Edmonton Oilers: End of season player report cards

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?