Edmonton Oilers: Does This Franchise Have a Balanced Roster?

If you’re a regular in the Edmonton Oilers blogging community, you’ve probably heard the word balance… a lot. Lowetide has regularly preached finding balance on our roster for as long as I’ve read his blog. Unfortunately, Oilers management doesn’t seem to read his stuff, as our roster still does not have balance.

Edmonton Oilers: What Lowetide means by balance is a team, that in all three important positions, are equally strong. This means not being over-reliant on forwards to win games through pure offense. It also means not riding your goalie too hard and not forcing your defense to limit teams to two or fewer goals per game.

Very few teams in today’s NHL can afford to have perfect balance, but some teams are close. Nashville has Ellis, Subban, Josi, and Ekholm on defense, Pekka Rinne in net, and Forsberg, Johansen, Arvidsson, and Turris up front. That is a stable core of players that can challenge for a championship year in, year out.

Another team, Tampa Bay, is unfairly stacked. Steve Yzerman is the best GM in the NHL, period. In net Vasilevskiy is a very young Vezina caliber goalie that has a long, successful career ahead of him. On defense Hedman, Sergachev, McDonagh, and Stralman make up one of the best defensive cores in the NHL. Their forward depth, is just silly Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Miller, Gourde, Palat, Johnson, and Killorn are all top 6 forwards. The fact that this team hasn’t won a cup yet is mystifying.

Does Edmonton Stack Up?

Well to answer the question, no. We do not have the depth that those teams have. There are a lot of good pieces. Talbot is an excellent starting goaltender. He, when at his best can steal games for Edmonton but showed a lot of inconsistency in 17-18. This prompted Edmonton to go out and sign a significant (if not over expensive) backup in Koskinen.

Our D-core has three great pieces at current with Nurse, Klefbom, and Larsson with Bouchard on the way to add to that core. You may be able to add Andrej Sekera to that core if he can return to proper form in 18-19 if he can’t, his contract becomes very scary very fast.

At forward Mcdavid, Draisaitl, and Nugent-Hopkins are outstanding pieces up front. The rest of our forward core, however, is thin with talent. Puljujarvi and Yamamoto may add to that core, but that’s not a given. We also have Milan Lucic who can be a helpful piece if playing at his ceiling, however, there are significant questions about how much his skills have eroded since signing in Edmonton. New additions Brodziak and Rieder will help the bottom 6 but are not core players that will make a huge impact.

Solution

Well more so than anything I think the answer to the problem is to see what we have. Edmonton has a lot of essential prospects matriculating now. Guys like Skinner, Yamamoto, Mcleod, Puljujarvi, Bouchard, and Bear are all close to knocking at the door in the NHL. These players are the next generation of the Oilers core and are vital to future success.

I think because of this the smartest move is to hold your cards close to your chest and find a way to lose Sekera’s, Russell’s, and Lucic’s contracts. If not just ride them out and hope they can return to peak levels, (except Russell, he’s pretty much just an overpaid third pairing D.) or buy them out.

If those contracts can sort themselves out and our prospects can matriculate adequately, we can turn into a team like Tampa. Of all those players I listed as core players in Tampa, 9 of 13 came straight from the Lightning organization.

Next: Can The Oilers Take Advantage Of Easy Scheduling?

I think this is the route Edmonton needs to take to be a successful and long-lasting contender.