Edmonton Oilers: Stacking up against other Canadian teams in the West

Here’s a look at how the Edmonton Oilers stacks up against other Canadian teams in the West

Vancouver Canucks

The Vancouver Canucks top 6 forwards IMO is one of the more impressive top 6’s in the NHL.  It’s led by winger JT Miller, a fantastic acquisition from Tampa Bay.  With Vancouver last year, Miller cracked the 20 goal mark for the first time in 4 seasons with 27, and a career-high in points, with 72 in 69 games.  There’s a question as to whether he can repeat that season or not, considering that he had a 16.4% shooting % which is higher than both the NHL average and his career average.

I expect a dropoff for him next season but not a huge one.  He should finish at just over or just under the point per game mark.  22-year-old Elias Pettersson had a slight uptick of a 2nd-year campaign, with the same 66 points, 20+ goals again (27) and both marks were in 3 fewer games than last year.  Rounding out the top line is Jake Virtanen, who improved his boxcars for the 4th straight season, putting up 18-18-36 in 69 games.

Wouldn’t surprise me if he cracked the 20 goal mark next season.  The 2nd line is headlined by Vancouver’s 2 most well known forwards Bo Horvat and Brock Boeser.  Center Horvat had a bit of a dropoff in stats as he had 22-31-53 in 69 games, which even accounting for the season shutdown was still a few games short of a full season.  Horvat isn’t great defensively, though, which is a bit of a bummer.

He’s never been over the zero mark in +/- and finished -15 this past season.  He’ll have to clean that up if he hopes to move the needle for the Canucks.  He’ll be starting his PPY next season, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he does clean that up.  Boeser was better defensively at +4 but had a dropoff in stats last season, which isn’t surprising at the age of 23.

His boxcars went from 26 goals 2 seasons ago to 16 goals last season, and from 56 to 45 points.  The games played were also down as well, though, from 69 to 57, which is 1 factor for the decrease, and also he finished with a 9.5% shooting %, over a full 3% below his career average of 12.9%.  Expect him to rebound next season closer to what you expect from him.

Rounding out the top 6 – and making sure the Canucks will be able to absorb the loss of Tyler Toffoli – is Tanner Pearson.  He’d been drifting for 3 seasons before making his way to Lotusland, where he put up 21 goals and 45 points – the latter of which is a career-high – and considering the calibre of his linemates I expect little to no dropoff in those numbers.

This is a solid top 6, but the million-dollar question is, is it better than the Oilers top 6?  The answer to that is no.  Reason why?  Inexperience.  Only 3 out of 6 forwards in the Canucks top 6 are in their PPY, whereas with the Oilers?  4 out of 6 are past the age of 25, none are over 35, and of the 2 guys who aren’t in their PPY, 1 of them is Connor Mcdavid, who at 23 plays better than most NHL players in their prime.

This reminds me of the other reason:  Vancouver has elite players in their top 6, but none at the level of a generational player.  The Oilers have 1, and arguably 2, in the McDrai duo.  Horvat and Boeser are good, but they can’t match the raw firepower of the McDrai duo.

Winner:  Oilers

Bottom 6 forward

The Canucks bottom 6 forward group is less impressive than it’s top 6 forward group, so it doesn’t appear there’s as much depth as there is on the Oilers.  The best the 3rd line has to offer is Adam Gaudette, a young 24 year old who put up 12-21-33 in 59 games last season.  Those are good stats, but they’re buoyed by a 16% shooting %, way above both his career average and NHL average.  Only time will tell if he can maintain that level of production.

On Gaudette’s wings is NHL veteran Antoine Roussel, who put up a career-low 13 points last season in only 41 games.  If he can stay healthier, he could bring that up to 20-25 in a covid abbreviated season.  He’s a tough cookie, though, as he’s put up over 100 PIMs 5 out of 8 NHL seasons, and over 200 PIMs in one season.

Still, he should have more offence in him.  Ironically, though, his shooting % was 1% higher than his career average so who knows?  The other member of the 3rd line is Brandon Sutter, NHL veteran of 719 games and only putting up 17 points of offence in 44 games last season.  If he can stay healthy he could put up 20-25.

The Canuck’s 4th line has an interesting wrinkle in it:  Brandon Sutter doubles as the 4th line center when not on 3rd line RW.  That’s a weird way to use a player, but I guess you gotta do something when you’re paying the guy $4.375 million for 1 more season.  His wingers are Tyler Motte, who had injury issues last season and thus only put up 8 points in 34 games.  If he can stay healthy he could put up 10-15.  Rounding out the 4th line is generic bottom 6 guy Zack Macewan, who played a whopping 17 games last season – and only has 21 his entire career – and 6 of his 7 career points.

The extra guys are where it gets interesting as the Canucks have severely misused their cap space paying inflated salaries to guys who have fallen off the map, and I don’t even want to look at their boxcars because their cap hits are so horrific.  Amongst this motley crew of extra guys is noted pylon Loui Eriksson, 35, and a $6 million cap hit for 2 more seasons.

Oh, and a modified NTC too.  Michael Ferland, 28, $3.5 million cap hit for 3 more seasons with an NMC.  Sven Baertschi, 1 more season with a cap hit of $3.366666 million.  Fortunately no extra clauses for him.  Jay Beagle, 35, 2 more seasons at a $3 million and with a modified NTC.

Wow.What a disaster.  That’s over $15 million spent on extra bottom 6 players.  I guess that explains why Zack Macewan only played 17 games last season – they’ve gotta cycle these guys in every once in a while so they stay somewhat sharp.  Hopefully, they can persuade the guys with the extra clauses to waive them for the expansion draft – otherwise, I have zero idea what they’re going to do with them.

No one’s taking those contracts in this cap climate and you can’t buy them out because it wouldn’t alter the team enough and kick the cap headache down the road.  I guess the one thing you have to look forward to is after this upcoming season at least 1 of those guys will be coming off the books per season for the next 3 seasons.  Good times for you.  I have a newfound respect for the Oiler’s bottom 6 – which was already better before the regulars – and with only 1 inflated contract it’s utilizing team cap space way better.

Winner: Oilers

Defence

Congratulations on Quinn Hughes.  He’s an absolutely huge piece to your D core.  I’m gonna say he’ll do the same 50 points again, especially considering his shooting% was only 6.3% last season, way below the NHL average.  I also loved the trade for Nate Schmidt.  A silly move as you hosed a division rival who badly needed to dump salary.  They’re going to make an elite 1st pairing.

Alex Edler’s been a great soldier for the Canucks, but it’s fair to ask if at 34 he can keep up the same pace.  He’s put up 30 points the last 3 seasons, which is great, and fortunately for the Canucks his contract is up after this upcoming season so they can sign him to a lesser deal afterward.  Tyler Myers rounds out the top 4 for the Canucks, which is great, and although 21 points in 68 games isn’t bad, you’d expect at least 10 more points for $6 million a season, and especially better than a -7 on the season.  This was 10 points less than he put up in Winnipeg 2 seasons ago.  Will he rebound this season?  Hopefully.

Maybe the element of familiarity will help him this upcoming season.  The bottom of the roster consists of Jordie Benn, 33 years old and veteran of 517 NHL games, who put up a whopping 7 points in 44 games last season.  Then there’ll be rookie Olli Juolevi, who if dailyfaceoff.com is correct will round out the bottom pairing.

Tough to say what he’ll produce, I’ll guess 15 points?  NHLe says 22 based on his last full season in the AHL.  If another prospect – Jack Rathbone – makes the team instead or as the extra guy (what are you going to do?  They don’t have cap space for a 7th guy) then NHLe says 25 points for him if he makes it.  He’s only 21, though, and going into his 3rd year of US College puck, so there’s the risk of rushing him.  Not so much with Juolevi, who has 2 seasons in the AHL and 1 in the Swedish pros.  It’s a coin flip until training camp.

Compare this to the Oilers – I’d say the Canucks corps is capable of more offense.  By my projections, even when Tyson Barrie’s conservative 30 points is taken into consideration, the Canucks D corps will still outscore the Oilers next season.  No question I gotta give credit where credit is due.

Winner:  Canucks

Special teams:  Oilers PP #1, Canucks PP #4.  Oilers PK #2, Canucks PK #16.  Close but no cigar on the PP.

Winner:  Oilers

Goaltending

The Canucks have now been able to do something the Oilers just haven’t:  draft a good starting goalie that can make his way onto an NHL roster.  It’s tough to say exactly what they have in Thatcher Demko, he was a bit average in stats this past season with a .906 sv% and a 3.06 GAA in 27 GP.  However, I would consider his equivalent on the Oilers to be old balls Mike Smith, and Demko has far more upside than Smith does.  Canucks win.

Meanwhile, the signing of Braden Holtby to replace Markstrom was a stroke of genius, IMO.  It’s a short-term contract for 2 years, and over his career, Holtby has put up elite stats in 6 out of his 10 seasons.  His career sv% of .916 and a very respectable GAA of 2.54 are very solid.  He struggled last season in Washington, but his top 2 jobs this season will be to mentor Demko and be his 1A otherwise.  That’s a reduced role from being the starter in Washington, and his career will benefit from it.  There would be very few better mentors for Demko than Holtby.  Congratulations.

Mikko Koskinen has shown improvement over the last 3 seasons of his NHL career but he is still a bit unpredictable and much less of a known commodity than Holtby.  I can’t predict his ceiling will be anything more than slightly above average until I see otherwise.  I have much more faith in Holtby, and certainly, the tandem of Holtby-Demko is much better than Koskinen-Smith, no question for me.

Winner:  Canucks

Calgary Flames

Top 6 forward

I can’t quite figure out what kind of team the Flames are.  I’m starting to think they don’t, either.

The Flames possess a decent top 6 but are lacking in a true superstar game-breaking talent.  They need to draft Jarome Iginla 2.0.  Easier said than done, I know, I’m just calling it as I see it.  The Flames had 3 guys who scored 20 goals for them last year, but no one cracked the point per game mark.

They were led in forwards by Matthew Tkachuk, Mr. Turtle himself.  He deserved the beating Zack Kassian laid on him last year for going after our top guys and then refusing to answer for it with a fight.  That’s cheap and dirty.  That being said, you gotta admire his 23-38-61 in 69 games.  It’s worth noting, however, that that’s 11 goals and 16 points down from the previous season.  Not to mention his +/- went from +14 to -5.  Not good.

Then there’s “Johnny Hockey” Johnny Gaudreau.  Putting aside the fact his nickname is lame, he put up 18-40-58 and a -10 in 70 games.  Those would be good boxcars if it weren’t for the fact that the season prior he put up double the goals and 99 points in 82 games, with a +18 to boot.  That’s a huge tumble offensively and defensively.

No wonder rumours persist that the Flames are trying to trade him.  Good luck with that, though, as there’s not a lot of teams in this cap climate that can take on a $6.75 million hit for the next 2 seasons.  He’ll likely rebound a bit next season, though, as his shooting% was only 8.6%, which is well off his career average of 12.1%, right around the NHL average.  That 99 point season is likely an outlier for him, though.

Finishing off the top scorers is top sniper Elias Lindholm.  His stats also took a pretty big dive, though – are you starting to sense a theme here?  I am.  He may have scored 29 goals – which is great, and a career-high – but his point totals nosedived to 54 from 78 2 seasons ago.  His +/- also cratered, from +30 to -8.  Brutal.

And that’s their top 3 players.  You better believe that kind of underachievement will crater your team’s chances of going anywhere.  The weird thing is that only Tkachuk is under 25, so Lindholm and Gaudreau you should be able to count on for consistency.

1st line C Sean Monahan is next in line with 22-26-48 and a -16 in 70 games this past season.  If you guessed that’s worse than 2 seasons ago, you’re right.  Monahan was 34-48-82 and a +7 in 2018-19.  4 players who regressed.  Shooting% is only 1% off his career average, so while he has room to improve it won’t be enough to move the needle a lot.

Rounding out the top 6 is Andrew Mangiapane, and here we come across the lone bright spot for the Flames last season.  The 24-year-old has 1 more year before he hits his PPY, and he put up 17-15-32 and a +4 in 68 games last season.  15.6% shooting percentage, though, 2% higher than his career average and 3% higher than the NHL average.  He’s flirting with the 20 goal mark but tough to say whether he’ll make it or not.

There’s also grizzled veteran Mikael Backlund, who cycles between crossing the 20 goal mark and finishing short of it.  Unimpressive for 690 NHL games.  He did 16-29-45 with a +3 last season, 2 fewer points from 2 seasons ago, and 5 fewer goals.  Oh, and +/- was +34 2 seasons ago.  So – 5 out of 6 top 6 forwards regress defensively and offensively?  Yeah, that’s a recipe for failure.  Unlikely they’ll get back to their previous highs, too.  Oilers top 6 will only improve next season, so we’ll take this one.

Winner:  Oilers

Bottom 6 forward

The Flames bottom 6 is, IMO, underwhelming and unimpressive.  The 3rd line is made up of failed 1st round draft pick Sam Bennett at center, who put up a whopping 12 points last season, after putting up 27 the season before, in 19 more games.  He’ll put up more with more games, you say?  The 2018-2019 PPG of 0.38 points per game vs. last season’s PPG of 0.23 points per game says otherwise.

On the one side is Milan Lucic, who put up the same 20 points in Calgary he put up in Edmonton the season before.  He is, of course, a physical player, but is that worth $5.25 million a year?  Not to me.  Then there’s youngster Dillon Dube, who played 20 more games last season than the 25 he did the season before and put up a pretty solid 16 points in those 45 games.  This was, however, buoyed by a 10% shooting % which is 1.5% more than his career average.

At 22 years old and going into his 3rd NHL season, he’s the 1 bright spot on the line, though.  Even then, with only 70 NHL games under his belt, it’s hard to say for sure whether he takes a step forward or not.  He’s flirting with the 20 goal mark, though, so IMO likely with more games played next season he reaches it.

4th line center is manned by 33-year-old Derek Ryan, who last season put up 29 points in 68 games, close enough to a full season.  Why this guy is the 4th line center and not Sam Bennett, I don’t know.  If I were Geoff Ward I’d do it in a heartbeat.  Even then, Ryan regressed from 38 points the season prior.

His wingers are both new to the organization, Joakim Nordstrom, who put up has only cracked the 10 goal mark once and only cracked the 20 point mark only once, not so coincidentally in the same season.  This screams “generic bottom 6 forward” to me.  The other newcomer is Dominik Simon, who put up 2 straight seasons of 20 points – 28 and 22 respectively – for Pittsburgh.  +/- has gone from +8 to -9, so that’s no good.  Will he put up secondary offence in Calgary next season?  Hard to say for sure, but on paper at least it looks good.

Rounding out the bottom 6 is extra guy Josh Leivo, who got lost in the shuffle in TO for years before 2 seasons of part-time play with the Canucks putting up 18 and 19 points in 49 and 36 games respectively.  Unless training camp says otherwise, he should easily beat out Nordstrom for a regular spot.  Why dailyfaceoff has him as an extra guy and not Nordstrom I don’t know.  Can he do the same thing in Calgary?  Hard to say as this is the worst team he’ll have played for in his career.  But if he’s got a chance anywhere, it’s in Calgary.

Still, the Oilers have 5 guys who can put up 20-30 points without breaking a sweat, 1 who can put up 20 goals and 30 points as a PP specialist, and 2 extra guys who could easily get 20 points apiece if they were regulars.  Calgary’s only got 3 guys good for 20 points a season (barely, in Lucic’s case) and 2 maybes if things work out for them.  Thanks for taking that terrible Milan Lucic contract off our hands, though.  That was really cool of you.  This is a pretty easy decision.

Winner:  Oilers

Defence

Calgary’s defence corps is…..interesting.  That’s the word I’m going to use.  Mark Giordano is the workhorse on D for the Flames, but at 37 years old and just shy of 900 NHL games it’s fair to ask how much longer he can keep it up without “flaming out” (*comedic drumroll*).  Also, it’s worth noting that Giordano won the Norris trophy in 2019 by putting up 74 points in 78 games, but again under the theme of regression, just like his forward brethren Giordano proved that season was a fluke by putting up a whopping 31 points in 60 games.

Still very good, but a regression of 43 points, over half of what he put up 2 seasons ago.  Not good.  And the Flames better hope he doesn’t age off the roster yet, as he’s still signed for 2 more seasons at a $6.75 million cap hit.  Ouch.  His partner for the longest time was TJ Brodie, but after letting him walk in free agency to TO, the Flames signed forgettable righty Chris Tanev from Vancouver to replace him.  Tanev has a history of putting up no more than 20 points, while IMO Brodie will improve to 30 points next season.

Obviously, this is a step down.  Then there’s Noah Hanifin.  He put up 22 points in 70 games.  In a covid-shortened season, he might put up a little more than that considering his shooting % was 0.6% off his career average, but don’t expect more than 25 points at absolute most out of him, and 22-23 is probably the reasonable expectation.  I could see him putting up more 1.5 seasons from now when he hits the age of 25, but for now, he is what he is.

Hanifin’s partner is Rasmus Andersson, who put up the same 22 points in 70 games Hanifin did.  Andersson is 24, which is a little young for me to project any more than that in a covid-shortened season.  Given another couple of seasons, IMO Calgary will have a really solid D corps on that 2nd pairing, but for now, both are still a little young to be anything more than unspectacularly under the radar.

The 3rd pairing for the Flames is astonishingly young.  23-year-old Oliver Kylington is a former 2nd round pick from 2015 who has been gradually playing the soft competition to learn the ropes in the NHL.  He’ll probably be a full-time NHLer next season after playing 48 games last season.  He’s only got career stats of 5-10-15 in 87 career NHL games.  He’s probably good for about 10 points next season.

Rounding out the regulars is 2017 1st rounder Jusso Valimaki.  At the time of this writing, he’s put up 15 points in 15 games in the SM-Liiga, and although NHLe says he’ll put up 37 points in the NHL, that’s not happening without some serious 1st unit PP time when you’re only playing on the 3rd pairing.  Assuming he makes it past training camp, this’ll be his rookie season and you don’t want to put too much pressure on him or keep expectations too high.

The extra guy is Russian Nikita Nesterov, a rather forgettable player who in 132 NHL games at the age of 27 has never put up more than 3 goals or 12 points in a season.  Pretty standard extra guy, when you think about it.

Assuming Giordano’s age doesn’t catch up with him, the production of the Flames’ top 4 is comparable to the Oilers.  However, where the difference comes is in the bottom pairing.  While Kylington and Valimaki might comfortably put up 20-30 points between them, Tyson Barrie on the Oilers can easily put up 30 points all by himself.

Throw in another 15 points from Kris Russell and maybe another 10 from extra guy William Laggeson and we can see where the scales tilt to, even if you want to put in 5 points from Nesterov. Good top 4, but not quite enough depth to win.

Winner:  Oilers

Special teams:  Edmonton PP #1, Calgary PP 12.  Edmonton PK #2, Calgary PK 8.

Winner:  Oilers

Goaltending 

Calgary “won” the free agency sweepstakes for Jacob Markstrom.  I put that in quotation marks because although the prize might’ve been the top goalie available, in the NHL landscape he’s a career average NHLer.  Anyone with a career sv% of .911 and a career GAA of 2.80 is nothing better than average.

This means that the Flames now have the dubious distinction of paying an average goaltender elite goaltender money.  They also gave him an NMC and have him signed until he’s 36.  Both REALLY bad ideas.  Now if he sucks they can’t even send him down to the minors after he clears waivers – unless he gives them permission to do it.  Good luck with that.

He replaces Cam Talbot in the Flames platoon, who actually did a bit better than Markstrom did last season.  The other important consideration is that Markstrom will be platooning on a team with a worse D corps than the team he came from, which means his numbers are more likely to reflect that.

If it weren’t for the fact that Ottawa signed Matt Murray to $6.25 million a season, the Markstrom deal would’ve been the worst free agent signing of 2020.  I predict this contract will not age well and become a great burden for the Flames – for sure by the last season, possibly another season or 2 before.  This one will come back to haunt them.

In fact, if you compare the career stats of Talbot and Markstrom, the Flames just paid big bucks for a guy that is at best no better than Talbot and at worse a slight step down.  Talbot’s career sv% is .915 to Markstrom’s .911, and his career GAA is 2.61 to Markstrom’s 2.80.

The only thing Markstrom had over Talbot is that Markstrom is 3 years younger.  However, at least Minnesota had the good sense to sign Talbot to a 3-year contract at $3.67 million per year.  That’s much closer to the value of either guy.

These kinds of screwups will continue until GMs learn that just because there’s a shiny free agent available, doesn’t mean he’s worth big bucks or a long term contract.  Markstrom will not move the needle for the Flames in any meaningful way, you heard it here first.

Anyway, platooning with Markstrom is David Rittich, A 28-year-old Czech goalie who is essentially a poor man’s Jacob Markstrom, with a career sv% of .908 and a career GAA of 2.82.  At that age he’s unlikely to get better, despite having played only 115 NHL games.  Two goalies that are essentially clones of an average NHL goaltender.  That’s not a good tandem.

But the million-dollar question is is it better than the Oilers tandem of Koskinen-Smith?  Well, Koskinen only has 97 NHL games to his resume but at least his numbers have improved every season of his career.  Last season he flirted with elite numbers, could he move into that vein this season?  Maybe.  Unlike Markstrom-Rittich, the D behind the Oilers tandem should actually improve a little from last season.  I’ve made my feelings about old balls Mike Smith well known.

Both teams have warts in their goaltending corps.  Let’s call it a draw.

Winner:  None.  It’s a tie.