JR Ewing

I guess I should point out something before we go too far: I didn't go by JR at the other sight, but by my name of Daryl. I won't assume that you remember, but don't want you to confuse me with another person. heh Re: second half fall off... Yes, that was happening, but haven't been able to land on the cause. It could very well be that he just wasn't that big, but it also (each time) happened around the time that he aggravated the shoulder which had been hurting him since his days in Red Deer. I certainly don't blame him for not having the operation in junior, since he didn't want to miss time in his draft year. You're right that the Oilers are obviously betting on things being better for him. My guess is that they've seen good reports from Hopkins' doctor. JR

Long time no talk dave... I remember you from hockeyforums, you signed up after the Bertuzzi incident... Anyway. -The old school approach was that you paid a player for what he did, and a contract like this is a situation where you're paying a player based on what you reasonable think he could accomplish. I have such a preference for the latter that it's not even funny. -Injuries: yes, his shoulder has given him some trouble, and only time will tell how that works out. I know he needed surgery since he was 17, and he's finally had it. Perhaps one tell that it was successful was the Oilers willingness to sign him long term? The good news: the injuries weren't from the NHL being too rugged for someone of his size... He has made it up to 185 lbs now, btw. -Defensive shortcomings? He was *very* good in this regard last year, and decent in his rookie year. I don't consider this to be a controversial statement, as he's been well regarded by scouts for a few years now. We're not talking about hitting, of course. That's something completely different. Even if he was a big hitter, when would he have the chance to throw them? His line has the puck most of the time. -0.74 PPG... Over the last twenty years, since the days of table hockey levels of offense dropped, guess which teenagers have had higher PPG? Only three: Sidney Crosby (1.39), Steven Stamkos (0.88), Ilya Kovalchuk (0.81). You talk about his PPG as if it's low, but it's actually historically high. Just for fun, over the same period, only one teenager had a higher assists per game: Crosby. Not only is he young for an NHL player, he's young for a 1st overall pick. Only turned 20 in April, after the regular season was done. JR

Double post somehow. My apologies. JR

My guess (and that's all it is) would be that there are so few right-handed catching goalies, that shooters simply aren't used to seeing them in these sorts of one-one-one situations. When a shooter makes a moves which would present him a chance to shoot on the stick-side, these goalies are sitting there with their glove, ready to catch. Like I said, it's just my guess. It certainly wouldn't be the only sport where left-handers have some advantages. Every baseball manager in the world loves a lefty with a good arm. Is it any coincidence that even though lefties are about 10% of the general population, we're about 25% of the baseball population? Southpaw boxers have been confusing fighters ever since people have been making fists. Etc, etc, etc. JR

No more are coming to mind, but I remember seeing some work that had been done looking into the shootout. Right-handed catching goalies tend to do disproportionately well in that situation, for some reason. JR

Very good piece of news for the Oilers today. After decades of watching young players beg to leave town, it's nice to see them stick around now. JR

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=432270 JR

Rating Tretiak is the same as trying to definitively rate players from the N3gro Leagues and place them in absolute order next to their white contemporaries. We can tell who was great in best-on-best tournaments and who was good in their own league, but distilling that down to a single set of standings and saying "He's the X best ever!" is another thing altogether. JR

It's all been good for Morin. He was able to spend some extra time with Ian Lapperiere, attend his first pro camp, get some instruction from (likely) the best coaches he's ever had, get a fitness assessment which lets him know where he needs to do extra work. All of this gave him the chance to see what kind of work rate is required and will better prepare him for the next few years, when he'll have a better chance to make the team. And to top it off, he was sent off with a shiny new entry-level contract for his efforts. Good few weeks for him. Absolutely the right move for Flyers management, who had very little to gain in playing him, and a lot to lose. JR

You keep talking about being big and strong, as if that's all there is to playing defense at the NHL level... There were defensemen taken above him who are seen as clearly better defensive prospects that won't get a sniff of the NHL this year. Maybe it's just me, but I have a particular philosophy when it comes to developing players: a] Give them lots of minutes in a league which will challenge, yet not overwhelm their level of experience. b] As they demonstrate that they have answers for these challenges, move them up to a higher level of competition which will, again, further challenge heir abilities. c] Keep doing this until you have an NHL player on your hands. d] Whatever you do, don't burn through their entry level deal until they are truly ready to be NHL players. Paying a kid NHL money and bringing him a step closer towards free agency when he's not yet an NHL calibre player is a mismanagement of assets. JR

Heh........ I'm not sure why, but that just made me remember a time when I was listening to sports radio (back when I could still stand it for more than 5 minutes) and it was open topic night, and they took a call from a young woman. Host: What do you want to talk about? Caller: I just have to say RICKY RAY SUCKS! (Rick Ray was the QB for the Eskimos at the time...) Host: Come on, he's having a good year. Caller: Who care about that? I'm saying that he's a lousy lay! --- Host: Alright, moving on to the next caller. lol JR

Forgot to say: the Oilers have mostly driven me crazy for 20 years now, with idiotic trades where they move out an actual NHL player without having anybody to replace him. I've watched them go through draft weekends that resulted in not a single NHL game being played by anybody they selected. I watched Kevin Lowe take a trade where he actually got Brian Burke to agree to send the Oilers Corey Perry in exchange for Mike Comrie, only to have it fall apart because he demanded Comrie pay back his signing bonus. I've sat here for the last seven years of tragic-comic decision making and saw a GM so inept that he accidentally pocket dialed Ales Hemsky on last year's trade deadline eve. I watched them strip down a 4-Cups-in-5-years-dynasty which was just entering its prime because of ownership's bad business deals... And I'm still an Oilers fan. I want the Oilers to go 82-0 every year, and aside from everything else, I don't cheer against any team other than whichever club is playing the Oilers on that night. JR

I wouldn't dream of switching teams because a certain player was traded; or at least it would take the team doing something so alienating that I couldn't stick around. Short of management/ownership personally insulting the fans, I can't think of what it would take, but I can say without a doubt that it doesn't include trading a player, no matter the reason. So no, I don't get the girl either. Do I think the real reason Carter and Richards were shuffled off was to make room for a stupid contract for Bryzgalov? Yup. Was it dumb that very day. Yup. Anybody could see that. If I were a Flyers fan, I would have been a pretty unhappy camper. But to switch allegiances? Huh? She was a Jeff Carter and Mike Richards fan, not a Flyers fan. JR

Yup. And a whole heap of fans will forget it all and once again talk about the game being killed by overpaid players. JR

When "Oil Change" came out, I felt bad to watch the boardroom stuff on the screen, and came away with a "Oh no... They're not very smart." impression. Then, I saw the Flyers thing the other month, and now this... Now, I don't feel so bad. It's great to now watch teams spew all of their rationale for trading off very very good young/incomplete players for not being great young players. It included such greatness as: Scott Bradley: We made the right decisions with Raycroft and Kessel. So? What the hell does that have to do with Tyler Seguin? For starters, the Raycroft trade didn't even require hindsight. It just needed a terrible GM (JFJ) to rip off. The Kessel trade? Seriously? a) Kessel has done nothing but rip it up since he was traded to Toronto. b) This can't be stressed enough. You can't use "We won the Kessel trade because we got Seguin out of the deal" if you're looking to run Seguin out of town and talk about how disappointing he is. Other than that, it's the usual litany of "he doesn't play Bruins hockey", "he's doesn't play our style of game", etc. Too bad for Seguin that the opposition didn't have the puck more often, so he could throw hits a second or two after the other guy passed it off. He'd probably be a Bruin still. JR

Old news, but it's always a little amusing when national media latch onto something really late in the game. Eakins called Hall in July and told him to start practicing his draws. Hall will do it, but I don't imagine he's extremely happy. He's publicly stated a bunch of times that he has a very strong preference to play LW. JR

I don't see collusion at all here. Look around the league, and there's 6 teams other than the Blues that have the cap space to sign a player like Pietrangelo: COL, BUF, OTT, FLA, CGY, NYI. Of those teams, I don't see the Avs, Sabres, Panthers or Flames being in the market of adding a final major piece, nor do I see Pietrangelo yearning to sign with clubs in that position. This just leaves us with the Sens and Isles, and both of those organizations are having financial problems. I could see collusion if there were deep-pockets teams with cap space in the right spot to sign Pietrangelo, but it's not the case. JR

Well, you could just a start a new thread in the Oilers section. heh -I have a soft spot from watching Brandon Davidson play here in Regina during his junior career. -He can do some things on the ice. -I admire how he hasn't given up on his career goals despite his illness. He's obviously very driven and willing to work extremely hard. -The Oilers don't have an outstanding defense in any way, but have WAY too much depth for Davidson to crack the lineup. -If Davidson is to have an NHL career, I don't suspect it will be in Edmonton. JR

To say the very least, nobody has any business making those sorts of comparisons. It would be one thing if Morin had a junior career which was as distinguished as Pronger had, but he didn't. There's an ocean of difference between these players; a gulf. In Pronger's draft year, he was named the top defenseman of the OHL and CHL, and Morin just not in that range. The only real comparison is "big and nasty", and that's not nearly enough. They need to let him try to stamp his own career and not compare him to a guy who's been a great NHL player, particularly when the kid isn't tracking like the other guy. TLDR - This is the type of crap I expect somebody like Seth Jones to be facing, not Samuel Morin. JR

Looks like a knock-off t-shirt from the Dollarama. JR

He's being nice and trying to instill confidence in the kid. Nothing wrong with that. JR

Lapperiere's doing his job, and pumping the kid's tires. What should we expect him to say: "This kid isn't ready yet. NHL forwards would eat him alive"? He's the Director of Player Development... He's going to say complimentary things about Morin's development, and try to help guide him to the next stage. I once heard Doug Weight, with a straight face, tell the media what a good slapshot Ryan Smyth has. I love Ryan Smyth. More than a straight guy should. But great slapshot? You can read Gary Bettman's signature on the puck as it goes by when Smyth uncorks one of his "blasts". JR

Jeez, what's the rush? He just turned 18 in July, and it's not as if he's a lottery-type player. Learning to play NHL quality defense is astoundingly difficult, and it's even tougher to do when you're learning on the job. In the meantime of setting a kid up for failure, you're burning through his cheap entry-level years. Unless he comes into camp and is clearly an NHL-ready defender (and almost nobody is at that age) it would be a terrible decision to give him a Flyers jersey at this stage of the game. I wouldn't be ready to start shipping off proven NHL veterans just yet. JR

The way I see it, these were Craig MacTavish's big issues coming into his first off-season. MacT's Shopping List, Summer 2013 -Sign Sam Gagner -Find an associate coach to help Ralph Krueger with the technical side of things -Deal Shawn Horcoff and Ales Hemsky -Find a center who can do heavy lifting/tough minutes -Find replacement for Nikolai Khabibulin -Cut Ryan Whitney loose and improve the blueline. -Improve the bottom 6 forwards -Sign players to contracts which could be called a "good bet". The Good So far as yet, I think the summer has been a good one for Craig MacTavish. He signed Sam Gagner to a 4-year deal, which helps keep his main group together. Important deal. Everybody across the NHL assured us that MacT would have to eat part of Shawn Horcoff's contract, but they were completely off. MacTavish ended up getting a pick AND a player as well as relief from Horcoff's cap hit. With Horcoff off the books, he needed to bring in a center who could play those minutes, and landed the best free agent available in that job description. Boyd Gordon is an upgrade on Horcoff for this job, and is younger and cheaper. MacTavish used Bulin's open spot to bring in a quality backup in Jason LaBarbera, and improved organizational depth by signing Richard Bachman as well. Another set of good point in MacT's summer. Associate coach: everybody in the NHL had identified Dallas Eakins as a very good young coach with a strong knowledge of the technical side of the game and "gets" how to work with young players. MacTavish was impressed after interviewing Eakins for an associate position, he decided he was needed as the head coach. He's just a rookie coach, but this one has up arrows all over it. Defense: said goodbye to Ryan Whitney, whose abilities were destroyed by bad feet. Happens, unfortunately. This alone would represent an improvement to the Oilers blueline, but MacTavish went well past that, by signing Andrew Ference, Anton Belov (best defenseman in the KHL) to a bargain two-way contract, and brough back Denis Grebeshkov. Coming into the offseason, MacT noted an inability of Oilers defensemen to get pucks to forwards, which created a large number of turnovers in the Oilers end in addition to lack of offense. Justin Schultz can make that pass, and though Ryan Whitney hadn't lost that lovely outlet pass of his, he could no longer skate himself into position to make it. Moving the puck is the heart of both Belov and Grebeshkov's styles, so this jibes with what MacT set out to do. He couldn't bring in a superstar defenseman, but by bringing in a pile of NHL defensemen who can actually play, he has brough depth (something they haven't had for many years) and has done a lot to keep young/non-ready players away from defending NHL forwards. Playing defense at the NHL level is a damned tough job, and you shouldn't be thrown into the deep end a as 19-year old to do it Bottom 6 forwards: I think this one is hit and miss. Gordon is a big hit, and Omark could work out very well. Jesse Joensu is probably a break-even replacement for Teemu Hartinkainen. Constantly cheats for offense, and is a possession-negative player. Big hits: deleting Lennart Petrell and Eric Belanger. Miss: I'm not at all a back of Ryan Jones, and would have preferred if he'd been dumped after his 17 goal season in 2012. What I was most happy with was with MacTavish simply relying on NHL free agents to sign players. The KHL is under-utilized as a source of find experienced players who were not on the draft radar as juniors. There's a market inefficiency here and they can take advantage. ----- Speaking of market inefficiencies: a side note about one of my biggest happy points of the summer: the Oilers day at the entry draft, as it pertains to a series of trades they made with draft picks. To LAK: 37 To EDM: 57 (2nd), 88 (3rd), 96(4th) MacTavish then took #57 and sent it to STL for: To STL: 57 (2nd) To EDM: 83 (3rd), 94 (4th), 113 (4th) Years back, I did some work that found much the same thing, but here are some results from a presentation called "Better Off Guessing", which was presented at the MIT Sloan Analytics conference. After studying draft results, and calling 160 NHL GP a successful pick, they found the following success rates: Pick 01-10: 80% 11-20: 65% 21-30: 55% 2nd & 3rd rounds: 25% 4th and later rounds: 10% Video presentation: http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=600 In other words, the Oilers took a 25% chance of getting an NHL player, and turned it into 25% and 25% and 10% and 10% and 10%. And I love it love it love it. They dramatically increased their chances of finding a player, let alone the chance they could hit on one more than one. You don't bank on that, but as the average odds show, you never can bank anything from the 2nd round on. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but I've been waiting for a GM to discover this (IMO) undervalued part of the market for a very long time. I'm just thrilled it's the team I cheer for, and not another. TLDR - Craig MacTavish has had a very good summer. JR

If Omark plays in EDM this year, it may well be on the 4th line, which is A-ok for me: he's a FAR better hockey player than somebody like Mike Brown. We'll have to see if he would be scooped on waivers: some good hockey players are still sitting out there, unsigned, and even last year good players passed through waiver. JR