Edmonton Oilers Defence: A Deep Breath

The Edmonton Oilers clearly have one gap in their lineup, so far this season, that is bigger and more worrisome than the others: Their Defence. However, I don’t beleive hat immediately after a loss like the one Saturday night is a particularly good time to assess such things. Emotions tend to cloud the view.

I get the out-bursts of “trade ’em all” and “how can he possibly play so-and-so with so-and-so”. We’re fans, passionate ones, and as such, we’re entitled & allowed. But after a good night’s sleep and an objective review of the game tapes, one is prepared to offer a more even-handed assessment of where the Oilers really are.

What follows is an assessment of the basic skills of each defenceman which makes up a portion of the NHL roster. A couple things to perhaps keep in mind as we do so:

–Peter Chiarelli is a “real” NHL General Manager, and Todd McLellan a “real” NHL coach. As much as some fans will “lose it” over their decisions, it’s good to understand that these two men are imminently better equipped to do their jobs than you or I. It isn’t nearly as easy as any of us sitting back in our armchairs make it out to be, even if we do happen to have a little bit of experience and intelligence on the subject.

-All of these players made it to the NHL for a reason. None of them “suck”, as I so often read on Twitter. That’s emotional. Factually, they all have individual strengths which got them this far to begin with. Yet, they also all have weaknesses in their armor that, combined, leave the Edmonton Oilers D-core uneven and unpredictable. And their shortcomings in certain situations expose them even further.

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The core of the assessment I am offering up on the Edmonton Oilers Defence is to divide them into 3 groups: Blue-Chip Talent, Bottom-to-Middle Pairing Prospects, and Veteran Depth. Part of the issue Peter Chiarelli has to deal with is the fact that he had a lot of “parts and pieces”. That is to say, only a couple bring a full set of skills to the table. The rest contribute only specific skills, here and there, at an NHL level to help round out the line-up. In Fact, it’s one of the main, non-financial reasons why the club is carrying 8 D-men right now.

The Blue-Chip Players (2): Darnell Nurse and Oscar Klefbom. They are the only players who possess top-pairing skills. This is presently the biggest issue facing the team. Now, you may well watch a game and say “Kurt, these 2 guys are NOT the problem”. Untrue. Fact is, Darnell Nurse and Oscar Klefbom are the two most talented players on the roster. But they have all of 89 and 5 NHL games under their belt, respectively. As such, they simply don’t have the experience or refinement to be 25-30 minute a night guys. At this point in their careers, they can’t handle that many minutes, forcing more minutes down upon your bottom 4 than they should have to shoulder. It is not the FAULT of Nurse or Klefbom. It is merely the situation they find themselves in.

Veteran Depth (5): Andrew Ference, Andrej Sekera, Justin Schultz, Eric Gryba, Mark Fayne. None of these men are top-pairing D-men, and never were:

–Justin Schultz is the only player with some top-pairing abilities, and that lays principally on offence. As such, it is difficult to put him out in all situations. Justin Schultz, now past the 200-game mark, won’t reach the level of Nurse or Klefbom. We’ve seen the results of Justin Schultz playing too many minutes. That shortcoming forces TOI up to the less-experienced Klefbom & Nurse, as well as down, on the D-men who are really suited to 12-15 minutes a night on the 3rd pairing.

–Andrej Sekera is the closest thing to a complete player on this list, but his problem is that while he has done many things well in his career, he has almost done anything “great”. Sekera has decent speed, moves the puck reasonably well, has “good” defensive positioning, and plays a reasonably intelligent game. I am one who thinks that if Sekera picked up the pace of his decision making, he would show much better.

–Andrew Ference used to be a less-skilled Sekera, but at 36, speed is now an issue. As much as 21 gets a lot of criticism these days, he remains an intelligent player who (on balance) makes good decisions, moves the puck out of danger quickly, and is competitive along the boards. He can make a pass, but is below-average in that department. But the NHL is a fast league getting even faster. Ference is not.

–Mark Fayne has “solid yet un-remarkable defender” on his resume. Traditionally, he is strong positionally and makes it difficult for defenders to easily gain the zone. Best paired with a mobile puck mover, Fayne is a bit of a one-trick pony. As such, if he struggles at his strength, it quickly exposes the holes in his game: Weak 1st Pass skills, below-average speed.

–Eric Gryba is a physical D-man, whose strength is breaking up cycles in his own zone, a skill rare on this roster. He is perhaps more speed-challenged than anyone on the back-end, and among the most-challenged to make a break-out pass. Again, his value is important yet relatively singular. Until Nurse & Klefbom are more experienced and have more “man strength”, a Gryba type of player is neccesary.

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Bottom-To-Middle-Pairing Prospects (2): Brandon Davidson, Griffin Reinhart. The challenge with these two young men is that their inexperience (17 and 12 NHL games, respectively) does not tell us which of the above two categories they are destined to fall into. Griffin Reinhart has enough pedigree to project Top 3, and his skills are a melting pot of the 5 men listed above. Brandon Davidson is “more of a mutt” than Reinhart, but he seems to have the ability to do little things quite well, quite consistently.

The issue, in the 2015-16 season, is that the relative experience leads both of them to to appear above-average one night, below-average the next. Sometimes, that’ll happen “bad” on the same night. As such, it’s hard (Read: Impossible) for Todd McLellan to project their TOI with any real confidence.

So, as you can see…the issues the Edmonton Oilers are dealing with on their back end, are only partly performance-related. It is actually a much, much bigger recruitment and procurement problem. And, just to complicate matters, some of those issues were authored by the previous administration.

Until Oscar Klefbom and Darnell Nurse play another 100-150 games, they will not be true top-pairing performers. And so it’s the job of Chiarelli and McLellan to plug the holes and compliment the strengths until such time that they are. And that means…good nights and bad, still to come.

It is an unemotional, factual way of seeing the problem. You, of course, are welcome to be emotional about it. Emotions make good fans. But they rarely make good General Managers.

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