How can the Oilers possibly get out of the mud with this group of centers?

[Irishjim]

By: Ken Campbell on 

October 6, 2014

 

The Edmonton Oilers enter this season with five centers who have combined for 814 career NHL games and a stats line that reads 95-203-298. For those of you keeping score at home, there are 13 centers in the league who have played more career games all by themselves. A total of 57 have more career goals, 37 have more assists and 43 have accumulated more points.

 

Here’s how bad it is. Manny Malhotra, who has spent his career as a checking center and missed almost a full season with an eye injury, is 10 career goals ahead of Edmonton’s centers and trails them in points by just seven.

 

Shortly after training camp opened, Oilers coach Dallas Eakins acknowledged he had only two NHL centers in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Boyd Gordon, “and then there’s a whole bunch of mud after that.” Third overall pick Leon Draisaitl cleared that muddy situation up a little and will start and probably finish the season in the NHL, but considering his competition was Mark Arcobello, Anton Lander and Will Acton, he basically got the second-line job by default. It’s not that Draisaitl wasn’t good in the pre-season, but is that how you really want your prized prospect to start his career, by basically being given a roster spot because nobody else really pushed him?

 

read full article here:  http://www.thehockeynews.com/blog/how-can-the-oilers-possibly-get-out-of-the-mud-with-this-group-of-centers/

[Vanflyer]

How can the Oilers continue to suck so bad???

 

They have so much talent, yet, no "team".

[jammer2]

How can the Oilers continue to suck so bad???

 

They have so much talent, yet, no "team".

 

 That's the impression I get also...a bunch of players skating around trying to score as individuals. They also seemed to lack cohesion and a team "system". With all the youth they have, the needed a coach who preached positioning and responsibility. Make the opposition work to win. Far to many odd man rushes, to many players caught deep in the offensive zone trying to be heroes.

[flyercanuck]

The Oilers have great skill at wing. Unfortunately, center, defence and goaltending are far more important positions...and Edmonton is currently lacking at those. They may have drafted high many times, but they certainly didn't luck out on the quality of those drafts. Most of their top picks fall in the "good" and not "great" category.

[jammer2]

Most of their top picks fall in the "good" and not "great" category.

 

 I guess this is the year where we find out if Nugent-Hopkins can play a full year, or if he will always be fragile and "damaged goods". He is a prime example of rushing player before he is ready. The past few years, RNH should have been working on filling out his frame, playing better without the puck etc, etc, etc...not only was his progress hampered by an early trip to the NHL, his shoulders may have suffered irreparable damage by playing with full grown men much to quickly. He should have played an extra 2 years of junior and then spent a year in the AHL. He really needed that to develop properly. This should be his rookie year. What a waste if his shoulders are never the same.

[brelic]

I smell a great home for VLC and Coburn

[jammer2]

@brelic  We just need Derrick Brassard to break his leg, and WHAM....the Rags will come a calling for VLC.

 

 VLC = very lazy competitor.

[JR Ewing]

 That's the impression I get also...a bunch of players skating around trying to score as individuals. They also seemed to lack cohesion and a team "system". With all the youth they have, the needed a coach who preached positioning and responsibility. Make the opposition work to win. Far to many odd man rushes, to many players caught deep in the offensive zone trying to be heroes.

 

That's a by-product of former GM Steve Tambellini hiring and firing a new coach every year, as if any of these men were supposed to win with a rebuilding club stripped of all mature NHL talent. Can you imagine trying to learn how to play as a cohesive unit when you have a new guy telling you a new way every year. There's no way that's good for a player's development. It came to about game 20 last year, when Eakins spoke in a post-game interview, frustrated, saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "It's 3 or 4 years in and some of these guys have been taught nothing. My fault, I guess, because I figured they'd know something about systems by this age."

 

Can you imagine that? It's also a fairly damning indictment against coaches Kelly Buchberger and Steve Smith, whom Kevin Lowe had kept around year after year. Eakins was smart this year, hiring Craig Ramsay, who was a robot positional player in his time, and an extremely well regarded coach. Hiring Ramsay won't turn 6s and 7s into Kings and Queens, but it's a big help.

 

Forgot to add: I paid particular attention during the pre-season to look for certain signs. The Oilers appeared to be MUCH better in the neutral zone, and were giving each other a lot more puck support. Positive signs, and something, I would think, which is indicative of a consistent message getting through.

[JR Ewing]

The Oilers have great skill at wing. Unfortunately, center, defence and goaltending are far more important positions...and Edmonton is currently lacking at those. They may have drafted high many times, but they certainly didn't luck out on the quality of those drafts. Most of their top picks fall in the "good" and not "great" category.

 

Center - the Oilers have shockingly little depth at the position, and this isn't a new item. Leaning on a teenager to make it as your 2C is asking for trouble, and isn't excusable. That said, we don't know what players the Oilers may have tried to add through trade or free agency. That a player wasn't acquired doesn't mean attempts weren't made to address it.

 

Defense - this is a unit which is much improved, and is of actual NHL calibre now, to the point that Martin Marincin (3rd best Cori Rel among NHL defensemen last year) is starting in the minors. He should be in the NHL, but the fact that there's enough depth to knock out such a good prospect for now says something about the improved quality.

[JR Ewing]

 I guess this is the year where we find out if Nugent-Hopkins can play a full year, or if he will always be fragile and "damaged goods". He is a prime example of rushing player before he is ready. The past few years, RNH should have been working on filling out his frame, playing better without the puck etc, etc, etc...not only was his progress hampered by an early trip to the NHL, his shoulders may have suffered irreparable damage by playing with full grown men much to quickly. He should have played an extra 2 years of junior and then spent a year in the AHL. He really needed that to develop properly. This should be his rookie year. What a waste if his shoulders are never the same.

 

-Actually, Nugent-Hopkins came into the NHL with a bad shoulder, having injured it while playing for Red Deer, and not getting needed surgery, because he wanted to secure his spot in the entry draft. He re-aggravated it in the NHL, not due to being too small to play against big men, but hitting a rut in the ice, and slamming into the boards against that shoulder.

 

-I know that he still looks extremely young (and he is) but he's gotten himself up to the 190+ lb range now. Gone is that 165 lb kid who was drafted. He's not huge, but he's not small.

 

-He gets talked about, sometimes, as a bit of a disappointment, when he's actually been quite incredible. Obviously talent with the puck and is extremely diligent without it. Over the course of his entry level contract, starting as that small kid who needed his shoulder rebuilt, he immediately matched up against the best centres of the Western Conference, and his line scored 50.8% of the goals against that competition. Think of it: every night during this time, he went up against guys like Getzlaff, Thornton, Kopitar, Sedin, Toews, etc, etc, etc....... and those guys scored the minority of the goals. That's phenomenal for a skinny kid just starting out.

[jammer2]

@JR Ewing   I had no idea he was up to 190 lbs, thought he was down in the 170's. I still think he should have gained the weight in another league. It was a pretty big risk to take with a franchise type player. There is no doubt he has the talent to stick in the NHL from an early age, I would have let him mature physically before giving him a shot at the NHL. I believe the Flames are making the same mistake with Johnny Gaudreau as we speak. I'd put Nylander from the Leafs in the same boat, he had the skill to stick, the Leafs were just being patient.

[brelic]

The biggest obstacle for the Oilers is that Edmonton is just not an attractive destination for players - whether it be through free agency, or via list of accepted trade destinations. It seems the only way they can acquire legit veteran talent is through a trade.

 

You look up and down that lineup, and the only veteran players of note are Ferrence, and Perron who they acquired through trade.

 

It makes it difficult to create a strong youth/vet balance with excellent mentors for the amazing talent level of the kids. Trade one of those high profile kids for a nice package of veteran talent.

 

It's sad to say, but I can't imagine Edmonton ever being serious contenders - given a choice, players simply don't want to play there. The proof is in the pudding.

[JR Ewing]

@JR Ewing   I had no idea he was up to 190 lbs, thought he was down in the 170's. I still think he should have gained the weight in another league. It was a pretty big risk to take with a franchise type player. There is no doubt he has the talent to stick in the NHL from an early age, I would have let him mature physically before giving him a shot at the NHL. I believe the Flames are making the same mistake with Johnny Gaudreau as we speak. I'd put Nylander from the Leafs in the same boat, he had the skill to stick, the Leafs were just being patient.

 

Almost universally, I agree with keeping such slender players away from the NHL, unless it's clear that we're talking about a dominant player, and there's little opportunity for growing their game in junior. In the case of R-Hop, there was almost nothing for him to learn by staying in Red Deer, and he couldn't play in the AHL. It can be different with a player like Nylander, who wasn't considered to be the best draft-aged player in his pool. Hopkins was, and he was young for his draft year at that, with an April birthday... Still, I can't imagine it would have hurt too much, considering the risk of bigger players hurting him.

 

But, as a skinny guy, bigger teams/players had been trying to use physical play to shut him down, and it doesn't usually work on the top players. In the end, I agree with your stance almost 100% of the time.

[JR Ewing]

The biggest obstacle for the Oilers is that Edmonton is just not an attractive destination for players - whether it be through free agency, or via list of accepted trade destinations. It seems the only way they can acquire legit veteran talent is through a trade.

 

You look up and down that lineup, and the only veteran players of note are Ferrence, and Perron who they acquired through trade.

 

It makes it difficult to create a strong youth/vet balance with excellent mentors for the amazing talent level of the kids. Trade one of those high profile kids for a nice package of veteran talent.

 

It's sad to say, but I can't imagine Edmonton ever being serious contenders - given a choice, players simply don't want to play there. The proof is in the pudding.

 

Edmonton will never be an attractive destination for plenty of players; it's true. I lived there for more than 20 years and see where they're coming from. Among the core players, Ference was a free agent, as were Justin Schultz, Benoit Pouliot, and Mark Fayne. I don't know if the Oilers will ever be contenders again, but winning is a really nice way to get free agents interested in signing on. Look at the city of Detroit: not trying to troll people from there, but the place is literally falling apart around them, but players have been willing to move there to be part of winning.

 

But no, Edmonton does not exactly have the glitz to interest players. The winters are long and cold and mostly dark. The city is quite plain, verging on unattractive, and the players are in a fish bowl of rabid fans who will want a player run out of town because he doesn't "HIT!!!!!".

 

The nice thing: go look at the Stanley Cup winners of the last couple of CBA deals... It's almost always that the key players were drafted by the team, not signed as free agents. After all, by the time they're UFA, most are past their most productive years. Again, I don't know if they'll ever contend again, but they have some nice pieces. Their biggest problem is that the person put in charge (Tambellini) was a monumental failure, and it set back the rebuild by a few years.

[yave1964]

@JR Ewing

They gave up on Gagner and looked around and realized that they had nobody around to replace him. Poor organizational decision.

RNH

Gagner

Draisatl

Gordon

Going with that to start the year would have allowed the kid to grow up protected on the third line and worked in slowly would have served the team better. Still not certain why Gagner was given up for nothing. I am not saying he is a star, far from it, he is not as good as the Oilers hoped he would be and so they threw him away, still a young guy. That is the sign of a bad organization. If you feel a player needs replaced at least have a plan in place going forward before showing the player the door.

[JR Ewing]

@JR Ewing

They gave up on Gagner and looked around and realized that they had nobody around to replace him. Poor organizational decision.

RNH

Gagner

Draisatl

Gordon

Going with that to start the year would have allowed the kid to grow up protected on the third line and worked in slowly would have served the team better. Still not certain why Gagner was given up for nothing. I am not saying he is a star, far from it, he is not as good as the Oilers hoped he would be and so they threw him away, still a young guy. That is the sign of a bad organization. If you feel a player needs replaced at least have a plan in place going forward before showing the player the door.

 

Well, they did get Purcell for Gagner. I'm not saying that I agree with the organization there, but they didn't just flush Gagner for nothing in return. But yes, I agree with you there: I'm not a fan of flushing good players because they didn't turn out to be the great player you (mistakenly) thought he would become. It IS the sign of a poor organization, and I've said the precise same thing before: don't get rid of players if you don't have a replacement ready to play his minutes.

 

Look around: MacT is clearing out the guys who were not his. He's making the classic mistake of falling in love with "his guys", and letting that cloud his decisions. It's a mistake to have Martin Marincin in the AHL while Justin Schultz (with whom MacTavish has fallen head over heels for) is pure chaos and bleeding Corsi events.

 

MacTavish is an interesting guy, constantly offering conflicting messages through the media. Last Autumn, he talked about 4th line players needing to be able play, and the puck possession was a big deal. Gagner was hurt by Kassian's idiocy, and the next day, MacTavish acquired Steve MacIntyre an dLuke Gazdic, to dancing bears that can't play the game. This summer, they hired a big name in analytics (Tyler Dellow), spoke about the importance of it, but refuses to acknowledge that the analytics show Schultz to be a poor defenseman. "Sometimes you have to trust your judgement over what the numbers say". In other words, we like numbers until they tell us something we don't like. The urge to believe that you're the smartest guy in the room will ruin you, particularly when you don't have a track record which backs it up.

 

MacTavish is light years better than Steve Tambellini, but the bar was set really low, and there are issues here.

[briere48]

i agree, i dont think oilers management knows how to put a team together, it's not the young players that's hurting you, it's the chemistry. i mean avs last year were good and they were young, it's because the gm knew how to put a team together when it comes to chemistry.

[JR Ewing]

i agree, i dont think oilers management knows how to put a team together, it's not the young players that's hurting you, it's the chemistry. i mean avs last year were good and they were young, it's because the gm knew how to put a team together when it comes to chemistry.

 

First things first: welcome to hockeyforums! I hope you stick around enjoy yourself here.   

 

Now...

 

The Avs were a team which was out-shot and out-chanced on a nightly basis (7th worst CorsiFor% in the NHL) and got by on a high team SH% and career SV% from their starter. That's the furthest thing from chemistry and has consistently been shown to have a poor chance of repeating. Considering that Joe Sakic iced almost the exact team he inherited in Sept of last year, maybe Greg Sherman is the one with the magic eye for chemistry?

 

Anyway, we disagree, insofar as the Avs go, anyway. I've never been a big believer in rating a GM by his ability to put certain players together, and subscribe much more to the philosophy of Bill Torrey, who still managed to build a dynasty during a time when the NHL handed Sam Pollock the keys to the kingdom, and let him rig pretty much the entire 1970s: "It's no secret, it's not complicated. Get good players."

 

The reason the Oilers have been losing for years isn't because of not getting the correct complimentary players, an inability to "gel", or the wrong culture.

 

They simply haven't had enough good players.

[JR Ewing]

Last night's game against the Canucks showed is a bit of a lesson in what can go wrong with how things have worked out up the middle...

 

-Yakupov has looked very good so far through the end of the pre-season and into last night's game, where he scored a great goal by using his speed and drive to the net.

-Pouliot is a very useful possession player with terrific ES Pts/60 numbers.

 

And they were barely played because Dallas Eakins had to (rightly) shelter Leon Draisaitl. Instead, Eakins was forced to give them only 9 minutes while Matt Hendricks played 15. If I'm a coach, I'm not too thrilled about having to leave bullets in the chamber because my GM decided back on draft day that the New Kid in Town would get the job.

[jammer2]

Well, they did get Purcell for Gagner. I'm not saying that I agree with the organization there, but they didn't just flush Gagner for nothing in return. But yes, I agree with you there: I'm not a fan of flushing good players because they didn't turn out to be the great player you (mistakenly) thought he would become. It IS the sign of a poor organization, and I've said the precise same thing before: don't get rid of players if you don't have a replacement ready to play his minutes.

 

  I think most of the problem with Gagner arose during the strike season.  The Oilers had the 2 worst centers for face off wins during that short season. Nugent Hopkins was deal last in percentage of face offs won....at a paultry 40%....and Gagner was 2nd last with 41.1% won. They are obviously married to RNH, but if they wanted to become a better posession team, cutting ties with Gagner was the quick way to do it. Not saying it was the right move, but I do think this stat in particular had at least some bearing on their decision to move on. It's one thing to have a bad face off guy (in RNH's case it's more of a learning curve than anything else)....but having the worst 2 in the league, that's usually not something that a GM will leave alone.

[J0e Th0rnton]

 That's the impression I get also...a bunch of players skating around trying to score as individuals. They also seemed to lack cohesion and a team "system". With all the youth they have, the needed a coach who preached positioning and responsibility. Make the opposition work to win. Far to many odd man rushes, to many players caught deep in the offensive zone trying to be heroes.

This. They should have been mad after Barry Trotz.

[JR Ewing]

  I think most of the problem with Gagner arose during the strike season.  The Oilers had the 2 worst centers for face off wins during that short season. Nugent Hopkins was deal last in percentage of face offs won....at a paultry 40%....and Gagner was 2nd last with 41.1% won. They are obviously married to RNH, but if they wanted to become a better posession team, cutting ties with Gagner was the quick way to do it. Not saying it was the right move, but I do think this stat in particular had at least some bearing on their decision to move on. It's one thing to have a bad face off guy (in RNH's case it's more of a learning curve than anything else)....but having the worst 2 in the league, that's usually not something that a GM will leave alone.

 

(I didn't even catch your post)

 

The problems with Gagner were, as you said, well documented, since they've remained issues since his (premature) debut in the NHL. The trade wasn't overly surprising, for any number of reasons, some of which you mention:

 

-The faceoff issues.

-He's a short centre in a conference with very large men in the position.

-Gagner has never learned to look over his shoulder in the defensive zone, and becomes VERY puck focused, leaving opposing players completely unmarked. This could, again, be an issue owing in part to the inconsistent coaching he's received over his NHL career. If Dave Tippett can't teach him to be more responsible, I don't know who can.

-Due to Steve Tambellini handing out short term deal after short term deal, MacTavish was pretty much forced into signing him at more term and dollars than Gagner likely could have rewarded the club with in terms of production. It was that or lose him to unrestricted free agency at 24.

-My issue isn't so much that Gagner was traded. Again, I'm not a fan of trading good players because they're not great, but that's not so much the issue here. He was traded for a RW when the Oilers need centres.

-Case in point: the Oilers had to call up Bogan Yakimov, who just turned 20 on Oct 4th, because they're looking at possible injury time at centre. When your season greatly relies on extremely young players being good enough, there are problems.

[briere48]

what about goaltending, i mean the best goalie that played for your team was dwayne roloson, it seems like after that, that's when your team went downhill.

[brelic]

what about goaltending, i mean the best goalie that played for your team was dwayne roloson, it seems like after that, that's when your team went downhill.

 

I still maintain it comes down to location. Very few players willingly choose to go to Edmonton. And without building a strong veteran entourage to protect, coach, and mentor the young guys, you end up with what's happened in Edmonton for the past decade.