Edmonton Oilers: Chris Wideman Trade Spells Doom for Matt Benning
The Edmonton Oilers announced yesterday that they acquired defender Chris Wideman from the Ottawa Senators in exchange for a 6th round pick. While this move reeks of desperation, it does make Benning’s spot on the roster questionable.
Yes, yesterday the Edmonton Oilers made another trade as it becomes abundantly clear that Chiarelli is on the hot seat and is throwing everything he can at a wall in the hopes something will stick. While I applaud the man for actually trying to fix the roster before the season is lost, I sincerely hope he has no plans to make any big damaging trades.
In this specific case, I like this trade. I know many people in the Oilers blog circle have written articles in the past on signing/acquiring him such as Alex Thomas over at TheOilRig.com and Lowetide himself. I haven’t looked at the player enough to get a firm grasp on what he brings, but I’m about to!
What Can Wideman Bring?
Well right off the bat here’s a scouting report on Wideman from Hockey’s Future:
“Wideman is an intelligent, excellent puck-moving defenseman on the small side. He is poised and patience with the puck and distributes and makes smart decisions. One of Wideman’s best attributes is his smart and effective use of his stick, particularly in taking away passing/shooting lanes. He possesses an accurate shot and can get pucks to the net. Wideman is a very good skater with good foot speed and transitions remarkably well. Wideman will play the body when necessary and is combative despite his lack of stature. He is positionally sound, but his size makes it difficult for him to contain bigger opposing forwards.”
From that excerpt, there a couple of observations you could make. First, one being Chiarelli stated in an
interview earlier this season that “None of our d men are exceptional passers” Wideman has excelled at that in his career and is Chiarelli’s stop-gap answer to that issue. Wideman plays a solid transition game that should complement Gravel’s own transition game nicely. While Gravel won’t cheat for offense, Wideman knows how to jump into the play. I believe these two together will make a solid bottom pair.
Secondly and more interestingly is his ability to get pucks ON NET. I have seen it so many times this season where one of our D-men takes a wild shot from the point and misses the net. Now I’m not going to stand here and say shooting pucks from the point is easy.
I mean I can’t hit the side of a barn from the point at the beer league level, but if I were getting paid millions of dollars, I’d make damn sure I can hit the net. Wideman possesses that skill, and I would bet that he sees powerplay times sooner rather than later. This brings me to Matt Benning.
Matt Benning Should Be Scared
Here are Edmonton’s current D pairings based off their game against San Jose:
Pair 1: Klefbom-Larsson
Pair 2: Nurse-Russell
Pair 3: Gravel-Benning
Reserve: Garrison
Now with Wideman in the picture suddenly Benning is in a bit of trouble. See so far this season, Benning has struggled. Wideman’s acquisition can be viewed as a warning shot over Matt Benning’s bow that if he doesn’t improve, he will be shipped out.
Wideman is very much an upgrade over Benning. In terms of passing ability, regarding skating, and, regarding shot accuracy. The only thing Benning has over Wideman is his ability to throw body checks, something other members of our defense can do.
As far as the immediate roster move that follows Wideman’s arrival I’d wager to guess that Garrison’s time in Edmonton is coming to a halt. While Garrison hasn’t been playing poorly, he is an 8th D-man at best, and Edmonton needs more skill and less grit.
I think that with Wideman now in the fold and Gravel playing very well Benning is about to find himself on the outside looking in. While Benning hasn’t been our worst defender (Garrison), he has been a non-factor on many nights this season and has negatively affected games more often than not.
Looking at Benning’s possession stats, they illustrate well how much Benning has struggled. Both his Corsi for relative and Fenwick for relative are negative, -3.8 and -5.7 respectively, which means basically that when he is on the ice, there are way more shots against than for.
His Corsi (47.8%) and Fenwick (46.2%) also speak to how mediocre his season has been. To put that into perspective Wideman while struggling in a broad sense with both his general Corsi and Fenwick rating sitting at 44.9%, his relative ratings (3.2 Corsi, 2.1 Fenwick) suggest that the team around him was actually weighing him down.
*Corsi and Fenwick relative, while like their base ratings measure a players corsi and fenwick relative to their teammates. Benning for example when on the ice, contributes negatively to a teams overall corsi rating by roughly 3.8 shots against, whereas Wideman limits roughly 3.2 shots more compared to his teammates*
Was This a Good Move?
Yes, I believe so. The asset cost was essentially 0, the player at worst is an upgrade at 7D, and at best can push Benning for ice time in a meaningful way. Wideman will make an impact on the NHL roster if he is put in a position where he can succeed.
The onus is on new coach Ken Hitchcock to put him there I hope he sees power play time, as he is more than capable of being successful there, and the hockey gods only know how badly we need scoring from the point.
Wideman wasn’t scheduled to be available against Anaheim, but it was reported that he’d be in the lineup against L.A. We’ll have to wait to see how he’ll be deployed, but for once I have faith in our coach to do the right thing.