Player Discussion Mattias Ekholm

[Canovin]

Unquestionably so. Being able to not have a 2nd pairing more sheltered than most team's bottom pairings (thanks Keith/Kulak/Barrie) is such a godsend for everyone on the team. Bouchard is also finally able to get in reps against opposing top 6 forwards/top pairing dmen, whereas when it was Keith-Bouchard or Kulak-Bouchard it was pretty much a guaranteed scoring chance against when the opposing elites step on the ice. It's not just affecting Nurse, Bouchard, Ceci etc too, it's helping the forwards out too knowing they have more support out there. The bottom 6 has been playing their best all year long Even Devin Shore whose been our worst non goalie player most of the year looks great out there right now. Straight up a full wipe of the slate for every player on the roster except Jack Campbell.

The Kraken version of Larsson is very sheltered for a "top pairing", and only showed up to work 1.5 out of 5 years with the Oilers. Obviously part of that was his father's death but from the sounds of it he wasn't gonna get over it as an Oiler and it was best he moved on.

24 mins a night is pretty sheltered. But yes I agree, he was never getting over the death of his father here in Edmonton.

Makes me wonder how good Fabbro could be here.

Nashville is a good trading partner for the Oilers. I'm surprised we don't do a lot of business with them

 

[Nostradumbass]

24 mins a night is pretty sheltered. But yes I agree, he was never getting over the death of his father here in Edmonton.


Nashville is a good trading partner for the Oilers. I'm surprised we don't do a lot of business with them

I remember people were hoping for the prospect Roman Josi when we traded Grebeshkov there. Imagine how big of a win that trade would have been.

 

[Da McBomb]

You know you got a good one when reading other team's forums and see alot of other team's fans saying 'Ekholm is a great pickup for Edm" or "I wish we got Ekholm". I see that alot.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

24 mins a night is pretty sheltered. But yes I agree, he was never getting over the death of his father here in Edmonton.


Nashville is a good trading partner for the Oilers. I'm surprised we don't do a lot of business with them

Minutes played is not reflective of whether a player is sheltered or not. You could play 2 minutes against McDavid vs 5 minutes against Devin Shore and I guarantee you the player whose playing against McDavid will be more exhausted. Not even just physically trying to keep up with the vastly more skilled player but also the mental taxation of knowing even the slightest mistake could burn you. Darnell Nurse's raw minutes have pretty much been the exact same since we acquired Ekholm but we can all tell he's playing much better and part of that is b/c his deployment is far less absurd. He actually gets to "rest" for a few shifts against a David Kampf or a Trent Frederic here and there inbetween facing Bunting+M&M or Marchand+Bergeron+Debrusk, whereas pre Ekholm he'd be stepping on vs Tavares+Nylander and Krejci+Pastrnak instead. This is part of why the Duncan Keith pickup was so bad for us last year b/c he had to be sheltered more than even most bottom pairing dmen to the point where we were using the player with a torn hip flexor against MacKinnon/Rantanen/Gaudreau/Tkachuk.

 

[bobbythebrain]

So far so great.

Of we added Chychrun we likely just improved Barries position.

With Ekholm, we improve his position and Bouchard's.

Win, win

 

[Zguy370]

24 mins a night is pretty sheltered. But yes I agree, he was never getting over the death of his father here in Edmonton.


Nashville is a good trading partner for the Oilers. I'm surprised we don't do a lot of business with them

Against the top offensive players to say the least

 

[HockeyGuy1964]

Tom Marchese, hosting the Jeff Marek show, said on air to Elliotte Friedman that Chycrun would have been the better fit for Edmonton citing his puck moving skills as if they are somehow better than Barrie's.

You could hear it in Elliotte's voice how absurd he found that take & said Ekholm was EXACTLY what the Oilers needed.

 

[FlameChampion]

Tom Marchese, hosting the Jeff Marek show, said on air to Elliotte Friedman that Chycrun would have been the better fit for Edmonton citing his puck moving skills as if they are somehow better than Barrie's.

You could hear it in Elliotte's voice how absurd he found that take & said Ekholm was EXACTLY what the Oilers needed.

Truthfully they could of used both. I think Elholm is more needed though. Would like it better if Chychrun was a RD.

 

[Zguy370]

Tom Marchese, hosting the Jeff Marek show, said on air to Elliotte Friedman that Chycrun would have been the better fit for Edmonton citing his puck moving skills as if they are somehow better than Barrie's.

You could hear it in Elliotte's voice how absurd he found that take & said Ekholm was EXACTLY what the Oilers needed.

Happy we got Ekholm but Chycrun looks pretty good in Ottawa as well, a win win for both teams

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Tom Marchese, hosting the Jeff Marek show, said on air to Elliotte Friedman that Chycrun would have been the better fit for Edmonton citing his puck moving skills as if they are somehow better than Barrie's.

You could hear it in Elliotte's voice how absurd he found that take & said Ekholm was EXACTLY what the Oilers needed.

Chychrun's puck moving skills are much much much better than Barrie's it's not even close. Chychrun has one of the best breakout passes/puck rushing skillsets in the NHL for both zone exits and entries, both for volume and for success rate, and is a one man transition for an absolute dog shit team. Barrie was one of the worst Oilers in transition, had horrendous breakouts and zone exits both for volume passing and passing success rate. And we don't even need to talk about zone entries b/c he's hemmed in his zone so often that by the time it comes out the only option is for the forward to dump and change. There's a reason why this guy was dead last among full time Oilers defensemen in even strength points during the past 2 seasons. He's a good smart in zone passer. Nothing more. This works for the power play b/c McDavid is a zone entry machine and nobody ever gets hemmed in on the power play, but at even strength the guy's puck moving skills were a liability.

Ekholm fits the Oilers needs and is an excellent breakout passer in his own right. In fact Ekholm's puck moving skills are almost as good as Chychrun's. There's a reason why the guy is top 30 for even strength points among dmen the past half decade and blows Barrie's even strength production to kingdom come. Ignoring the Ekholm vs Chychrun thing though, suggesting Barrie is capable of holding Chychrun's jock in transition is beyond absurd.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Another thing that he does that not many of our D do is not put up with assholes trying to snow the keeper or just coming in late after the goalie covers the puck. The old school "this is my crease and my keeper gtfo unless you want a crosscheck to the kidney, hip or teeth".

 

[Bryanbryoil]

For all of those posters on here that like diving into analytics, how has Ekholm done against MacKinnon historically?

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

For all of those posters on here that like diving into analytics, how has Ekholm done against MacKinnon historically?

I'm pretty sure you have to pay to isolate stats against specific player matchups and I'm a cheap f*** lol so I'll just look at Ekholm vs Colorado instead. For this season he's done alright, got owned one of the games but had great possession numbers in the December 17th game (64.29% FF, 80.04% xGF, 60% SCF, 66.67% HDCF). Ekholm got absolutely ripped apart vs Colorado in playoffs last year as to be expected when your team gets swept 4-0. Comfortably in the red for pretty much everything from Corsi to Fenwick to xGF/A to SCF/A to HDCF/A. He did get destroyed less than the non-Josi guys though if that gives you any solace haha. Most defensemen who ran into the Colorado machine ended up smelling like shit in the analytics department. I do have some copium to sell to you though. There were only 4 defenseman who had passable metrics vs Colorado in the playoffs: Justin Faulk, Victor Hedman, Mikhail Sergachev, and a mystery player I'll name later.

There was one and only one defenseman in the entire playoffs who was in the green against Colorado in every possession metric and did well in terms of microstats (cue the BaRRiE BeST OiLeRs DMaN cringers): Evan Bouchard.

Ekholm's role if we run into Colorado will not be about Ekholm. That ship has sailed. We've seen that story over and over and it doesn't end well for Ekholm. His contribution will be how much he maximizes the value of our best anti-Colorado weapon.

 

[tinfish]

This is what it's like to have a legit defensemen. Best defender we've had in a long time. Put's everyone else in a more comfortable position.

 

[Stoneman89]

Chychrun's puck moving skills are much much much better than Barrie's it's not even close. Chychrun has one of the best breakout passes/puck rushing skillsets in the NHL for both zone exits and entries, both for volume and for success rate, and is a one man transition for an absolute dog shit team. Barrie was one of the worst Oilers in transition, had horrendous breakouts and zone exits both for volume passing and passing success rate. And we don't even need to talk about zone entries b/c he's hemmed in his zone so often that by the time it comes out the only option is for the forward to dump and change. There's a reason why this guy was dead last among full time Oilers defensemen in even strength points during the past 2 seasons. He's a good smart in zone passer. Nothing more. This works for the power play b/c McDavid is a zone entry machine and nobody ever gets hemmed in on the power play, but at even strength the guy's puck moving skills were a liability.

Ekholm fits the Oilers needs and is an excellent breakout passer in his own right. In fact Ekholm's puck moving skills are almost as good as Chychrun's. There's a reason why the guy is top 30 for even strength points among dmen the past half decade and blows Barrie's even strength production to kingdom come. Ignoring the Ekholm vs Chychrun thing though, suggesting Barrie is capable of holding Chychrun's jock in transition is beyond absurd.

Barries back passes and drop passes to McDavid coming up the ice on the Oilers PP were epic.

 

[McDoused]

I havent stopped grinning since we the moment he trade broke. I don't know what kind of rock people live under to not know what Ekholm brings to a team.

He checks all the boxes and immediately solidifies our defence. He was easily the best defenceman available to help this team today. Top pairing dmen dont grow on trees. Then you add on the leadership, experience and character and it's an absolute steal.

My only concern is his age. The Oilers need to take advantage of the next 2 years and go for it. Hopefully he can play a long time and not decline too much in terms of skating. Heck, he might even sign a sweetheart deal for cheap if we actually win a cup.

Massive move that takes us that much closer to being contenders. At most we are 3 pieces away from being a Stanley cup favourite.

 

[McBooya42]

So far so excellent.

How Mattias Ekholm's arrival has impacted every other d-man on Oilers' roster

Give the pundits some credit here. Many of them targeted Edmonton Oilers’ left defence as the area that needed to be addressed at the trade deadline. When push ca…

t.co

 

[Gordy Elbows]

Perhaps we should continue trading for defensemen drafted by the defense factory in Nashville.

And the goalie factory in California.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

 

[Mr Kot]

 

[snipes]

He was fantastic again tonight. Gorgeous feed on the Bjugstad goal.

 

[GreeningOil]

So far so great.

Of we added Chychrun we likely just improved Barries position.

With Ekholm, we improve his position and Bouchard's.

Win, win

And Nurse, Ceci, Kulak, and Deharnais.

Legitimately, we’re much better with him in almost all positions. Pushes weaker players down the lineup!

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

And Nurse, Ceci, Kulak, and Deharnais.

Legitimately, we’re much better with him in almost all positions. Pushes weaker players down the lineup!

Pretty much every forward looks better now too (with the exception of Hyman who we now know was nursing an injury, and Yams whose also definitely playing hurt). The breakouts are much cleaner and we get out of the zone much better across the board b/c our weakest transition dman is now a Predator and we have a cycle breaking, zone exit machine in his place. He also gives our other stronger transition players like Nurse/Kulak the opportunity to play to their strengths instead of putting too much on their plates, and the puck comes out way more smoothly and efficiently on every pairing. The forwards get more time and opportunity to have fast breaks or generate extended cycles. Legit a global buff. Pretty much the only complaint I have is that I'd like to see Broberg dressed more often and get some shifts with his fellow Swede, but that's a Woodcroft thing.

 

[OilerTitanFan]

I havent stopped grinning since we the moment he trade broke. I don't know what kind of rock people live under to not know what Ekholm brings to a team.

He checks all the boxes and immediately solidifies our defence. He was easily the best defenceman available to help this team today. Top pairing dmen dont grow on trees. Then you add on the leadership, experience and character and it's an absolute steal.

My only concern is his age. The Oilers need to take advantage of the next 2 years and go for it. Hopefully he can play a long time and not decline too much in terms of skating. Heck, he might even sign a sweetheart deal for cheap if we actually win a cup.

Massive move that takes us that much closer to being contenders. At most we are 3 pieces away from being a Stanley cup favourite.

What 3 pieces do we need? Anything goes in the playoffs. Should we just add Ryan O Reilly, maroon and binnington? Or how about Josi, Saros, Duchene?

 

[CupofOil]

And Nurse, Ceci, Kulak, and Deharnais.

Legitimately, we’re much better with him in almost all positions. Pushes weaker players down the lineup!

Actually, in a weird way, Ekholm's addition made Desharnais worse because he's now playing Barrie's spot on the 3rd pairing and has struggled with the elevated assignment. I think Holland made a mistake not adding a vet to the right side, too much youth in the top 6 with Bouchard and Desharnais being full time players and with Broberg wasting away as the #7.

With that said, Ekholm has been a fantastic addition to state the obvious, the top 4 is greatly improved as a result.