Kind of a flippant point that has no bearing. McLeod sported extremely low GA numbers in both EV and pk relatively. Nor do I really subscribe to your way of thinking specifically on this. If you can pk you can defend reasonably well in Even terms. I get what you're saying but now sure how much merit there is to it.
My take is a bit different because the Oilers even under Holland and JJ and in current and past coaching here have put little stock in hitting and physicality. Org seems to be pretty into the hitting means something bad that you don't have puck kind of line of thinking.
Both have good burst acceleration first steps. Both are old and have slowed down on frequent miles. Even in playoffs Arvie wasn't getting to pucks. he was the worst Kings player in game 1 and got better, but still struggled. Skinner will typically skate from a standing start cheating around blue line. Entering his own zone optional.
I think Arvidsson's skating will look better with a full off season of training and some more time to fully get his body going after having back surgery last year. As we've seen with Brown it's not just about getting healthy after major injuries, it takes time to get up to speed.
On the PK/even defending note, it’s quite different. You can throw a guy like Ryan, Brown or Carrick to successfully PK against the elite of the elite in the league but you put them out there even strength they will break.
Arvidsson is as fast as Foegele and Holloway will probably have a bigger role. He's certainly not as fast as McLeod but he is no slouch. On the back end Broberg is a much better skater than Vinny.
Him being a healthy scratch then moved in the off season suggests different.
How is Holloway going to have a bigger role? Oilers added two top six forwards and might be looking at a 3rd line with either Kane(Assuming he's healthy) or RNH playing with Henrique. Solid chance Holloway spends most of the year getting limited minutes on the 4th line, with some time spent at right wing on the 3rd line depending how much ice time Perry gets this year.
I doubt we'll see much RNH on the third line. Knob had basically an entire presser on how he doesn't like to spread out talent because you start taking minutes away from the top dogs.
I'm just pointing out that the Oilers are already stacked with players in a way that will continue to suppress Holloway's minutes. Kane probably gets the 3rd line duties(and it's likely everyone gets more public comments about ice time from him as a result), but the example is to show the type of decisions that they will already be looking at going into the new season with a fully healthy roster.
In the regular season he did you are correct. In the playoffs his GA/60 at 5v5 was 9th out of 14 forwards. I don't have anything to back what I'm saying regarding defending 5v5 being different than defending on the PK aside from what I see out of my own eyes watching the game. But McLeod's 5v5 defensive impact falling off a cliff from where it was in regular season suggests to me that he struggled to defend at 5v5 when the intensity and physicality ramped up and when Edmonton started playing much faster, more aggressive and heavier teams who could cycle the puck.
He and Foegele both had poor post-seasons with poor offensive and defensive results (outside of the PK). Both were scheduled for raises this year and next. They made the smart move of moving on from these players and replacing them with much more talented offensive players in Skinner + Arvidsson on cheap short deals that won't affect their long-term cap. Both of these players had 3 years of post-seasons to show they were worth being a long term fit on this team, and neither really broke through in the post season.
This is probably a bit of a reach. He was excellent on the PK, but so was the entire forward group and he was 4th in PK minutes for forwards. His 5v5 results were dreadful. I think we almost won the cup because a lot of other guys were in the line up more so than because McLeod (or Foegele) were in the line up.
Possession numbers are great until you look deeper and realize that McLeod also didn't have good possession numbers and got absolutely slaughtered by Henrique when it came to high danger chance differential while facing significantly easier competition. There's a reason why Henrique's on ice shooting and save percentage were better because he won his high danger scoring chance battles against top lines while McLeod lost his against bottom 6ers.
If you look at it in isolation then sure, but the fact is the Oilers are over the cap and need to upgrade their D by the deadline as well. They upgraded their forward group by a lot this summer, but had to spend a bit more to do it and to retain the important pieces from last year's playoffs. Recouping a near NHL ready blue chip prospect to get cap compliant is a massive win.
