Edmonton Oilers: Hockey News Fantasy Projections

Today, is a good day. The first fantasy hockey magazine was released! The Hockey News is always the first one I buy for my pools year in and year out. It has a good amount of information for fantasy, some interesting articles for buyer beware and some hockey experts chime in. Most importantly though: where do our Edmonton Oilers project?

Forwards

The Forwards project as following:

McDavid 83 pts

Eberle 76 pts

Hall 69 pts

Nugent-Hopkins 57 pts

Yakupov 53 pts

Pouliot 41 pts

Lander 33 pts

Purcell 29 pts

Letestu 25 pts

Draisaitl 22 pts

Klinkhammer 14 pts

Hendricks 14 pts

My take: Wow! McDavid leading the team in scoring right off the get go with 83 points! Out of the rookie projections, McDavid’s is 23 points higher than the next closest rookie, with Jack Eichel projected for 60 points. That’s higher than what others have been projecting but I would not be at all shocked if he got that. I personally have him on the lower end with 65 points, but the skys the limit with the kid. I feel like Eberle is a bit high with 76 points while Hall is just a hair low (I think 70+ is reasonable). I feel like Nugent-Hopkins and Pouliot are a bit low for my liking. I think Nugent-Hopkins can break the 60 point barrier this season. He had great chemistry with Eberle and Pouliot. In regards to Pouliot, he was on pace for a career year before injuries hit him hard. His play was definitely a factor for moving out David Perron last year. Draisaitl is tough to predict: does he make the team or not? Does he play wing or not? 22 seems low, but reasonable. Otherwise, it’s pretty reasonable.

Defense

Defensemen project as follows

Schultz 42 pts

Sekera 25 pts

Klefbom 25 pts

Reinhart 17 pts

Nikitin 16 pts

Ference 14 pts

Nurse 13 pts

Gryba 9 pts

My take: Schultz is extremely high at 42 points. Sure, he’s going to get plenty of PowerPlay time, sheltered minutes on hopefully the third pairing, but 42 points for Justin Schultz in my opinion is setting up for a massive let down. The guy has a career high of 33 points and 31 points last year. Even with the addition of McDavid, asking for twelve more points seems like a lot to ask for. On the flip side, I don’t know why Sekera could not pot closer to 30 points than 20 points. Sure, he fell in the point department last year, but he’s going to be playing top pairing minutes. Then again, he has only scored north of 30 points once so far in his career. It’s a toss up, but I’d feel more confident with Sekera than Schultz. Even with the PowerPlay. The rest seem pretty reasonable, although I do not know who would want do draft guys like Gryba, Ference or Nikitin. Even if you’re looking for PIMs, Hits etc, you can do a lot better than drafting those three.

Goaltenders

Both Talbot and Scrivens are projected as so:

Talbot: 27 wins, GAA 2.54, 0.917% SV% 2 SO

Scrivens: 8 wins, GAA 2.97, 0.903 SV% 0 SO

My Take: Talbot makes sense, he’s going to be the number one goalie. I was hoping for a save percentage around .910 but .917 is pretty good. When it comes to goaltenders and fantasy, I feel like most of the goaltender stats are really team dependent, especially GAA and Wins. Save Percentage, in my opinion, is the most important fantasy goalie stat. Shutouts are a bonus stat which can really help, but hard to predict. Scrivens stats are fine. He’s a back up this year so it’s difficult to be upset about that.

Overall

Usually when I do a fantasy draft, I tend to stay away from teams I cheer for. I usually let some other sucker take the homer bias and draft predominately from one team and let them finish lower in the standings. That said, there are a couple gems on the Oilers. I think must picks are Hall and McDavid. I think either of those guys (in a ten-twelve person league) go in the second or third round. Eberle is a solid mid round pick and I feel like Yakupov could be a boom or bust sleeper pick since he has the potential to be playing with a top pivot this season.

Defensively, it’s tough. I lean towards Sekera and think Schultz is overvalued by the Hockey News here but I can understand why people would want Schultz. If you’re going to take Schultz, make sure it’s a really late round pick. Goaltenders, there’s one to draft and it’s Talbot. As much of a believer I am for him, it’s going to be hard to get the wins and goals against average. He could be a sleeper pick but it’s tough to say.

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