Edmonton Oilers and The Rest Of The NHL Tidbits

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Hi folks, we’re in the slow news cycle of the Edmonton Oilers offseason so it’s harder to produce content. I saw a few good stories to put together so I thought I’d just combine them into one blog.

I recently read this from the grapevine, that the Oilers offered Radko Gudas a contract but he turned it down because he didn’t want to play in Canada. The Flames and the Leafs also offered him a contract but he turned them down too for the same reason.

I have to say, I think the Oilers dodged a bullet big time here. After all, we already have a player type of his in Vincent Desharnais – and Desharnais is WAY younger and cheaper than Gudas. Gudas eventually wound up signing with the Anaheim Ducks for $12 million over three seasons ($4 million AAV). Desharnais is signed for this season at $762,500.

Desharnais is only 27 vs. Gudas who is 33. This is a big deal because players who are as physical as Gudas tend to run a much higher risk of having their bodies break down at – you guessed it – 33. This contract could very easily come back to blow up in the Ducks’ face – no such risk with Desharnais who is still here under a two-way contract, which means even if Desharnais can’t build on what he did last season you can still stash him in the minors without any consequences. Can’t do that with Gudas, who if he breaks down the Ducks will only be able to stash just under 25% of his cap hit in the minors – and only then after he clears waivers.

Let’s see how these two players go head-to-head.

Ability to play the PK? Check. Desharnais was third on the Oilers in PK TOI/GP last season with 2:14 per game. Gudas in Florida last year was fourth with 2:30. A negligible amount more.

Hits? Since Desharnais only played 43.9% of the season last year let’s look at Hits/60. Gudas was third on the Panthers last season with 14.97 hits/60 while Desharnais was 12th on the Oilers last season with 5.53. Expect that to rise if Desharnais is here for a full season as expected. Gudas may have been superior in this stat last season but Desharnais has much more upside while Gudas at his age has nowhere to go but down.

How about blocked shots? Again, we’re going to go with BkS/60 for comparison. Desharnais finished second on the Oilers last season with 5.9 BkS/60, finishing second only to Jason Demers who played a mere one game with the Oilers last season so we can basically consider that a statistical anomaly. Gudas led Florida with 5.95 Bks/60 last season.

That’s basically a saw-off. As you would expect, since both guys basically produce nothing more than secondary offence for their teams, neither player spends much time on the PP (for the record, Desharnais spent two seconds/game on the Oilers’ PP last season while Gudas only nine seconds/game on the Panthers PP last season…..yawn).

Defensive play? Desharnais finished +15 while Gudas was +14. Both players are very good defensively.

Even strength offence? Desharnais produced five assists in 36 games while Gudas produced 2-15-17 for Florida last season – and Desharnais is on record saying he’s already got a skills coach and said skills coach has been hired by him to work on his puck skills.

So, as you can see the only place where Gudas clearly has Desharnais beat is in hits and somewhat for secondary offence – but considering that Gudas is much more in danger of breaking down due to his age while Desharnais is actively trying to improve I’d still pick Desharnais over Gudas for the Oilers third pairing (both are third pairing right side D).

The Ducks also just re-upped Troy Terry so this pushes them past the cap floor by almost $2 million. They were previously the only team in the league who didn’t meet the cap floor. Will the Gudas contract come back to bite them? Perhaps not so much financially, but from a roster spot perspective, it might.

Mandatory Credit: Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports /

I’m going to throw a fan philosophy out there – if it isn’t going to be the Oilers to win a cup, we should all cheer for Phil Kessel to win the cup, even if he plays for Vegas – the most hated franchise in the NHL.

Why you ask? For the entertainment value, he creates whenever he wins a Stanley Cup.

For you see, most players when they get to play on the cup-winning team and get their day with the Cup, they’ll take it back to their hometown and let the townspeople catch up with said player and take plenty of pictures with the cup and player.

But not Phil Kessel, no no. He’s actually from Madison Wisconsin but rather than taking the Cup back to Madison, he always takes the cup back to Toronto for the day. He did it in the 2016 and 2017 offseasons when he won with Pittsburgh and he’s doing it again this offseason when he won with Vegas.

That ALWAYS makes me laugh when I read about this, because this is an obvious troll job by a player who was roundly and unfairly criticized by the Maple Laffs fan and media bullplop machine, even when he was playing on terrible Leafs teams and was often the only consistent offensive threat on those teams……and they ran him out of town. If only they had treated him better and not p***ed him off, he would’ve stayed in TO much longer and probably formed a great top six with all the draft picks the Leafs have now – Matthews, Marner, and Nylander. They probably wouldn’t have signed Tavares, either, because they wouldn’t have needed him.

This is the ultimate troll job and it always makes me laugh. He doesn’t hesitate to always haunt Toronto with his words, too, as he had this to say after Vegas won the Cup at the end of the playoffs:

He made sure to once again dunk on the Leafs shortly after the Vegas Cup win:

“Takes me back to my Toronto days. You guys said I couldn’t win, and now I’m a three-time champ,” Kessel said, per Mike Stephens of The Hockey News. “Remember that.”

I couldn’t agree more, Kessel. You deserve to get back at Toronto and you always make it entertaining when you do. Keep up your trolling, Phil, maybe one day the Leafs fans and media will learn their lesson. Maybe. But I doubt it, so in the meantime rub it in their faces whenever you win a Cup. It’s well deserved.

Bob Nicholson is almost 70 by now so he’s probably right on the cusp of retiring in the next couple of years. As such – and I just learned this today – the Oilers have done some front-office shuffling as a transition plan to make for Nicholson’s smooth departure from the Oilers once his retirement day comes.

From 2019 until this past June Nicholson was the Chairman of the Oilers Entertainment Group, overseeing the hockey operations of all of owner Daryl Katz’s hockey clubs – the Oilers, Condors, Oil Kings, and Fort Wayne Komets. He was the top man in hockey operations and everyone reported to him, while he was accountable only to owner Daryl Katz.

Well since June Nicholson has stepped away from that role and has now stepped into what I assume is a lower responsibility role as special advisor and alternate governor, of hockey operations.

Nicholson may be most famous to Oilers fans as the man who headed Hockey Canada for the longest time and did testify in the sexual assault scandal, although it was worth noting he’d left to work for the Oilers by the time that news came out.

He also took point on hiring the last two GMs for the Oilers – Peter Chiarelli, which had mixed results, and current GM Ken Holland, who has turned the Oilers into the Cup-contending franchise they are now. He also moved the outgoing GM of the day in 2015 – Craig Mactavish – into the number two GM man, a position he later left to go back to being a head coach in the KHL.

After Chiarelli was fired assistant GM Keith Gretzky took over as interim GM until Ken Holland was hired.

It was also confirmed that Ken Holland will remain as GM of the club. There were persistent rumours that Holland would retire from his position, stay with the club as an advisor, and the Oilers would promote an internal option to GM, either Steve Staios or Keith Gretzky if rumours were true. However, this will not be an issue at least for this offseason.

Anyway, taking Nicholson’s old position will be former player agent Jeff Jackson, who will assume Nicholson’s old post under a different title – CEO, hockey operations and alternate governor. There will be an introductory press conference later on today that will no doubt be made available on Oilers+ for those of you who subscribe like me where Jackson will lay out his vision on where he wants to steer the Oilers. Somehow I doubt he’ll make major changes to the team considering how well it’s been doing the last couple of seasons.

Jackson might be most well known as Connor Mcdavid’s former player agent, which he held until he assumed this post – some random VP from the same agency will be taking over as Mcdavid’s agent, and that guy also apparently represents Auston Matthews.

This will be Jackson’s second stint as an NHL executive – he was previously assistant GM and director of hockey operations for the Maple Laffs from 2006-2010 when he left to form the aforementioned player agency. During his time with the Leafs he was also the GM of the Leaf’s farm team, the Toronto Marlies.

When I took a look at the coaches and management section of the Oilers website, I was also surprised to see that as of 2022 Paul Coffey had ascended to the post of Special Advisor to Owner and Chairman.

He had previously been a skills and coaching advisor to the team a few years back.

Considering the allegations of nepotism that had dogged the Oilers during the decade of darkness, I’m not surprised they kept the hiring of Coffey or his promotion under wraps. He’s working closely with owner Daryl Katz and the rest of the Oilers executives on the strategic direction of the hockey team.

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