Seventh Player Trending Up
Khaira has been a real gem for the Oilers, being drafted in the 3rd round in 2012 and has turned himself into a reliable depth scorer, one of the only reliable ones on this team sadly enough.
He’s played up and down the lineup, including on both lines in the top 6 and hasn’t looked out of place, which bodes well for the future unless PC does something stupid like trade him.
He currently sports 2-11-13 in 35 games. He currently projects out to a 0.37 PPG, and a 0.06 for goals, which translates out to 5 goals and 30 points, the latter of which would be a new career high for him.
Khaira is a light version of the type of player Milan Lucic is supposed to be. He can hit, fight, and chip in some secondary offense at times, the prototypical power forward.
The best part of Khaira’s offense is he’s only sporting a 6.7% shooting %, while his career average is 11%.
If he even got back to that he’d almost double his point production, which is exciting to think about.
If Khaira has a weakness at this point, it’s faceoffs. His career best is only 45%, which happened last season, and is currently at 44%. But, we have to keep in mind that he’s only taken 54 faceoffs this year. He took less than 400 last year.
If the coaching staff sees him as a winger in the long term, this won’t be much of an issue. If he is to be a center, this is a skill he will have to learn. For now it’s nice to see him breaking out, and fortunately, faceoffs are a skill he can learn and work on. It’s also nice to have the versatility of playing him at center or on the wing.
He’s bound to get a slight raise on the 675K he’s making at this point if he keeps going like this.