Edmonton Oilers: End of season player report cards

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.