvious spot for which the Oilers could deal from. End of story. Not Pouliot nor Maroon nor yak or Eberle, Nuge or the 1st rounder this year was going to get the team the player they needed.
• Another thing is, and I urge you to consider this, Taylor Hall wasn’t what the GM’s were after. Why is that?
  • It was Draisaitl, Nurse, Nuge, Eberle, or Klefbom… But even those players weren’t going to get the Oilers the type of player they wanted.
    • Any Why would you want to deal any of those players apart from maybe Nurse.
    • Deal Nuge or Draisaitl and you’re short at centre again.
    • Deal Eberle and you’re left with Yak, Puljujarvi, Kassian and Pakarinen… No ideal.
    • Deal Klefbom and you’re out the team’s best defender.
  • Why can’t Taylor Hall Make Team Canada apart from the World Championships?
    • He lights it up versus inferior competition there and people say he’s so good… Think again.
    • Bob Nicholson used to run Hockey Canada, now he’s the man with the Oilers, now Taylor Hall is a New Jersey Devil.
      • You don’t reckon with the former head of Hockey Canada being Hall’s boss (more or less) that Taylor Hall would be given the “good word” if he deserved it?

Telling ya, there’s something fishy going on and Chiarelli doesn’t not put up with young guys who don’t fall in line does he? Ask Phil Kessel and Tyler Seguin…

ADAM LARSSON

Don’t be the type of asshole to give this guy a hard time next season. Just because Justin Schultz and Jeff Petry got ran out of town doesn’t mean Larsson needs to be. You have to understand that this is a player that is not going to replicate Hall’s flash and dash and I’d ask you to search out McLellan’s quote online about getting rid of some of the flash and dash to see what he said about with what to replace it with.

I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with hard work and winning experiences.

Now if you’re a fancy statter or just a fan who likes to run the numbers, please do me a favour and consider these things when comparing Larsson to other dmen:

• How does he compare with other players’ seasons aged 18-22?
• How were the teams that those players played on?
• How were those defenders deployed?
• Since 2009, only a handful of defensemen have debuted the year after being drafted.
  • Victor Hedman, Dmitri Kulikov, Cam Fowler, Adam Larsson, Seth Jones, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Nikita Zadorov.
  • How have they done since then and how did they do in their first 4-5 years?
  • Notice something interesting about that list of players? Mostly offensive dmen, right?
    • Did the NJ Devils throw him into the fire with the notion that he’d be an offensive dman? If so, why didn’t they utilize him in a better fashion? They more or less gave him the Jultz treatment, no?
    • Now according to Woodguy, Larsson is one of the best defensemen in the entire NHL and keeping elite players to the outside.
    • Our very own G Money and the esteemed Woodguy are working on a groundbreaking new stat that is going to blow your minds and be able to let you know a bit more about quality of competition.
      • QoC is important because it let’s us know how players are doing against other players in the league. It also tells us how a player is utilized.

MILAN LUCIC

The more stat oriented fan might still believe that this signing is going to be an albatross in the final 2-3 seasons but I do have to ask you a couple of things:

• Do you think that Lucic will make every other Oiler including the likes of Kassian, Nurse, and Maroon a little bit taller? Will it make them puff their chest out just a little bit more and feel the confidence to go out there and try a little extra night-in night-out?
• Is it possible that Milan Lucic is a freak of nature given his ability to stay healthy inspite of his style of hockey? Could he be the outlier that bucks the trend of power forwards slowing down considerably in the back nine of their careers?
  • I suppose as long as Alexei Emelin doesn’t give Lucic the Ulf Samuelsson treatment, I believe we’re in for a long and fruitful tenure with Lucic.

THE TEAM AS IT STANDS. WHAT DOES IT NEED?

I believe that there’s still the need to find a bottom-six right-handed pivot to cover for injury or roster movement. I’m not sure how durable Matt Hendricks is going to be and I’m not a fan of Iiro Pakarinen. If the Oilers could go out and sign a Josh Jooris for example, I think that’d go a long way.

Surely you’d remember Jooris from his time with the Calgary Flames. He’s a fast and rugged player. Last season wasn’t as good for him as the season previous but he’s a character guy in his mid 20’s. I wonder if he’d be the “Pisani” that Lowetide talks about?

If you recall, Jooris was the player that hit Tyler Pitlick a couple seasons back and lacerated his spleen. It was a violent collision to say the least. One of the hardest I’ve ever seen.

*Jooris was signed by the Rangers today. Scratch him off the list…*

I don’t think the Oilers are going to pick up that RHD this off-season. Then again Chia has always struck when the crowd has been the quietest. I reckon it’s a four-man battle royale for that no.6 spot and possibly the second power play unit between Brandon Davidson, Darnell Nurse, Griffin Reinhart and Jordan Oesterle. None of them are right-handed however…

From my source, James Wisniewski was contacted and there was interest but the problem was term not money. The details weren’t disclosed.

With the expansion draft looming next summer, it could be a very interesting year. It’s possible that Chiarelli just bides his time and waits for both drafts (expansion and entry) to blow over and then makes a move to get that right-handed PP QB.