Around the League 45: The Stanley Cup is in God's Waiting Room

[SlavinAway]

They are going to need to find a way to dump Nurse before Bouchard comes due again.

 

[DaveG]

Hard to see him going *that* much higher than Drai, but it'll be higher. $14.5?

sounds about right. They'll need to pay someone to take the Nurse boat anchor if they want to have another run at the Finals in the next few years.

 

[HisIceness]

Well that's unexpected

Also kinda boring because I was hoping for drama next offseason.

Hopefully no idiot out there takes on the Nurse contract.

 

[cptjeff]

sounds about right. They'll need to pay someone to take the Nurse boat anchor if they want to have another run at the Finals in the next few years.

Good luck to them on that, they'll need it.

 

[Svechhammer]

Assuming the cap rises to $90m next year, and if you also assume that McD gets roughly the same as what Drai just got, the Oilers will have 1/3 of their entire cap space taken up by 2 players next year.

They are both elite players, but good luck building a Cup contender from that

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

Assuming the cap rises to $90m next year, and if you also assume that McD gets roughly the same as what Drai just got, the Oilers will have 1/3 of their entire cap space taken up by 2 players next year.

They are both elite players, but good luck building a Cup contender from that

16 million if he wants to be the highest paid but leave some of the table. 17 million if not.

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

Aho at less than 10 is a better asset than Draisaitl at 14

change my mind

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

Aho at less than 10 is a better asset than Draisaitl at 14

change my mind

344 vs 237 points the last 3 seasons
If Aho starts touching 90+ points the next few seasons then maybe the argument is there.

 

[Derailed75]

344 vs 237 points the last 3 seasons

Doesn't take into effect defensive play among about 5 other factors where Aho contributes

 

[Daeavorn]

Drai wasnt good these past finals either. For that much money you want him contributing heavily.

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

344 vs 237 points the last 3 seasons
If Aho starts touching 90+ points the next few seasons then maybe the argument is there.

Honestly not a big enough gap for me considering the differences in the team's playstyles. I'm not sure Drai puts up more than like 95 points in a season here if him and Aho just switched places. Aho much better defensively too.

 

[CandyCanes]

Aho makes up some value with his defense. It would be a tough choice to choose between the two in my opinion when factoring salaries. But it’s hard to pass up a dynamic level player like Draisaitl

 

[Svechhammer]

Quite frankly, with the money Drai and McD are making, they need to basically be able to single-handedly beat anyone they play in the playoffs, because if they don't, the rest of the team will never be good enough.

Offensively, they are excellent. Defensively, though? McD is great, but Drai leaves a ton to be desired, and that alone could be enough of an Achilles Heel to completely do them in every year.

 

[bleedgreen]

Doesn't take into effect defensive play among about 5 other factors where Aho contributes

It’s a stretch to think Aho is better than Drai at about anything. Including defensive play, where Drai is under rated and we tend to over love our guy a bit. Aho benefits from a defensive system that makes him look a bit better than he is. They’re both solid in their own end. Aho is a more nimble skater. That’s about it for me.

 

[CandyCanes]

It’s a stretch to think Aho is better than Drai at about anything. Including defensive play, where Drai is under rated and we tend to over love our guy a bit. Aho benefits from a defensive system that makes him look a bit better than he is. They’re both solid in their own end. Aho is a more nimble skater. That’s about it for me.

I don’t think it’s a stretch that Aho is a better defensive player than Drai.

Also to add some more info Aho is one of the best PKers in the game. Drai doesn’t even PK at all.

 

[TheReelChuckFletcher]

Some of the bad defensive metrics for Draisaitl are because of the system that Edmonton plays, most likely. Regardless, Draisaitl's offensive metrics are so off-the-charts good that it flat-out doesn't actually matter. McDavid and Draisaitl practically are good enough to carry a team on their backs every postseason.

 

[AD Skinner]

Even if Aho isn’t better than Draisaitl at anything I still lean toward I’d rather have Aho at his deal than Draisaitl at his since the cap savings could get another pretty good player

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

The metrics generally show Drai being far ahead of Aho offensively, and Aho being far ahead of Drai defensively. Both teams respective systems impact those numbers. I would not even begin to try to argue that Aho's defense makes him better than Drai. But when taking the cap hit into account I think Aho's overall impact per cap hit is higher than Drai's. It's not really a stretch when Drai is counting over 40% more towards the cap than Aho. Is Drai 40% better than Aho? That to me is a real stretch when taking into account the defense. If defense were closer to equal then yeah Drai is probably worth that much more than Aho. But it's really not close to equal by any measure.

 

[Derailed75]

I don’t think it’s a stretch that Aho is a better defensive player than Drai.

Also to add some more info Aho is one of the best PKers in the game. Drai doesn’t even PK at all.

No one is saying Aho is better than Dri. They are saying Aho at 10 is better value than Dri at 14. Ahis defensive play is part of the reason. Sure if you just pull offensive stats Dri is better his overall play might even be better but that 4 million dollar gap in pay pushes Fishy ahead.

 

[Svechhammer]

No one is saying Aho is better than Dri. They are saying Aho at 10 is better value than Dri at 14. Ahis defensive play is part of the reason. Sure if you just pull offensive stats Dri is better his overall play might even be better but that 4 million dollar gap in pay pushes Fishy ahead.

And that's without considering that in a short time, Drai won't be their highest AAV contract. By next year, their Top 6 is going to be making about $50m total (and that's assuming they replace Skinner with a $2m player.... could be higher), and they have Nurse making about 10, so they'll realistically have about $30m to build out 6 forwards plus depth, 5 defensemen plus depth, and 2 goalies.

oof.

 

[bleedgreen]

I don’t think it’s a stretch that Aho is a better defensive player than Drai.

Also to add some more info Aho is one of the best PKers in the game. Drai doesn’t even PK at all.

What’s that got to do with being a better defensive player? We run four lines, they run basically two when they have to and Drai is out there for a ton of pp time. They don’t use him that way and just because we do use Aho doesn’t mean he’s brilliant defensively. He pushes the d to be sharp because hes a top shorthanded threat, which is often confused with a defensive mind. Especially when he’s with TT they alternate leaving the zone early on any possible chance to spring one or the other. An dangerous offensive threat on the pk is just as effective (if not more so) than a defensive minded one. Aho is a solid two way player, but I’ve never seen him as better than Drai who tends to be pretty under rated as an all around player which is interesting since early on that was the tag on McD.

Metrics are pretty useless comparing these two teams. If we had Drai his metrics would be through the roof and we’d be bragging about how amazing defensively he is, while he would probably play exactly the same way he always has.

 

[chaz4hockey]

Assuming the cap rises to $90m next year, and if you also assume that McD gets roughly the same as what Drai just got, the Oilers will have 1/3 of their entire cap space taken up by 2 players next year.

They are both elite players, but good luck building a Cup contender from that

Especially since their prospect pool is not strong and cheap homegrown assets won’t be available.

Edit: I’d add that at 29 this season I suspect he has only 4 very high level years left out of the possible 8. Big guys seem to slow down sooner.

 

[WreckingCrew]

The drawback of having generational talents / truly elite players is you HAVE to find a way to keep them at all costs, even if it means paying out the @$$ for them. In just a couple years they could be looking at near $50M tied up in 4 players unless they're willing to take a massive hit on Nurse. They're going to be enormously top-heavy and rely on tweener-depth to hold down 4-5 roster spots for a few min per game and overload the top 6 F / 4 D. And again, their prospect pool is too shallow to fill-out the roster with cheap guys

 

[Blueline Bomber]

 

[WreckingCrew]

Not shocking in the least