Edmonton Oilers: Player report card at the halfway mark
It’s the halfway mark of the regular season as here are our player grades for the Edmonton Oilers so far.
Overall the Edmonton Oilers have done well this season. With the exception of going into last night’s game against the Rangers, the Oilers have been in a playoff spot all season long, and that victory against the Rangers combined with Calgary’s loss to Chicago put the Oilers back into a playoff spot.
That being said, the division is remarkably close this season. Even with the victory last night, the Oilers are only hanging onto the last wild card spot by 1 only point. The good news is things are so tight they’re also only 4 points out of 1st place in the division.
A winning or losing streak could seal their fate for the season either way. Right now there’s no certainty the Oilers will make the playoffs, which would only serve to disappoint the McDrai duo if we didn’t, and that’s not a good thing.
There are still some weaknesses in this team that Ken Holland will need to address in the offseason. The Oilers are still 2 wingers away from having a solid top 6. Their depth scoring has been an issue this season as well. 1 goaltender has performed better than the other, and in this case that is not a good thing as the goaltender doing well has shown he can’t handle the workload of a starter. We were supposed to have a 1/1A situation, but obviously we can’t play the other goalie if he’s going to suck. The Oilers have the 3rd worst GA in the conference and 6th worst in the league, so overall team defense needs to improve.
So which players are part of the solution and which players are part of the problem? Let’s find out.
Players that are part of the solution
Connor Mcdavid
I know, I know, a little obvious, but if I didn’t include him in this then I’d look silly, wouldn’t I?
Superman is leading the league in points right now – as he has all season. Cracking the 20 goal mark just before the halfway mark of the season is incredibly impressive, considering a lot of guys don’t get there at the end of the season. He’s got a PPG rating of 1.52, which extrapolates out to 125 points, which would establish a new career-high for the 5th year in a row.
Believe it or not, though, there are 2 areas of Mcdavid’s game that can improve right now. 1 is his faceoff win %, which at this point in time is 47.72%. Now to be fair, that’s still a career-high for him, but he needs to get to at least 50% to reach the benchmark of being competent at faceoffs.
Imagine what Connor Mcdavid’s stats would be like if he could get to 50% – then we might be talking about him being on pace for 135 or 145 points instead of 125. Every little bit helps, right?
The other area of his game that could use a spit polish – albeit a minor one – is his own zone play. Right now his +/- is -6, which is a career-low for him. I would imagine the staff is working with Mcdavid to improve that as the year goes on, as it goes counter to Dave Tippett‘s system. A -6 is not a huge concern, but for a guy who gets as much ice time and is expected to score as much as Mcdavid is, it’s something that could spiral out of control quickly, so again I would imagine the coaches are working with him on that, seeing as how Dave Tippett‘s defense-first system generates offense from defense.
Connor Mcdavid’s sidekick is also a key forward for the team, and predictably he’s right behind Connor Mcdavid for #2 in league scoring, he’s also cracked the 20 goal mark just before the halfway mark of the season. He’s right now at 1.48 PPG – just under Mcdavid – which works out to 121 points on the year.
Draisaitl at this point, though, is superior to Connor Mcdavid at 1 thing – faceoffs. He’s cracked the 50% mark twice in his career already (the last 2 seasons), and is currently at 49.36% – which, while technically below the benchmark – is not something I’m concerned with considering the precedent he’s set and the piddly amount that he’s under 50% at right now.
The 1 area of his game that’s a concern right now is his own zone play – he’s a -20 right now, and he hasn’t been that bad since his rookie season of -17. He freely admitted as much in the post-game interview after the Flames game, that his game has been “[expletive]” lately. That shows good self-awareness on his part and gives me hope that the coaching staff will also work with him on tweaking and improving that area of his game.
Could some time with skills coach Adam Oates be part of his offseason after this one? If this trend continues, maybe. Even if he doesn’t, at the very least Dr. Drai might be one of those guys who can outscore his mistakes. It’ll be fun to see how he finishes the year.
Kassian is in a really good place in his career right now. Having chemistry with the best player in the game is a great thing. He’s having a career year right now in a contract year. Right now he’s got 13 goals and 27 points in 39 games. He seems certain to get to 20 goals, the first time in his career he will hit that mark. Right now at 0.69 PPG, he’s on pace for 57 points and 27 goals. He’s not as much of a certainty as the McDrai duo to reach that, but considering that his career-best is 15 goals and 29 points, even if he only barely gets to the 20 goal mark and, say, 35 points, that’s still a career-high for him.
Kassian is also a guy who creates room for his superstar linemates with his physical play – power forwards still have a role to play in the game, and Kassian is proving he can still play that role after everyone thought he was done after his days in Vancouver. Kassian is so good at this he leads the team in hits with 109, and also good enough for top 20 in the league.
The beauty part of all this is Kassian is fully aware that his numbers are getting a “Mcdavid bump”, so even though his contract is up and he is due for a raise, his agent won’t be naive enough to ask for, say, $5-8 million a year. He’s not that kind of player. There’s no question he wouldn’t be putting up the same kind of numbers without McDavid – he can’t drive the play on his line, he’s a complementary player, albeit a good one.
Don’t be surprised if the Oilers give him a 5-year contract at somewhere in the neighborhood of $3-3.5 million a year.
With his hat trick in the game last night against the Rangers, Neal is going to be the next Oiler in line to hit the 20 goal mark as he has 19 right now. TSN had some ridiculous commentary that since Milan Lucic had outscored Neal in the month of December that the trade was more on an even keel now.
That line of reasoning should be exposed as pure BS. Lucic’s 3 goals are the only ones he’s scored all year, meanwhile, Neal is here about to hit the same mark he’s hit most of his career, 20 goals – and we’re barely halfway through the season.
There’s no question which one of those guys is the better producer of offense – and thus which one is producing more for their contract right now. I’d much rather have Neal at $5.75 than Lucic at $5.25.
Now that that unpleasantness is out of the way, although Neal’s numbers are impressive and a sign that he will cover the bet the trade made on his contract, he as a player comes with some caveats that Dave Tippett will have to manage.
1 caveat is Neal is currently riding a 20.4 shooting %. That’s 8.4% more than his average, which means we should mentally prepare ourselves for a bit of a dip in production as the season goes on. Not a huge one, but a dip nonetheless.
The other caveat is most of Neal’s production comes on the PP. Neal currently has 12 of his 19 goals on the PP, which is good enough to lead the team and be #2 in the league in that stat – 2nd only to David Pastrnak.
That is impressive and a big reason why Neal doesn’t simply sit out of the lineup when he goes through stretches of not scoring, but that means he’s only scored 7 even-strength goals all season.
As such, there’s no question Neal belongs on the 1st unit PP, but where does Tippett play him at EV? I think the Oilers were counting on him being a more balanced player when they traded Lucic for him, and as such at even strength he’s been up and down the lineup all season long at the wing, not really forming chemistry with any center at EV.
Imagine how dangerous of a player Neal would be if he could score as much at evens as he does on the PP. Hopefully, a skills coach is part of his offseason so he can become better at EV minutes – and maybe he works with the McDrai duo on defense too as that’s a big part of EV play.
He’s done his job by being better than the guy he was traded for and being a much better fit on the Oilers. Now going forward let’s see if he can do even better at even strength.
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Nuge
Nuge’s profile has become lower ever since the McDrai duo arrived on the scene. At one point he was the 1st line C of the future, now he’s just a solid 2nd line C and part-time 3rd line C when he’s struggling.
Nuge is a good player but seems to be just shy of elite status. Unlike all the other players on this part of the list, he’s not really standing out in 1 area or another, he’s just a guy who goes out and does his thing.
One thing Nuge is doing really well this year is faceoffs. Out of all the players who have taken a statistically significant amount of faceoffs, Nuge actually leads the team with 51.7%, a new career-high for him and the 1st time he has cracked the 50% mark in faceoffs. Let’s hope that holds up for the rest of the season.
He’s also doing decently in his own end, improving on last year’s -13 to a -10 so far this year. Not great, but an improvement nonetheless.
However, 1 area that puts a damper on his faceoff numbers is that his offense is down from last year. Great things were expected of Nuge when he put up career highs of 28-41-69 (giggity) in a full season last year, but the 1st half of this year has been rather anemic as he has put up 8-16-24 in 36 games this season – he did sit out a few games with an injury – and if it weren’t for the PP he’d only have 4 goals and 10 points. Ouch….and you thought James Neal was too dependent on the PP…..
That extrapolates out to 18 goals and 55 points, a 14 point dip from last year and a 10 goal dip from last year.
See what I mean about not quite elite? If those point totals hold up, that’ll make 4 out of 9 seasons in which he’s come close but not cracked the 20 goal barrier, vs. only 3 seasons in which he has cracked the 20 goal barrier.
His shooting % right now is 9.3%, which is below his career average of 11.6%. That tells me that perhaps we’ll see more production in the 2nd half of the season, as his numbers no doubt come closer to his career average, and he’s projecting so close to 20 goals now that may tip things in his favor just long enough for him to crack 20 goals.
There’s no question he hasn’t exactly had the best wingers over the years here in his career, so that hasn’t helped him. We were all hoping that Neal might be that guy, or that Alex Chiasson might be that guy, but neither of those things has proven to be true.
I just hope the Oilers see some success in the next 2 seasons so Nuge doesn’t leave in free agency next year. He’s got some flaws but he’s still a good player who would be in demand by a lot of teams looking for good centers. That being said, the Oilers need good scorers outside of the McDrai duo, and Nuge is one of those guys we need to step up. Hopefully, the 2nd half of his season is still a better one.
It’s too bad Klefbom got injured in the game last night against the Rangers because he was on his way to a career season for the Oilers.
Hopefully, his injury doesn’t change things too much. He’s currently 4-21-25 in 42 games, excellent for a d-man – good enough for top 20 in league scoring amongst d-men and tops on the team. He also leads the team in TOI and is #3 in the league in that stat. As the team’s D core improves, that will likely go down, but for now, the Oilers D core is what it is. Currently, he’s on pace for 8 goals and 49 points, which would be a new career-high for him.
He’s the best puck mover the Oilers have got right now. What makes this even more impressive is his shooting % is only 3.6%, slightly under a career average of 3.9%. Imagine the possibilities if he could push the envelope even more…..
He also leads the team and the league in blocked shots with 134.
The only thing that’s a bit of a damper on his season is his +/- is currently a career-worst of -22. Ouch. Hopefully, he can improve on that as the season goes on – and I would be willing to bet that part of that is due to having a rookie partner in Ethan Bear in which you have to clean up some rookies mistakes once in a while. Mind you, he plays a lot at a TOI of 25:35 per game, which is literally almost half the game.
Klefbom is definitely part of the solution moving forward, so let’s hope that he cleans up that +/- rating and isn’t out for too long. Otherwise, it could sink our playoff hopes right then and there.
Speaking of Bear, it seems like he will go through Oilers lore as the best Oilers draft pick in a long time – outside of the first round, of course.
This hidden jewel of a player was drafted in the 5th round of 2015 as an afterthought and has not only survived but thrived in his rookie season. He made the team out of training camp and hasn’t missed a beat, putting up 4-9-13 in 42 games with a -6 to go along with it. Those are phenomenal stats, especially for a raw rookie defenceman.
He has shown that he can play with the 2 best puck movers the Oilers have to offer in Darnell Nurse and Oscar Klefbom – a hard thing to do for a rookie. Even more impressive is Bear has only improved with more ice time. He’s 5th on the team right now with 20:58, and most rookies can only dream of playing 20 minutes a night, especially in the D corps.
Bear had a cup of coffee here towards the end of last season, putting up 1-3-4 in 18 games, a great sneak preview of things to come. Unless he pours on the offense though – too much to expect from a rookie d-man – he probably won’t win the Calder trophy but he may get a vote or 2 – he’s currently 16th in scoring amongst rookies.
Regardless of whether he wins the Calder or not, though, Bear has had a phenomenal season, and I have a feeling the best is yet to come for this young man who only needed 89 games in the minors before he got a full-time NHL spot.
Not bad for a guy from the 5th round in 2015.
Darnell Nurse
Although Klefbom eventually eclipsed him, Nurse is the other key puck mover in the D corps. He started out as the top pairing guy on the port side but Klefbom eventually took that spot back.
He’s currently at 2-17-19 in 42 games with a -6 to go along with it. That extrapolates out to 4 goals and 36 points – technically a bit of a dip in both categories but nothing to be concerned about, IMO. There’s still lots of time to improve upon his career year of last year, and even if he finishes with what he’s projected to, the Oilers could decrease the amount they pay him slightly which will be better for our cap space. Nurse is the one major player the Oilers need to re-up that will be due for a significant raise.
All this and the young man isn’t even in his PPY yet. I think we may see an improvement of his numbers in the 2nd half as his shooting % is only 2.1% which is 1.6% below his career average.
I like the 1-2 punch of him and Klefbom on the left side – and the corps will only get better once Ethan Bear develops and the cavalry arrives from the farm on the right side.
Players that are questionable for the future
Koskinen has the dubious honor of being the last transaction Chiarelli did – re-signing for too much money – before PC was fired. The money was a little much, and the term was a little much too.
Koskinen seemed to be covering his bet at the beginning of the season, as his hot goaltending was – in part – why the team got off to such a great start. However, he came crashing down to earth in November and December, which is – in part – why the team started to struggle a bit after that.
If it weren’t for the fact that Mike Smith has been much worse, Koskinen likely would’ve had starts taken away from him because of that. Right now his stats are OK – .912 sv% and 2.85 GAA – but not great.
Also somewhat disturbing is that although he’s won 2 out of his last 4 starts he hasn’t had a sv% above .900 in any of those games, which is not good. He has shown flashes of brilliance but is too inconsistent to make me believe that he is a solution long term. I don’t know how Holland will get rid of Koskinen but you never know – no one thought he could get rid of the Lucic contract either but he did.
I would suspect, however, that unless Koskinen gets more consistent that Holland will try to make a move with goaltending before too long. Unfortunately as the #3 in the organization is injured right now we’ll have to stick with what we’ve got for the time being. Hopefully, Koskinen can handle the increased workload now, all we can do is cross our fingers and hope for the best between the pipes.
Nygard came to the Oilers with much hype. During the Oilers skills competition he won the fastest skater award, narrowly beating out Connor Mcdavid. But what has Nygard got to show for his efforts? He has the speed but doesn’t seem to have to hands to match his speed and thus can’t finish off his offense.
The only reason he’s not in the “disappointment” pile is I’m willing to cut Nygard some slack because he’s a European rookie that might need more time to get used to the smaller NHL ice surface and increased physical play.
For a guy with such a huge speed, I’d expect better than 2-4-6 in 25 games. I guess his 1 redeeming quality is he doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed defensively at -2. He doesn’t have any other skills to speak of so if he’s not scoring he’s not doing anything good for the team.
He’s played up and down the lineup and can’t seem to score no matter who he’s playing with. Unless he has a better 2nd half I can’t see the team bringing him back for next year.
Benning has only played 24 games this season, being injured for the rest of it, but honestly, at this point I don’t think the Oilers miss him too much. He’s currently sporting 0-5-5 in those 5 games. That extrapolates out to 17 points – a hold from last year, which explains why he’s not in the “disappointment” pile.
Another thing in Benning’s favor is he’s been good defensively – albeit against the soft competition 3rd pairing D face. He’s +8 in those 24 games, which leads the team right now. But Caleb Jones had been making noise in that position as of late, putting up almost as much offense at a much cheaper price.
Not to mention they could also find an outside hire for cheaper than that at the position. Also, the key to this is Benning is an RFA. Would you give him a raise of 10% from this year? I wouldn’t, yet according to the terms of the CBA it’d be mandatory. Better to trade him away for a pick or let him walk.
Benning makes $1.9 million and is in a contract year, so unless he shows more offense I have a feeling he’ll be a prime trade chip at the trade deadline – trading Benning for a draft pick would be an easy way to free up some cap space for next season by not having to re-sign him.
At this point, if you said “who?” I wouldn’t blame you at all. Patrick Russell was a guy who Tippett liked on the 4th line early in the year but as it often goes in the bottom 6 other guys have pushed him out.
Russell is rather forgettable as a player. He has only produced 0-4-4 for offense and even then hasn’t produced any offense at all since Nov. 24. He was out of the lineup against the Rangers. Considering that the Oilers pulled out a win from that, I tend to think he won’t play in the next game, either. The only thing Russell seems to excel at is hitting, as he’s 8th on the team with 41 hits.
But is that enough to hold onto a roster spot? On this team that is lacking in depth scoring, I tend to think not. Unless Russell can pick up his offense, I doubt he’s back next year. At this point, he may not even get in the lineup again for awhile.
Alex Chiasson was the feel-good story of last year. Dude came to camp on a PTO, earned a contract with the team, and proceeded to be a fixture in the top 6, producing career bests in goals with 22 and points with 38. He survived the ax in the GM change as he was rewarded with a 2-year contract at $2.15 million per.
Fast forward to this season and Chiasson has been the biggest disappointment of the season.
Expected to be a regular in the top 6, he has produced a paltry 4-8-12 in 36 games this season. Unless he does better in the 2nd half of the season, he’ll finish with only 9 goals and 27 points – less than half the goals he produced last year and not even 2/3rds of the points he put up last year.
He is a -2 on the season, so at least he’s not leaking goals against, but that’s not good enough considering last year. There’s hope for him as his shooting % is 7.4% as opposed to his 12.3% career mark, but still. Unless he picks it up IMO he’ll find himself traded to wherever for a later round pick.
Sheahan was brought in as a familiar face by Holland from their Detroit days together to be the 3rd line center the Oilers were looking for to put up some secondary offense, but that didn’t happen.
Sheahan has 3-2-5 this season in 37 games. That works out to 7 goals and 11 points in a full season. Ouch. This is a guy who has put up seasons of 20 and 30 something points in the same role. He’s been so bad at scoring the Oilers have opted to play him on the wing.
Sheahan has proven himself reliable at faceoffs, going above 50% for the initial portion of the season, and is still respectable at 49.56% now. But we expect more from a veteran of 486 NHL games – same goes for his -8 rating. Not good enough. He doesn’t do anything else well so when he’s not contributing to the secondary offense he’s useless.
Russell has been a mainstay on the Oilers D for the past 3 seasons. He’s never been much of a puck mover but was capable of putting up some secondary offense, with respectable totals of 13, 21, and 16 points.
This year that offense seems to have dried up, as has most of Russell’s other skills. He has produced a paltry 0-4-4, not good enough by even secondary offense standards. That works out to – you guessed it – 8 assists over a full season – half his point totals from last year with a goose egg for goals to boot.
One other unique skill Russell brought to the table is he was one of the league’s leaders in shot-blocking in his time with the Oilers, where he was consistently in the top 3 in the league in that regard. Not this season. This season he’s down to 7th in the league right now with 86 – that’s a pace of 48 of the leader, teammate Oscar Klefbom.
I suppose 7th in the league is still pretty good, but it’s a huge dropoff from #1-3. At least his primary skill – defending – is still present as he’s even over the first half of the season, so he’s got that going for him. But considering the state of the Oilers’ D and the lack of depth scoring, they still need Russell’s 13-21 points as it’ll make a difference between another win or 2 or not – which may play a part in the Oilers making the playoffs or not.
Unless Russell picks it up if I had to guess I’d say Holland will likely choose between trading away Russell or the next person on my list.
Larsson and Kris Russell are going to be locked in a battle for a roster spot for the rest of the season because it’s become obvious that both have become too much of a drain on the team – and $8.2 million is too much for 2 d-men who are a drain on the team. 1 will be gone after this season and there’s a good chance neither player is on the roster in 2 seasons.
Anyway, we all remember how Larsson came to this team in the first place. PC happened. Larsson has been a pretty good addition to the roster as he shored up a position that badly needed some veteran reliability – right defense.
He has played that role well…..until now.
Like Russell, Larsson is capable of some secondary offense, usually about 13-20 points. And like Russell, he has struggled in that area as well – 1 assist in 20 games. Maybe I should cut Larsson some slack because he was injured for a large portion of the season, but Larsson is too key a player and a veteran of 518 games so we should expect better.
Unless Larsson picks it up in the 2nd half of the season, he’s on pace for a measly 4 assists. That’s not good enough. When you have a history of putting up 13-20 points, I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have you do it again.
Even his bread and butter – stay at home defending – has suffered this year. He was an atrocious -28 last year but let’s be honest he produced the 2nd most points of his career so we could overlook that a little.
Now he’s improved to -12, which is much better, but again as a 27-year-old veteran of 518 NHL games you expect better, especially when that’s what you’re known for. Also, no offense.
He’s 5th on the team in blocked shots with 42, which I guess is something, and 13th in hits with 29. Hey, I’m grasping at straws now. Hopefully, we chalk up Larsson’s bad 1st half to his injury and he does much better in the 2nd half of the season. I’m not convinced of that.
Archibald is another bottom 6 forward brought in for secondary offense but has not delivered. He’s been in and out of the lineup all season, and up and down the lineup as well.
He’s only produced 3-2-5 in 33 games this season, a huge disappointment considering he put up 12 goals and 22 points for Arizona last season. He’s on pace for 8 goals and 12 points this season, a significant dropoff from last season.
He’s also at -10 right now, a terrible regression from the +1 he put up last year with the Coyotes. He’s 2nd on the team in hits with 83, so I guess there’s that, but he was brought in for secondary offense, otherwise, he wouldn’t have sat in the pressbox for 9 games. Unless he starts scoring in the 2nd half, don’t expect him back next year.
Mike Smith
And now we save the most dubious for last. Smith has flat out sucked as of late, let’s say that. I had my doubts about Holland signing Smith when I thought better options were out there.
He started out great, in the first 2 months of the season he had a sub .920 sv%, but hasn’t had a game with a save % above .900 since Nov. 23, which not so coincidentally was his last win too. Smith has imploded just like he did last year in Calgary.
We can only hope that history repeats itself in the playoffs and Smith elevates his game at that point. Right now he’s at .893 with a 3.12 GAA. That’s not good enough whether you consider him a backup or a 1A. If we had better options in Bakersfield we would bring them up and him down. Alas, this is not the case as our guys in Bakersfield aren’t NHL ready yet.
Unless Smith picks it up, he’s as good as gone at the deadline, or sooner. We can’t go on like this. Maybe Pittsburgh will take him if we agree to take Matt Murray from them. He’s also struggling, but at least has room to improve. Smith’s only saving grace is last year’s playoffs.
Brandon Manning, Markus Granlund, Tomas Jurco
All three were up here early in the season, and now they’re in Bakersfield, so what does that tell you? They all sucked too much and can only play in the minors, end of story.
Can’t really judge them due to lack of sample size
Kailer Yamamoto, William Lagesson
Self-explanatory
Well…
That’s all folks. Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you enjoyed reading this.