Edmonton Oilers: End of season player report cards

As the Edmonton Oilers prepare for the offseason, here’s a report card of every player

Believe it or not, the Edmonton Oilers made progress as an organization this past season, and everyone involved should hold their heads high despite not making it past the play-in series. I’ve said this several times before, but in the NHL you’ve gotta walk before you can run.  You’ve gotta lose before you can win.

The Oilers now find themselves in a similar way to the team they were from their inception into the NHL in 1979 until 1982 – playoff contenders before they were Stanley Cup contenders. Even then, the dynasty didn’t start until 1984.

1983 was the year that the Oilers lost out in the cup final to a dynasty just wrapping up its last win – the New York Islanders.  In 1984 they beat that same Islanders team to flip the script and get their first cup.

I’m not suggesting the Oilers are on the verge of a dynasty v2.0, just that history is repeating itself in the sense that they have now moved into playoff contenders.  As any Oilers fan will remember, until last season they had spent 12 of the last 13 seasons outside the playoffs.

They’re not Stanley Cup contenders just yet – they’re still a few pieces personnel-wise away from that – and more playoff experiences away from that. Look at the Lightning this year.  Until this past season, the last time they won the cup was 2004.  They went to the cup final in 2015 but lost to Chicago.  They didn’t get to be who they are overnight, it took years of planning, trades, signings, and drafting.

The Oilers are a few years away from winning the cup, but they took a step forward this season from a mediocre hockey team to playoff contenders.  2nd place in the division.  That’s progress.  Going forward they need to focus on playoff success, then getting to the cup final, then winning.

Hopefully, that last one happens in the same season as an appearance in the cup finals, but if history is any indication with other teams you need to lose the cup final before you can win it.  I know I already said that but I really can’t emphasize it too much.  Want to see this team at the halfway mark of the season?  It’s right here.

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

Although a short injury and of course the canceling of the last month of the season put a damper on things for Connor McDavid, he is still the Oiler’s franchise player going forward. He did his thing on offence, putting up 34 goals and 97 points in 64 games this past season, good enough for 2nd in the league next to teammate Dr. Drai.  He maintained the same 1.52 PPG he had at the halfway mark.

In the playoffs, as expected he led the way for the Oilers, going 5-4-9 in 4 games. Unsurprisingly, he’s also a big part of the PP, producing 11-32-43 on the PP and leading the team in ice time on the PP with 3:53 per game.  Also unsurprisingly, he’s been scaled back on the PK, only spending about 6 seconds a game on the PK.  Interestingly enough, McDavid was only 5th on the team in total ice time, finishing at 21:52 per game.

We know he can produce offence, there’s no doubt about that. However, there are 2 areas of his game that McDavid has to tweak – fortunately, both of those areas are teachable.

One of those areas is playing without the puck.  The 23-year-old McDavid finished as a minus player this season for only the 2nd time in his career, finishing with a career-worst -6.  This is less of a concern with McDavid then it is with most players as he can usually outscore his mistakes, something most NHLers can’t do.  Still, head coach Dave Tippett stressed better defensive play as a team for the Oilers, and McDavid freely admitted he can do better in that area.

In the playoffs, he finished with a +1, which while on the right side of the ledger could, of course, always be better.  This is the hardest skill in the NHL to master, and although I wouldn’t say McDavid is struggling in this area, as one of the team’s best players he needs to set an example and be better.  Not to mention that’s part of his duty as the captain – if he leads in the right direction, the team will follow his lead.

The other part of his game that could use improvement is faceoffs.  He took the 3rd most faceoffs on the team this year with almost 700 and finished with a career-best of 47.76%.  So, while he looks like he’s already improving, he needs to be at 50% or better going forward.  This will result in more puck possession for the Oilers, which naturally means more shots on net, more goals, and more wins.

It’s a small thing, but McDavid can’t just rest on his scoring laurels as the Vancouver Canucks are the 1 club I could see perhaps threatening the Oilers place in the standings.  In order to threaten the Vegas Golden Knights for #1 and fend off Vancouver, small improvements like this will go a long way.

So while McDavid isn’t perfect, he’s still the greatest scorer in the league and we are so lucky to have him, something we are reminded of every season.  What still amazes me about McDavid is he’s only 23, which means we’re still 2 seasons away from his prime producing years.  In other words, even with all McDavid has accomplished, we still have yet to see his best hockey.

Let that sink in for a moment before moving onto the next player.

Leon Draisaitl – aka Dr. Drai

Dr.  Drai really set himself apart in the NHL this year.  He took the Oilers on a tear while Mcdavid was injured for 7 games and proved he’s not just riding McDavid’s coattails.  As the season went on and Kailer Yamamoto made it onto the roster full time, Dr. Drai was no longer McDavid’s winger but showed he could drive the bus on his own line.

He stayed healthy all season and put up 43-67-110 in 71 games, along with 3-3-6 in 4 playoff games.  For the record, that’s 1.55 PPG, and also good enough for top scorer in the league – and the only 100 point scorer this year, I may add.  We already know he’s going to clean up at the NHL awards with the Ted Lindsay and Hart trophies.

Unlike McDavid, it appears Draisaitl is also very good at faceoffs, as he finished this year tops on the team in faceoffs taken with 1,269. He also finished with the top % on the team among those who took a significant amount of faceoffs at 52.09%, a 2% improvement on last year’s 50.52%.

Also like McDavid, he spends a lot of time on the PP, 3:51 per game, 2nd only to McDavid.  He generated 16-28-44 on the PP of his 100 points this year.  However, unlike McDavid, Dr. Drai spends a lot more time on the PK, going 52 seconds per game on the PK.

Not sure why he spends so much more time on the PK than McDavid, but it’s hard to argue with the #2 PK in the league.  Hats off to coach Tippett for that.  For the record, total ice time per game with him was 3rd on the team with 22:37.

The one area of improvement for Dr. Drai is his play without the puck, as he finished -7 in the regular season, and although he improved to +1 in the playoffs, again like Mcdavid you can always do better. We all thought that $8.5 million cap hit was nuts when Chiarelli signed him to it, but fortunately, he covered the bet on it.

The McDrai duo are the best 1-2 punch at center in the league and will be driving the offence for a long time here. Dr. Drai will be 25 and entering his PPY by the time next season starts.  I can’t wait to see how he follows up next season.

Nuuuuuuuge

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is the guy who’s been there and done that in an Oilers uniform.  He was here almost the entire dark days and is surely glad the team is on the upswing now.  Although technically his stats took a bit of a dive this season, it’s nothing to be concerned about as in a full season he projected out to 77 points – he finished with 22-31-61 in 65 games.  That’s flirting with the PPG mark which is awesome.  With a full season, he would’ve set a new career-high this year.  He picked up his game in the playoffs – 2-6-8 in 4 games.  Fantastic.

As you might expect, he’s #3 on the team in PP ice time, clocking in 3:45 a game next only to the McDrai duo.  he put up 7-17-24 on the PP out of his 61 total points.  He spends more time on the PK than the McDrai duo, though, clocking in at 1:43 per game.  Total ice time for Nuge was at 20:28 per game, 6th on the team.  Although as a winger these days he doesn’t take a whole lot of faceoffs, he still took 404 this season, good enough for 5th on the team and 50.7% – 1st time in his career he’s cracked the 50% mark.

Much like with the McDrai duo, Nuge could use a little improvement away from the puck.  He finished well enough in the regular season at +1 – a huge improvement from last year when he was -13.  But he regressed a bit in the playoffs, finishing those 4 games with a -2, which is not good.  That’s going to have to get better.

One thing I wonder about Nuge is whether he feels better or worse not being the franchise saviour now.  Does he like or hate a lower profile on the team now?  We’ll probably never get an honest answer to the question, but it’s interesting to think about.  In either case, he’s still a core player who forms a great winger on the port side for Dr. Drai.  Long live the Nuge.

Oscar Klefbom

Unless a clear upgrade can be had for Klefbom, expect him to remain on the Oilers for the foreseeable future.  We might have a bit of a derailment on our hands with the career of this young man, though, when we found out this.

If Klefbom is out for the entirety of next season, that would be a huge blow to our D corps.  Unless Holland is able to pull off a trade for Oliver Ekman-Larsson or something, then the Klefbom injury will definitely affect us for next season.  In either case, whether he is in the lineup for next season or not, he’s still a huge part of the future, signed for 3 more seasons at a great value contract of $4.167 million a year.

Anyway, Klefbom did suffer some injury trouble, as did most of the team this year.  In fact, we just found out he’s been playing with an injured shoulder for 2 seasons now.  What’s really amazing, though, is Klefbom was still able to lead the Oilers from the blueline in terms of offence, putting up 5-29-34 and another 2 assists in 4 games.

If he has a chronic shoulder injury, he hid it well.  Even more remarkable is the improvement in his own zone play we saw from Klefbom, and not just by a little bit either.  Klefbom finished with an ugly -17 in the regular season but improved to 0 in the playoffs.  Talk about elevating your defensive game… if only he could put up that number in the regular season, we might get another win or 2 out of it.  Let’s hope that ugly +/- is a product of his shoulder injury.

As you would expect, Klefbom is the Oiler’s main weapon from the point on the PP.  He’s #4 on the team in PP time at 3:38 per game.  On the PP he put up 2-16-18 of his 34 points.  That’s just over half his points on the PP, which I’d be more concerned about if he was a forward, but fortunately, he’s not.  Amazingly, he leads the team on the PK in ice time, at 2:29 per game.  He also led the team in blocked shots with 180.

In fact, Klefbom leads the team in ice time, at 25:25 per game.  That’s also #5 in the league by the way – only Kris Letang, Roman Josi, Drew Doughty, and Thomas Chabot play more than Klefbom does. Naturally, he plays a lot of important minutes.  Let’s hope for a speedy recovery from whatever route he chooses and that Holland can pull a rabbit out of his hat in trade, otherwise our offence from the blueline will dip hard next season.

Darnell Nurse

A lot of fans want to trade Nurse for some reason.  I am not one of them.  Nurse creates a great duo on the left side of the D corps with Klefbom.  1 of only 3 players to play full time and remain healthy all of last season, Nurse anchored our 2nd pairing and then anchored the 1st for a while as well.

He finished the year just behind Klefbom with 5-28-33 and a -2, which is much better defensively than Klefbom was – it’s amazing what health can do for an NHL player.  He also brings an element of physicality to his game, as he was #2 on the team in PIMs last year, with 48.  Only Zack Kassian had more.

In the playoffs, he put up the same 2 assists in 4 games as Klefbom did but regressed a little to -3.  Look for Tippett to challenge him to improve on that.  Nurse is in the middle of his PPY, and although he regressed a little bit from the 41 points he put up 2 seasons ago, his 33 points this year were still the 2nd best totals of his career.  He turned 25 midseason so he’s already in his prime and I’d love to see what we do for a followup with this guy.

Nurse does spend time on the PP as well, playing the point on the 2nd PP unit.  He clocks in about 1:04 per game on the PP, and put up 0-5-5 on the PP of his 33 points.  He was a pretty big part of the PK this year too, clocking 2:02 on the PK, good enough for 5th on the team.  Overall he was 2nd on the team in ice time, clocking in at 23:27 per game.  He also led the team in hits last season with 172 and was 2nd on the team in blocked shots with 141.  Not to mention he was 2nd on the team in PIMs with 48.

The 1 thing that concerns me a bit about Nurse is he took 26 fewer shots than 2 seasons ago and his shooting % regressed from 5.1% to 2.9%.  Let’s hope he improves on that as he’ll be an even more key member of the blueline if indeed Klefbom is out for the entire season next year.

Gaetan Haas

A bit of an unorthodox find by Holland from the Swiss leagues, Haas was supposed to be depth for the bottom 6, and going into next season it appears Haas is the front runner for 4th line center.

As a 4th liner, he put up 5-5-10 in 58 games this season.  That’s about average for a 4th liner, and decent as a North American rookie.  Finishing -1 only cinches that – and I’m willing to bet with more experience next season he can improve on the latter.

As you would expect, not a lot of special teams time to be had here.  He did get about 21 seconds of PP time per game and 5 seconds per game on the PK, nothing much to speak of.  9:42 per game overall.

One thing Haas will have to improve upon for next season is faceoffs.  He finished the season with a horrible 42.2% in 408 faceoffs taken.  That will likely be the major skill Tippett wants Haas to work on next season.  If he can improve upon that in his 2nd season expect his offence to get a slight uptick from it due to more puck possession.

Overall, though, a pretty solid 4th liner, especially for a European rookie.  I guess I should mention he largely sat out the playoffs, though he did get into 1 game where he produced no offence.  We can chalk his lack of ice time in the playoffs due to Tippett playing his most experienced roster.

Let’s see what he does for an encore.

Caleb Jones

Seth Jones’s younger brother played as a part-time 3rd pairing d-man on the left side, called up when Kris Russell got injured and never looked back.  He did so well in 43 games that it looks like he’ll take that spot full-time next season barring news on what’s happening with Oscar Klefbom’s injury or a Kris Russell trade, whatever comes 1st.

Finishing 4-5-9 in 43 games doesn’t seem that impressive, but when you project it out to a full 82 game season you get 7 goals and 17 points in 82 games, which is about what you’d expect for a 3rd pairing D.  Finishing with a -1 on the season is pretty decent too for a rookie.  Hopefully, he can do even better next season.  He played 2 games in the playoffs but produced no offence and improving to +1 – again we’ll chalk that up to inexperience.

I can’t wait to see what he does next season.  Jones is exactly the kind of value player that we need occupying this roster spot.  His ice time for the year was 14:08, about what you’d expect for a 3rd pairing guy.  Not a lot of special teams ice time to speak of, 6 seconds a game on the PP and 3 seconds a game on the PK.  No surprise as usually 3rd pairing guys don’t do that.

Joakim Nygard

Another European player who Holland imported, Nygard was, like Haas, a depth piece for the bottom 6.  Nygard earned a spot on the 4th line after training camp, and did pretty good for European rookie, going 3-6-9 in 33 games and finishing even on the season.

Pretty good for a bottom 6 rookie.  He was playing 10:41 on the season in ice time, with 30 seconds a game of ice time on the PP and 1 second per game on the PK.  Unfortunately, Nygard’s season was derailed by injury as he was kept out of the lineup for the rest of the season and the play-in series with Chicago.  Holland liked what he saw of him, though, and re-upped him for another year at a slight discount.

It’ll be interesting to see what Nygard can do for an encore.  His numbers from last year project out to 22 points on the season, and if he can accomplish that in the bottom 6 while maintaining defensively responsible play, he’ll be a success as a player.

Patrick Russell

I honestly don’t know why Ken Holland re-signed this player.  I don’t know what exactly he did on the team this year.  As a part-time bottom 6 forward, he put up 0-5-5 in 45 games.  Over a full NHL season, that projects out to 9 assists.  Not exactly something to write home about.

That being said, IMO Russell is being re-signed for his potential.  It sure isn’t for his present – in 51 NHL games, he’s still looking for his 1st NHL goal.  Last season he finished at -11, so he wasn’t even good defensively.  Against the softest possible competition ever – seeing as how he played on the 4th line.

Russell is the textbook definition of a generic 4th line player – last season he averaged 11:22 of the most generic minutes ever.  As you would expect, he doesn’t play a lot on the PP, only averaging 4 seconds a game there.  It seems he is a middling part of the PK, though, as he averaged 43 seconds a game there.  That’s something, I guess.

He does contribute some physical play, I guess – 64 hits last season, good enough for 9th on the team.  13th on the team in blocked shots with 25, which again, is something… I guess.

In my opinion, you wouldn’t find a more forgettable player on the roster last year than Russell.  He didn’t play a single playoff game in the play-in series with Chicago.  All that being said, however, Holland did re-sign him.  After hearing the comments from both Holland himself and Russell when he was virtually interviewed about the extension on the Oilers website, both guys said they thought he was capable of more offence.  Since Russell himself believes this, chances are he’s going to be motivated to make it happen, for whatever that’s worth.

The only reason Russell is on this list and not further down in the other two categories is that Holland believes in him.  Otherwise, I have to ask myself what’s the point of bringing this player back?  Hopefully, the experience of last year taught Russell how to play and he does indeed make good on his belief that he can produce more offence.  Otherwise, I’m betting Russell gets sent back down to Bakersfield in short order.  But, if he makes good on the bet, he’d be a solid candidate for 3rd line RW.

Tyler Ennis

Ennis didn’t play a lot of games for the Oilers, as he was acquired from Ottawa at the trade deadline, but I’m really hoping Holland re-signs him, as in my opinion, he’ll fit in well with the team next year.

He put up 2-2-4 in 9 games, not bad for a bottom 6 forward.  Over a full season that projects out to 18 goals and 36 points, a solid total.  I could see Ennis being cheap depth help for us next year.  Before getting injured in the playoffs, he put up 1-1-2 in 3 games.  He played a lot of time with Connor McDavid in the games he did play and IMO he certainly didn’t look out of place.

He’s about average in his own end – finishing at -1 in those 9 games – but that should be good enough.  Considering that he’s facing the toughest competition possible if he’s riding shotgun next to McDavid, which is pretty good.  Oh, and did I mention he elevated his defensive game in the playoffs and finished even in 3 games?

Admittedly, the sample size is pretty short with this player, but I liked what I saw from him last year – and what better situation would there be for Ennis elsewhere in the NHL?  He gets to play for his hometown team – yup, he’s an Edmonton boy – and if all goes well he could be riding shotgun next to the best player in the NHL and either Jesse Puljujarvi or Zack Kassian on the other side next season.

Oh, and did I mention he can play all 3 forward positions?  The team could use that kind of versatility in the lineup.  Ennis is exactly the type of player we need here.  Cheap scoring help, a guy who can play on the top line but be paid little enough that he’s not a cap space anchor in the bottom 6 should he struggle and someone else needs to take his place.

Pittsburgh did this with guys like Carl Hagelin, Bryan Rust, and early Jake Guentzel riding shotgun for Sidney Crosby.  Phil Kessel was the only expensive player who was a winger in Pittsburgh’s top 6 before being traded to Arizona.  I think Ennis could be that guy here.  He’s a bit inconsistent from season to season but he has hit the 20 goal mark three times in his career.  At 30 years old his career isn’t done, and I could honestly see Holland sign him for $1.5 million for 2-3 years – if even that.

Granted, he hasn’t done it in six seasons, but what better center for him to get back to that mark with than Mcdavid?  I mean, he scored 14 goals on a mediocre Ottawa Senators team this past year, there’s no doubt in my mind that Mcdavid feeding him passes would help him pick up the slack and get back to the 20 goal mark.  If you include the two goals he got for us in the regular season after the trade, that boosts his total to 16 goals on the season.

That’s not that far away from 20 goals – and that was just this past season.  Another reason to be optimistic?  His shooting % was only 10% this season, and 10.1% on the Sens.  That’s slightly below the NHL average of 12%, so even if he’s an NHL average shooter that will give his numbers an uptick.

He doesn’t get much help from special teams, either, as he only plays about six seconds a game on the PP and three seconds a game on the PK.  Overall about 14:43 a night.  So to sum up – we have a local Edmonton boy who can be signed for cheap, who has scoring hands, and who has the speed to keep up with Mcdavid, something not everyone can do.  It may be a short sample size, but Ennis is a calculated risk worth taking on.  Get it done, Ken Holland.  He’s the only player on my list in this category who isn’t signed for next year yet.

Mikko Koskinen

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here when I say that Koskinen is overpaid at $4.5 million per year, the dubious distinction of being the last transaction Chiarelli did before he was fired.  That being said, until someone better comes along Koskinen will be a fixture for the Oilers in net.

He’s not a starter who can carry the load, but he’s proven he can be a solid 1A type, which lucky for us the league is moving towards anyway.  His regular-season stats improved last season, as he went from a .906 sv% two seasons ago to a .917, and his GAA went down from 2.93 to 2.75.  The former was good enough for 21st in the league, a tie with Andrei Vasilevsky of all goalies.  The latter is 32nd in the league, tied with Jakob Markstrom.

If anything the black mark on Koskinen’s season was in the playoffs, where instead of elevating his game as is required by all players of playoff-bound teams, Koskinen’s sunk to an ugly .889 sv% and 3.16 GAA. Now before we crucify him for that, it’s important to remember two things.

First off, the rest of the team in front of him faltered in terms of elevating their games as well, and even the best goalies can’t carry the team if all the skaters in front of them are dogging it or making too many defensive lapses, which is exactly what happened in the playoffs for the Oilers.  That affects his numbers, no doubt about it.  Secondly, this was Koskinen’s 1st trip to the NHL playoffs, so naturally, he’ll be unaware of what the intensity of play is like in the playoffs.

It is because of these two facts that I won’t crucify him and declare him to be a solution moving forward, despite however out of whack his cap hit is.  That being said, there is no doubt in my mind that Koskinen learns from his mistakes.  He did better this regular season from last year, especially since we didn’t work him like a rented mule this past season as opposed to the 55 games he played 2 seasons ago.

Having a better tandem goalie than Mike Smith will certainly help as well.  Almost anyone will be an upgrade on him.  I have every confidence Koskinen will improve in next season’s playoffs after learning from this year’s.  I look forward to improvement from Koskinen next year.

James Neal

I know, I know.  His contract is crazy, but the Oilers still win with the Lucic trade because Neal put up more offence and doesn’t have an NMC in his contract.  At this point, Neal is only still with us because of his contract, but that could change next year with the Seattle expansion draft.  Any talk of a buyout is unrealistic as I illustrated here.

Anyway, Neal at this point is best described as a powerplay specialist.  He’s lost a step in speed, so at even strength, he plays limited minutes in the bottom 6.  But, when it’s time for the 1st unit PP to come out, out comes Neal.

Because he’s still an elite PP producer, Neal put up 19-12-31 in 55 regular-season games, and 2-1-3 in the 4 playoff games for us.  As you’d expect from a good veteran soldier, Neal elevated his game in the playoffs, going +3 in the playoffs after posting an ugly team and career-worst -20 in the regular season.

Fun fact, in the first month or so in the season, he was doing so well on the PP that he was actually leading the league in goals.  He would’ve easily made 20 in a full 82 game season, projecting out to 29 goals and 46 points.

Now you know why he’s not playing in the top 6.  As you might expect, Neal played a modest 16:16 TOI average last season, and 2:53 per game on the PP, 5th on the team.  As you’d expect, he only spends about one second per game on the PK.  I was surprised to see that Neal is a bit of a physical player, as he finished last season with 88 hits, 6th on the team.

I don’t know if Neal’s ugly +/- in the regular season is an aberration or the sign of a new normal.  At 33 years old, you can’t rule out the latter.  However, Neal still serves a purpose on the team, and if Holland is smart he gives Seattle a draft pick to take him in the expansion draft next offseason.  Neal is still a valuable player for now – I can’t think of a team that would trade for him, especially in this cap climate.

Kris Russell

Russell was a Peter Chiarelli signing, that in and of itself puts Russell with a target on his back going into this offseason with a different GM holding the reins.  Russell himself is still a pretty solid defender – he’s a stay at home d-man who has been an even or plus player 3 out of 4 years with the Oilers thus far.

He’s also very versatile as he’s the only d-men on the roster that can play both the left and right sides.  This season was no exception as he finished even in 55 games – although he did play the entire playoffs on the 3rd pairing and finished -1 with no offence at all.  That’s the 1st time in his career he hasn’t put up any points during a playoff series.

The problem comes when you look at the depth chart of the team.  With everyone healthy – remember this phrase because it’s key for further down the description – Russell has no place on the roster anymore.  That’s not a knock on the player – I still very much like him as a player – but he got pushed down the roster twice this season as prospects gestated ahead of schedule and he was the odd man out.

When Ethan Bear made the Oilers out of training camp last season, that pushed him down to the 3rd pairing, seeing as how you’re not going to demote Nurse, Larsson, or Klefbom.  Then, when Russell himself got injured and the Oilers needed to call somebody up, they called up Caleb Jones – and he proceeded to put up the same 9 points Russell did this year except in 12 fewer games.  When Russell came back, that created a logjam at the position and he and Jones shared the spot the rest of the season.

Now logically, this would mean Russell would be on his way out in trade for next season, correct?  It seemed all but certain until this happened.  With Klefbom looking like he is slated to be out for the entire season next year, someone needs to plug his hole on the roster.  Although Holland has not said whether he will bring in another player from the outside or simply go with the options already signed on the roster, having Russell signed for 1 more season gives Holland a luxury he wouldn’t otherwise have had:  using internal options to plug the hole Klefbom leaves on the roster.

Now I’m not suggesting by any means that Russell alone is good enough to make up for Klefbom’s offence or minutes – far from it.  It means Russell could simply take Klefbom’s roster spot, and his offence and minutes would have to be spread around to the 3 puck movers and Russell.  In this scenario, Russell would then move back into the top 4 – probably on the left side of the 2nd pairing playing with Larsson, as Nurse-Bear would be elevated to the 1st pairing.

This would then leave Jones playing full time on the 3rd pairing left side.  If all goes well, the best-case scenario is Jones might be able to move into Russell’s spot late next season, moving Russell back down into the 3rd pairing.  At the end of the season, Russell’s contract is up and we let him walk to save cap space.  In the meantime, Klefbom’s $4.167 million cap hit would be on IR for the year, thus negating the effect of Russell’s $4 million cap hit.

It will be a little more difficult to trade Russell if he brings in an outside hire as for some stupid reason Chiarelli gave Russell an NTC with a 10 team trade list, which increases to 15 once next season starts.  This might be tough to do, but Russell does have trade value.  Besides the aforementioned own zone play, the fact he can play both left and right sides will come in handy, especially for teams looking for guys to play the right side.  Those d-men are always in demand on the trade market.  The secondary offence he produces is a nice point in his favour, too.

Anyway, back to Russell as a player.  You’d never know this about Russell unless you looked him up, but Russell is important to the Oilers PK, as he plays about 2:19 a game on the PK, 3rd most minutes on the team.  Unsurprisingly, he’s not much on the PP, only spending about 1 second a game there on average.  16:47 overall.  He was also #8 on the team in hits last year with 71, and 4th on the team last year in blocked shots with 101.  Fun fact, Russell led the league in blocked shots two seasons in a row in his first two years in an Oilers uniform.

All of that also increases his trade value – and his value to the team, too.  His style often results in him being injured, though, as he’s never once played a full NHL season.  He came close a couple of times – going 79 games with Calgary once and 78 with Edmonton once, but those two seasons are as close as he’s come.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Holland chooses to retain Russell to help out in the wake of Klefbom’s injury or whether he gets traded prior to next season.  Frankly, there are merits to both.  Tough call for Holland.

Adam Larsson

There’s a rumour out there that the Oilers are looking at trading Adam Larsson to remake the defence.  Lots of Oiler fans in the comments section of different blogs will say we should trade him, however very few can come up with the answer to this obvious question:  “Who do you replace him with?”

After all, Larsson is a d-man who’s proven he can play a good 20 minutes a night without being overwhelmed, something not every NHL d-man can do.  The Oilers also don’t have an internal option that can step in right away.  I saw one ridiculous suggestion from a fan who said we can just move Bear and Benning up a spot and slot Bouchard into the 3rd pairing.  This wouldn’t work as from the playoffs we know Bear isn’t ready to take on Larsson’s minutes just yet.

He’s barely finished his rookie season, and we don’t want to overwhelm the poor kid by force-feeding him minutes.  Benning is not a top 4 d-man, he’s already proven that in his career.  As for Bouchard, we don’t even know if he can play in the NHL yet, much less play with his head above water in a regular spot.  What we know about Bouchard now is he needs to work on his play without the puck in Bakersfield, gifting him a spot in the big leagues before he’s ready is not wise.

So, although Larsson may have his flaws, we still need him here for now.  I don’t know why, but for some odd reason, TSN has him at #25 on their trade bait board.  That doesn’t make sense, as the only way top pairing guys get replaced 9 times out of 10 is internally.  Replacing them with an outside hire is very difficult, and will require either a blockbuster signing in free agency or a king’s ransom in trade, and even then very few teams will want to part with their 1st pairing guys because they need them on their current clubs.

The Oilers can’t afford either of those options right now.  As much as it pains us, we’ll have to stick with Larsson still, for now, maybe give him a short term contract after this season is up if no other player has moved the needle to the point of taking his minutes from him.

Anyway, back to Larsson as a player.  Larsson dealt with injury this year and was only able to play 49 games this past season, in which he put up 1-5-6 and even in those 49 games.  That’s way down from the offence he’s put up in past seasons, but on the plus side, he certainly recovered from the awful -28 he put up 2 seasons ago to finish even last season.  In the playoffs, he only played 2 games with no offence and a -1 before getting injured again.

He played an average of 19:50 per game this season, which is down from 2 seasons ago due to better depth in the D corps means that the minutes have to be spread out more.  Like Russell, he only played about 1 second per game on the PP, but played 1:37 on the PK, good enough for 8th on the team last season.  He finished 5th on the team in blocked shots with 82, and also 5th on the team in hits with 112.

There are very few players actually available in trade or free agency who could take Larsson’s minutes without a problem or a high cost to acquire.  This means I would bet the farm that Larsson won’t be going anywhere for least 2 more seasons.  The Klefbom injury makes this even less so now.  After all, could you honestly tell me the Oilers could remake their entire top pairing with outside hires without missing a beat?  That’s not a realistic expectation and comes with too much risk for our GM.  Larsson stays here and is even re-signed for a short term contract.  Count on it.

Andreas Athanasiou

Holland pickup AA was a trade deadline acquisition that he paid a dear price of 2 2nd round picks for.  There’s also the matter of the short sample size – he’s only played 9 regular-season games here plus 4 playoff games.  There’s also the speed Athanasiou has going for him, which in theory makes him a fit for a winger for Connor Mcdavid’s line.  Even if you include his boxcars from the Red Wings, he’s still only at 11-15-26.

But it’s hard to ignore the downsides to Athanasiou coming back next season.  There’s the fact that he struggled to put up points, putting up a pedestrian 1-1-2 in those 9 games and no offence in 4 playoff games – with a -1 in the regular season and a -2 in the playoffs.  He’s put up 30 goals once but other than that his next highest total is 18.  Then there’s the fact that he’s an RFA, which means his QO must give him at least a mandatory 10% raise.  That would put his cap hit up to $3.3 million – which is too much for a struggling player, especially one who played most of the season in the bottom 6 and struggled to play in the top 6.

Athanasiou appears to be the type of player that at this point has great speed but poor hands.  However, it’s reasonable to project a bounceback year next season for AA as he finished with an 8.7 shooting % in Detroit and a 7.1 shooting % as an Oiler.  His career average is about NHL average, at 12.2%.

As of October 6, we know that Holland will not issue AA a QO and will let him walk.  I assume AA wasn’t open to signing at a discount.  Tough to swallow the loss of 2 2nd round picks, but not every move a GM makes will be a win.

Athanasiou played about 12:19 per game on average.  He is on the 2nd unit PP, but played only 22 seconds a game on average on the PP, and nothing on the PK.  He doesn’t bring any other skillset to the table, although he can play all 3 forward positions which is good.  He won’t be missed all that much, though.

Matt Benning

Judging by the comments sections of other blogs, a lot of Oilers fans are in the love with this guy as a player, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why.

3 seasons ago Matt Benning was an excellent 3rd pairing defender.  He finished on the good side of the +/- ledger and finished with over 20 points that season.  Those are great numbers for a bottom pairing d-man.

But fast forward to last season and things changed.  He’s still good defensively, as he finished the season with a team-best and career tying +8, however the fact that is against the softest competition the forward ranks have to offer in the NHL dampers your enthusiasm for that a bit.

Ever since that season in 2017-18, his offence has cratered to 1-7-8 in 43 games this past season.  Now projecting that out in a full 82 game season, Benning would put up 16 points, which is not great but not bad.  However, it’s worth noting that in 4 NHL seasons Benning has not once played an entire 82 game season.  There is some room for improvement as his 2.6% shooting % is over 2 full percentage points lower than his career average, but frankly, I don’t know how that would play out for a bottom pairing D other than a very slight uptick.

Complicating matters is, like AA, Benning is an RFA and his new QO would push him past the $2 million mark – too much for a 3rd pairing d-man, especially one whose offensive production is less than half of what it was 3 seasons ago.

Holland has said publicly in the past he wants his depth players to contribute on offence – that goes for both forwards and defence.  Also, it’s worth noting that Benning was signed by Peter Chiarelli.  This increases his chances of not being issued a QO and being shown the door.

I get the feeling if Benning is open to signing for $1.5 million or less, then Holland would be open to bringing him back.  If not, though, Benning would be a free agent in a depressed cap climate – not exactly a recipe for a lucrative contract, as lucrative as you can get as a 3rd pairing D anyway.

As you would expect, Benning only plays about 13:14 average ice time per game, with no PP time but 38 seconds a game of PK time.  He does bring a slight physical presence with him, as he was 7th on the team in hits with 78 and 9th on the team in blocked shots with 34.  As of October 6, we know Holland will not issue Benning a QO and he will walk.  For me, he will not be missed and will be easily replaced by a cheaper player.

Zack Kassian

On the surface, it appears the Zack Attack doesn’t belong in this category.  He put up 15-19-34 in 59 games this year.  That was 4th on the team in scoring this year.  In a full season that projects out to 21 goals and 48 points.  He finished even this year for the 2nd time in his career.  As you would expect, for a power forward like Zack Kassian, he led the team in PIMs this year finishing up with 69 PIMs.  He was also #3 on the team in hits with 157, beaten out only by Josh Archibald and Darnell Nurse.

So what was the problem with his season?  Well, there were a few, actually.  1st of all, he only produced 2 goals and 5 assists in the 2020 calendar year.  In other words, 13-14-27 came in 2019.  He slumped so bad Dave Tippett played him on the 4th line to end the season.

Now it’s important to bear in mind that Kassian is starting a new contract new season that carries a $3.2 million cap hit for 4 seasons.  Is that the contract of a 4th liner?  No, it’s not.  Kassian is most valuable when he’s playing his game – using his size in combination with his hands to make things happen and clear the way for Connor Mcdavid to do his thing.  In other words, he’s supposed to be a core player in the top 6.  Not a 4th liner.

The next problem was his play in the playoffs.  Remember in 2017 when he led the team in scoring in the 1st round against San Jose?  Well, in the play-in series against Chicago he produced exactly… zero offence.  He also dipped to a -4.  What happened?  How could you take such a sharp dip in play, especially on the 4th line?  That’s alarming.

The other problem is his shooting % was 15.2%, over 3% higher than his career – and the NHL – average.  This means even with the slump he endured in an entire calendar year, we can expect his numbers to dip even more next season, which frankly is a little alarming.

He didn’t spend a lot of time on special teams, putting up 1 second a game on the PK and only 25 seconds a game on the PP.  Honestly, can you blame DT for doing that?  I can’t.  What’s the point of having a slumping player on the PP?

We need Zack Kassian to get back to his 2019 calendar year self and his 2017 playoffs self.  That’s the guy that can take Connor Mcdavid’s leftovers and do something with them.  That’s the guy who hits everyone to clear ice for Connor McDavid.  That’s the guy who makes the rest of the league back off the McDrai duo.  We need him back next season or I guarantee Ken Holland will ship him out on the 1st trade he can arrange.  This kind of inconsistency next season won’t be tolerated.

Alex Chiasson

Chiasson’s fall from grace in one season has been swift and brutal.  Two seasons ago in a contract year, he set career highs all-around playing mostly in the top 6 and with 22-16-38 in 73 games.  In the pre-Kailer Yamamoto era, everyone was impressed with Chiasson – we thought we’d finally found a solution to the wafer-thin depth at RW.  The best part was all it cost us was a PTO in the preseason and a short term contract afterward.

As Holland was in year one on the job, though, he wisely challenged Chiasson to prove it wasn’t a fluke, giving him a contract extension but only for $4.3 million for 2 seasons – $2.15 million per.  Fast forward to last season and we can see that Chiasson’s production in 2018-19 was, in fact, a fluke.  He only managed 11-13-24 in 65 games at the time of season’s pause.  Last season he rode an unsustainable 17.89% shooting %, which probably accounts for the difference.

Now granted, he played 8 fewer games than last year, but would 8 games really help a player whose goal scoring was cut in half from last year and whose point production was cut almost in half?  Unlikely.  Chiasson was playing right where he deserved to be, on the 3rd line.  He is part of the 2nd unit PP, where 6 of his 11 goals and 13 of his 24 points were produced.

Personally, I shudder to think how bad Chiasson’s numbers would be had he NOT been on the 2nd unit PP.    His shooting % has predictably gone down to 11.3%.  His career average is 12.6%, right around NHL average.  A slight bump in said shooting % would help a bit but now we know Chiasson is nothing but a bottom 6 forward, albeit a fairly solid one.

His +/- dipped slightly to -3 from -1.  Normally that’s not an alarming thing but it’s logical to expect better from a player who is a veteran of 519 games in 8 NHL seasons who is playing the softest possible competition at the other end of the rink.

The one saving grace of his season is he elevated his game in the playoffs and put up 1-1-2 and a +1 in the 4 games.  But again, this comes with a caveat as Chiasson rode a 14.3% shooting %.  It’s reasonable to expect his numbers to dip in next year’s playoffs when considering that number.

Chiasson’s ice time comes in right where you would expect him to – at 13:07 on average.  Surprisingly, he’s #6 on the team in PP TOI at 2:13 per game.  As you would expect for a player who is slightly below average defensively, he doesn’t play on the PK at all.

He does contribute physical play, surprisingly, as he was 3rd on the team in PIMs last season with 42, but for a guy who’s 6’4″ and 208 lbs, you’d expect him to throw his weight around a little.  He was also 12th on the team in hits with 56 and 18th on the team in blocked shots with 15.

Although Chiasson’s offence is fine for a bottom 6 player, it does disturb me a bit that he spends that much time on the PP and still produced way less offence than last year, although I’d be more disturbed if he played on the 1st unit and not the 2nd.

In short, Chiasson is nothing more than a bland, vanilla bottom 6 winger.  If his cap hit was around $1.5 million or below, that would be fine, but at $2.15 million he’s making a bit much for where he plays.  Look for Holland to make him a minor trade target to a team with an abundance of cap space that needs more veterans in their bottom 6.

Frankly, he’s crying out for a change of scenery, as Edmonton will always be a place where he fell from grace.  Don’t be surprised if Holland deals him this offseason in a minor trade for a 3rd-6th round pick.  There’s a lot of cheaper options to replace him with.

Riley Sheahan

If it weren’t for Alex Chiasson’s offensive production cratering, Riley Sheahan’s abysmal play would’ve been much more of a story this year.  Holland brought him in as the 3rd line center, and by the end of the season he was so bad he was a healthy scratch.  Much like Chiasson, you expect better from a veteran of 513 games over 11 seasons.  Is there anything he did well during the season?  Let’s find out together.

Sheahan has played 66 games for the Oilers this year, putting up 8-7-15 in those 66 games.  Now to be fair, in a full 82 games he would’ve put up 10 goals and 19 points.  That’s in the range of expectations for what you’d want in a 3rd liner, but it’s not exactly irreplaceable numbers.  Sheahan was so bad this season it took him until Nov. 19th to get his 1st point as an Oiler and until December 8th to get his 1st goal.  Ouch.

He was re-inserted into the lineup for the playoffs due to his “veteranosity” and as a thank you to Dave Tippett produced exactly… no offence in the four games. He was also a defensive dumpster fire, putting up -13 on the season, the 2nd worst number of his career, and 4th worst on the team.  He did rebound to -1 in the playoffs, but I’d be more impressed with that if he finished at +13 instead of -13.  Again, for a vet of 11 seasons, I expect better.

The really crazy thing about his lack of offence is he had a shooting % of 11.4%, which is almost a full % off the NHL average and 2% higher than his career average.  I shudder to think how little the 28-year-old will put up in his next posting.  No surprise here but Sheahan spent about 2 seconds a game on the PP.  His total ice time was only 12:48 per game last season, again no surprise there.    He did have the 2nd best ice time of any Oiler on the PK, though, logging about 2:21 per game, only bettered by Oscar Klefbom.

I guess he wasn’t completely useless last season.  Another black mark on Sheahan’s season?  He took the 2nd most faceoffs of any Oiler last season at 834 and finished at only 49.04%.  That’s WAY down from the 54.93% he put up in Florida last season.  He did a lot better in the playoffs, finishing with 64.29%, but.. .it’s four games, so who cares?

Well, at this point Holland doesn’t seem interested in bringing him back, and frankly, I can’t say I blame him.  The only thing he did well this season was play on the PK.  In today’s NHL even the bottom 6 forwards should be more than one-trick ponies.  Holland’s been hot on the trail of a 3rd line center, not something he’d be doing if he wanted Sheahan back.  If this were Sophie’s Choice the movie would’ve been a lot shorter.

Jujhar Khaira

3 seasons ago, Khaira was an excellent bottom 6 forward.  He put up 11 goals and 21 points for us, he hit everything that moves, he could fight for the now rare occasions that were called for and was overall a great addition to the 4th line.

Fast forward to 2019-20 and Khaira has cratered into what you’d call a coke machine – a player who hits but can’t play hockey otherwise. For the 2nd season in a row, his offence has dipped.  It’s gone from the aforementioned 21 points to 18 points to a mere 10 last season.  That’s in minimum range for a 4th liner, but not good enough for a guy who’s capable of 21 points.  His +/- has also gone down, from -7 to -12 to an ugly -19 last season.

The latter figure was the 2nd worst on the team, only James Neal was worse.  His +/- was better in the playoffs at 0, but he produced no offence in the playoffs.  I’ll throw him a bone and mention he was 4th on the team in PIMs last season with 38.

He only spent about 12:32 on the ice last season, and predictably only plays about 6 seconds a game on the PP and 1:35 per game on the PK, good enough for 9th on the team.  That’s something, I guess.

As you would expect, Khaira is a good hitter.  He finished 4th on the team in hits with 136 last year.  Other than that, I’ll once again throw him a bone and mention he finished 51.52% on faceoffs with the caveat that he only took 66 of them all season.  He might take more next season as that’s the highest % of his career.  Did I mention he can play center or LW?  That’s a small point in his favour too, I guess.

He doesn’t really have a bad contract, so to speak.  He’s signed for one more season at $1.2 million.  That’s pretty good for a bottom 6 forward, but bottom 6 forwards are a dime a dozen.  It shouldn’t be too hard to find a more defensively responsible player who can hit and play the PK and put up more points than Khaira.  Toronto is rumoured to be interested in him, I wonder if Holland would take a 6th or 7th round pick in exchange for trading him there.

Mike Smith

Now we get to the worst of the worst.  Smith was as inconsistent this year for us as he was last year for the Flames.  He went on hot streaks throughout the season but was swiss cheese at other points.  Fortunately, he and Koskinen never struggled at the same time otherwise we would’ve been in trouble.

Last season Smith put up a .902 sv%, barely NHL average and only slightly better than his .898 with the Flames.  The damper on that is his GAA went up from 2.75 with the Flames to 2.95 last season.  The latter mark is the 2nd worst of his career.

Smith started the 1st playoff game in the play-in series for us and, after 5 goals on 23 shots, was pulled after barely 1 period in favour of Koskinen.  Not surprisingly, he was stapled to the pine after that.  He finished the playoffs last year with an ugly .783 sv% and an embarrassing 11.11 GAA.

Now it’s important to remember not all of that was his fault – the team in front of him played very poorly that game – but still.  In a game like that, you want your goaltender to steal the game for you and Smith didn’t steal anything except playing time.

After 610  games and 15 seasons, it’s time for Smith to retire.  He’s past his prime and it’s time to hang them up.  Holland says he “hasn’t ruled out” bringing him back, but what else is he supposed to say?  There’s no upside to the GM criticizing players publicly and a lot of downside to it.

I see zero reason to bring back Smith next season, especially with the surplus of options available in free agency and trade due to the flat cap situation.  Smith won’t be back and his NHL career is over.  Count on it.

Colby Cave, Markus Granlund, Joel Persson, Tomas Jurco, Brandon Manning, Mike Green

Horrible, terrible, traded, terrible, purged from the PC era, retired.  In that order.  Need I say more?

Tyler Benson

Benson had a 7 game cup of coffee here – his 1st – and produced 1 assist in that time but with a -1, which is not bad for a callup.  Could push for a spot two seasons from now, but for now, he belongs mostly in Bakersfield.  Maybe he can come back up next season so we can see what he’s learned.  Wasn’t on the roster for the playoffs.

William Lagesson

Lagesson had a callup as well last season and put up no offence in 8 games with a -4.  Pretty forgettable, but not terrible for a callup.  Rumoured to be competing for a spot next year – either Benning’s or perhaps as the 7th d-man.  But he’s a longshot for either.  The best place for him next season is Bakersfield – or somewhere in the AHL.

I say this as Lagesson needs a new contract, his ELC has run out.  With all the influx of d-men on the roster, I’d say Lagesson will be in a tough position for a roster spot either here or in Bakersfield.  Wasn’t on the roster for the playoffs.  Lagesson has been issued a qualifying offer by the Oilers.  Looks like he’ll be back in the organization.