Rumor: Rumors & Proposals Thread | Forwards & Goaltending Under a Microscope, Which Bottom 6 Forwards Do You Keep?

[M Ace]

Hofer is only 24 and is ready to emerge.

Is he the best long term play out of all the goalies that have been mentioned?

Gibson has been dealing with a lot of injuries and hasn't played much in the last few years?

I like a tandem of Stu and Hofer. Hofer is a more younger upcoming threat for challenging Stu to be better. Incoming offersheet?

 

[foshizzle]

There are many players who beat the odds, but players under 6 and 170 lb are incredibly risky amateurs.

Yammo was a 1st rounder. We drafted him because he went to the hard areas... and that ended his career.

Savoie has shown incredible worth ethic, IQ and skill, and a legal hit could give him a concussion.

A legal hit can give anyone a concussion- has nothing to do with height.

 

[5 14 6 1]

Demko will never be healthy again though.
Last year in the games he played he had a 0.889 and almost 3GAA.
It was also said a few times Demkos injury is something that will never fully heal, and something you can’t surgery away and he is just going to have to deal with
With Demko you might have an elite goalie for half a season, but then you go thru the playoffs with whoever your backup is.
Demko literally can’t handle guys in his crease in the playoffs.
We make it to the cup final against Florida we lose cause Bennett will sneeze on him in the crease and he dies.

Edit: The Oilers nation guys also think Skinner is a great goalie at worst.

Stop listening to Oilersnation content

 

[LTIR]

It's cringe because I realize Kane and Perry had addiction issues? I'm not blaming his ex at all for his gambling addiction. It's tragic he got help and he's now better for it. I'd say Kane is one of the best guys in the Edmonton community.

I'm saying his crazy ex wife is making up obscene stories.

As for carter hart what is confirmed is the kind of person he is. Has nothing to do with being guilty or not. If 5 guys go to some 3rd world country and buy some 18 year old prostitute and it's "technically legal" there doesn't mean that they are not disgusting people.

That's exaclty how this trial is playing out.

Lol my backwards logic? Carter Hart is the good guy and evander Kane is the bad guy because he had an addiction and married a bat crazy woman who lost custody of her child.

One encounter doesn't define you as a person. I guess you've never been to strip club and no 'good guy' ever got a lap dance. You don't even need to go to a 3rd world country you can get a sub and tug at 20+ locations in Edmonton.

I guess this city is full of disgusting people because all those joints are fairly busy.

 

[Not Canada Drai]

One encounter doesn't define you as a person. I guess you've never been to strip club and no 'good guy' ever got a lap dance. You don't even need to go to a 3rd world country you can get a sub and tug at 20+ locations in Edmonton.

I guess this city is full of disgusting people because all those joints are fairly busy.

To be fair this city is full of disgusting people.

 

[K1900L]

So it looks like we are going to face Marner next playoffs? The Kings, Knights, Stars and Ducks seem to be the frontrunners.

 

[redgrant]

One encounter doesn't define you as a person. I guess you've never been to strip club and no 'good guy' ever got a lap dance. You don't even need to go to a 3rd world country you can get a sub and tug at 20+ locations in Edmonton.

I guess this city is full of disgusting people because all those joints are fairly busy.

One encounter? It's at least 5 guys having sex with 1 girl. Best case scenario it's consensual. That's the best case.

I'm not sure what you mean about "disgusting people" comment. Are those guys paying for sex acts here in Edmonton advertising them Monday morning at their stantec job, rbc or the u of a?

Yeah there is a reason they'd keep quiet about it. It would be viewed as exploitive and disgusting by many.

Can't see any of them coming here. Not with all the effort the team is doing.

 

[M Ace]

I'm like a minute in to this video and all I can say is what the f***. Too bad he's injured 50% of the time and I can see why.

Just seeing him and imagine Stu in the same situations makes me wonder why Stu is still in an Oilers net!

 

[McDoused]

I just think its crazy how dead the rumors and trades thread was before we lost. You don't blowup a team or make big decisions moments after an emotional loss like that. Now everyone seems to know the answer (which is basically whatever their previous prejudice was) they can just blame Bouchard, Skinner, Kane, Ekholm, Arvidsson or whoever else you want and it appears that everyone should go.

I get it, fans are emotional and are hurting. They want to see changes but I can't believe how much everyone is over reacting and how the sky is falling. Bowman was right in his presser, 30 other teams would love to trade to be in our position.

You would think we missed the playoffs with how much negativity is on here. We still have a good team and I think fans are going to go crazy when they see what the new cap market is going to look like.

 

[foshizzle]

I like some of the suggestions here for building depth. The biggest roadblock is Knob. He did a horrible job in the regular season with line combinations and it kicked his ass in the finals. His go to- 97/29 together and they got shut the f*** down.

My solution- split up 93-97-18. Move 93 down to Draisaitl. They have had success before. You need a third line that can score when McDavid and Draisaitl can’t. Frederic is already signed. I like the Cody Glass suggestion a few have spoken about. Mason Appleton is another. I like Anthony Beauvillier (sp), and Adam Gaudette. All can be had decent tickets. Another poster suggested Victor Olaufson (sp). He’d be a cheap add. Brandon Saad is also a Bowman favourite and adds experience. Janmark, Brown, Henrique, Kane, Arvidsson all need to be out. Brown is easy- don’t re-sign him. Henrique/Kane/Arvidsson moved out and Janmark down to the farm (please tell me he didn’t get a NMC).

You run pairs- like all other teams

X- McDavid- Hyman
Nuge- Drai - X
Appleton/Saad - Frederic - Gaudette/beauvillier
Podz - Philp- Kap.

Savoie, Saad, Olaufson (sp) can fill in the top 2 lines. This is essentially adding cheaper, faster, more productive depth. The team doesn’t need a 50 goal scorer- just need 15-18 goal scorers throughout the line up. No more 2 goal janmarks taking up spots.

 

[Jarvi]

I just think its crazy how dead the rumors and trades thread was before we lost. You don't blowup a team or make big decisions moments after an emotional loss like that. Now everyone seems to know the answer (which is basically whatever their previous prejudice was) they can just blame Bouchard, Skinner, Kane, Ekholm, Arvidsson or whoever else you want and it appears that everyone should go.

I get it, fans are emotional and are hurting. They want to see changes but I can't believe how much everyone is over reacting and how the sky is falling. Bowman was right in his presser, 30 other teams would love to trade to be in our position.

You would think we missed the playoffs with how much negativity is on here. We still have a good team and I think fans are going to go crazy when they see what the new cap market is going to look like.

For myself at least, I was waiting until the playoffs were done to really evaluate the pieces we would have to make decisions on. Those finals games mattered more than any others.

The draft is days away, and July 1st right after, we didn't look much better (if at all) compared to last year's team, and we have a cap crunch. Oh, don't forget re-signing our top Dman and the best player in the league. Of course the thread will be more active.

It's not like anyone is suggesting move Mcdavid, the pieces people are talking about are supplementary guys or aging out. Even if we could re-sign everyone and run it back, is that what you want? Is that what McDavid wants to see before signing?

 

[aggressive forecheck]

A legal hit can give anyone a concussion- has nothing to do with height.

When your jaw is at the level of most players shoulder pads of course the player is going to get jacked more often, you don't have to be a physicist to figure this one out. Awaiting your reply with formulas, diagrams and charts.

 

[Mcnotloilersfan]

So it looks like we are going to face Marner next playoffs? The Kings, Knights, Stars and Ducks seem to be the frontrunners.

There is no possible path for Dallas to afford Marner. They're already in cap hell.

Speaking of Dallas though, one free agent I wonder about is Granlund. Guy seems to elivate in the the playoffs and looked great at 4 nations too.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Imo the focus up front should be size in the top 6 and having guys that can win in the dirty areas to open up ice for McDavid and RNH, while the bottom 6 is built around speed and 2 way play, with a healthy pinch of skill.

Personally I don't get the rationale behind trading Kane:

• Is he as good as he was? No.
• Is he still an effective top 6 talent, who brings a unicorn skillset? Yes.
• Do you think you can find better value out there at 5mil? I don't.
• Would I bet on a UFA-to-be Kane being super motivated to have a big year? Hell yes.

I'd just staple Kane to McDavid at evens for the year, and wish him well at the end of the year as he chases the biggest bag he can get.

I also think the bottom 6 should be fairly close to being set. Podz worked well with both Kapanen and Arvidsson on his opposite wing, and I think that's a natural spot for Savoie. Plunk Uncle Rico between the 2 kids and I can see that as the basis for a nice 3rd line.

As for the 4th line: Just move Janmark back to wing, give Philp a proper look at C, and sign a RW that can skate like the wing, PK, and play somewhat physical; all on a cheap deal. (in other words, just re-sign Kapanen). Finally sign a decent C/W option at the 13th forward, who skate, PK, and also not get completely embarrassed in the faceoff dot (Lazar being my favourite fit).

Frederic-McDavid-Kane
RNH-Draisaitl-Hyman
Podkolzin-Henrique-Savoie
Janmark-Philp-Kapanen
Lazar

• I have Frederic starting on the top line, but he's an easy guy to shift around the lineup depending on who's hot and not. You could swap him with anyone on the 3rd line, and still have both lines make sense.
• Most key roles have several players that can fill them (biggest being Rico is not you're only 3C option, and Hyman has some non-geriatric backup in the PF role).
• Also for the first time in a while you'd get some actual mileage out of several value contracts.

 

[Mcnotloilersfan]

If I were Bowman I would call up Buffalo to see if we can acquire Peterka and UPL.

In terms of free agents, I would try to acquire younger players in their 20’s such as Mangiapane and Roslovic. This would potentially go a long way in terms of extending our window to compete

There's rumour that Buffalo turned down the 3rd overall pick for Peterka. I'd love to get the player but I don't think we can get it done.

 

[Spawn]

I just think its crazy how dead the rumors and trades thread was before we lost. You don't blowup a team or make big decisions moments after an emotional loss like that. Now everyone seems to know the answer (which is basically whatever their previous prejudice was) they can just blame Bouchard, Skinner, Kane, Ekholm, Arvidsson or whoever else you want and it appears that everyone should go.

I get it, fans are emotional and are hurting. They want to see changes but I can't believe how much everyone is over reacting and how the sky is falling. Bowman was right in his presser, 30 other teams would love to trade to be in our position.

You would think we missed the playoffs with how much negativity is on here. We still have a good team and I think fans are going to go crazy when they see what the new cap market is going to look like.

Meh

This season was a step back both regular season and playoffs. Last year despite going down 3-0 to Florida and eventually losing in 7 that team felt like it could actually compete with them. It really did feel like a coin flip.

This year they were obviously an inferior team to the Panthers. After the first game it never was close.

Our already old team is just getting older. We have next to no cap room. Basically no tradeable assets of value. And, a barren prospect cupboard with no one realistically making a significant impact in the foreseeable.

This team as it is now hasn’t been good enough to get over the hump two seasons in a row. It’s tough to get excited for it all again when there doesn’t really seem to be a path forward to actually crossing the finish line.

Who knows, maybe Bowman can work some miracles. Considering his body of work so far as our GM and his last few years in Chicago that seems like wishful thinking though.

 

[Burnt Biscuits]

What? Connor BRown has the worst GVA ratio on the club. He's an easy player to strip, and just gets rubbed off pucks continually. Brown also rarely hits.

Kapanen had 2nd most hits of any forward on the club in regular season despite only playing 57 games and often limited minutes. Brown was last among forwards in total hits.

Brown is worse than Kap on the pk. KK specifically inserted Kap on pk, not saying he's good at that but better than Brown.

I could see historically the view that Brown is the better player but we're not talking about Ottawa era Brown. Kapanen is younger, harder, faster, hungrier and its shown on ice continually in reg season and playoffs.

Kapanen also had better playoff production than Brown per game and scored a huge OT series winning goal. Whats not to like given he's low cost and Brown isn't?

IMO our PK is flawed on a fundamental level and cause of that I'm not sure how wise it is to draw sweeping conclusions from results (particularly PK results which is a fairly small sample in Kapanen's case). The way I see it is our starting goalie Skinner has well below average side to side movement and our D in general, but particularly Nurse has trouble neutralizing low cross seam passes and as a result we transitioned to a highly aggressive and chase heavy PK system to reduce the time we give to find those high danger openings. Cause of our PK being chase heavy the faster forwards tend to get better results, which I don't think speaks to inherently being better PKers, they just give less time and space to exploit a critical weakness.

If we moved away from Skinner as our starter and either trade Nurse ideally or remove him from all PK duties we might be able to run a more traditional PK set up and could see other players thriving more in a system that is less reliant on pure skating speed.

----------------------------------------------------

Then just speaking to Kapanen I still don't like the player, I'll tip my hat to him for a spirited playoffs, he came in hot and gave it his all, but at a fundamental level I don't trust him, there are moments where he makes the most braindead high risk plays even when there is little payoff to completing them successfully and often easy low risk secondary options available. While many players make the odd braindead decision I find Kapanen's to come without warning and in the worst spots, it really doesn't matter if he is having a great or a bad game, it can happen at any time, where as most other players will have on or off nights and you can adjust your expectations (and minutes) and know what to expect.

Secondly and I think most importantly in terms of actual results in the regular season Kapanen had an abysmal 35.1 GF% to Brown's solid 52.9 GF% both with fairly large sample sizes (Kapanen also got an o-zone push where Brown got more D-zone starts). Even though I recognize Kapanen's ability to come in off the bench and potentially play great hockey, if I was GM I wouldn't even attempt to sign him as a 13th forward cause of Knob's penchant for overplaying him. I see Kapanen as fundamentally flawed player that no time investment is likely to fix and who tends to get progressively worse the longer he stays with an org.

 

[Paralyzer008]

I haven't posted here in a while.

I think it's impossible to come into next year with a better roster due to the cap, especially post-Frederic, but, open to being surprised!

 

[Burnt Biscuits]

Meh

This season was a step back both regular season and playoffs. Last year despite going down 3-0 to Florida and eventually losing in 7 that team felt like it could actually compete with them. It really did feel like a coin flip.

This year they were obviously an inferior team to the Panthers. After the first game it never was close.

Our already old team is just getting older. We have next to no cap room. Basically no tradeable assets of value. And, a barren prospect cupboard with no one realistically making a significant impact in the foreseeable.

This team as it is now hasn’t been good enough to get over the hump two seasons in a row. It’s tough to get excited for it all again when there doesn’t really seem to be a path forward to actually crossing the finish line.

Who knows, maybe Bowman can work some miracles. Considering his body of work so far as our GM and his last few years in Chicago that seems like wishful thinking though.

Florida weren't in stasis, they aren't a static tool to measure ourselves against and judge whether or not we improved. The Florida team of 2024/25 was clearly an even better team than the 2023/24 version, the addition of Marchand in particular was very noticeable and gave them 3 deadly lines.

I haven't posted here in a while.

I think it's impossible to come into next year with a better roster due to the cap, especially post-Frederic, but, open to being surprised!

I don't think we can improve unless we are able to trade Nurse.

 

[McDoused]

Meh

This season was a step back both regular season and playoffs. Last year despite going down 3-0 to Florida and eventually losing in 7 that team felt like it could actually compete with them. It really did feel like a coin flip.

This year they were obviously an inferior team to the Panthers. After the first game it never was close.

Our already old team is just getting older. We have next to no cap room. Basically no tradeable assets of value. And, a barren prospect cupboard with no one realistically making a significant impact in the foreseeable.

This team as it is now hasn’t been good enough to get over the hump two seasons in a row. It’s tough to get excited for it all again when there doesn’t really seem to be a path forward to actually crossing the finish line.

Who knows, maybe Bowman can work some miracles. Considering his body of work so far as our GM and his last few years in Chicago that seems like wishful thinking though.

This is where I disagree. If you look at all of the analysts prior to the start of the finals or even 4 games in, everyone was saying that this version of the Oilers was better than last year's.

Its those final 2 blowout games that really stick with us. IMO, we were better situated this year than last year. Unfortunately, so was Florida. A big part of the problem last year was that guys like Foegele, McLeod and Broberg (no longer here) and Janmark/Brown were useless the first 3 series but helped in the finals. This year no one was able to step up.

The core of this team isn't very old. A lot of guys are still in their prime. Should we just not sign Perry so we arent the oldest team anymore? Savoie will step in next year and the Oilers are trying to add some speed and youth into the lineup. However that's not why we lost. Adding rookies for the sake of it isn't worth it.

Look at other contenders prospects. Out of Florida, Edmonton, Dallas, Colorado, etc. we've actually done a pretty good job finding some guys like Savoie, O'Reilly, Akey, Berezkin, etc. as well as young free agents like Hutson, Samanski and Lappanen.

We've literally gone to 1 game and 2 games of winning it all. Its more than a bounce or two but its also not possible that with a few changes were right back in the finals with better depth and goaltending. We need to change it up similar to how Florida changed coaches and improved after winning the presidents trophy in 2022.

We didn't luck into back to back finals.

 

[McDoused]

There is no possible path for Dallas to afford Marner. They're already in cap hell.

Speaking of Dallas though, one free agent I wonder about is Granlund. Guy seems to elivate in the the playoffs and looked great at 4 nations too.

Everyone was raving about how great Dallas is managed and how deep they are while ignoring the fact that they paid Lyubushkin and Duma a combined 7M.
Now because of that they cant afford to keep Benn (49 points), Granlund (66 points) and Dadonov (40 points) and traded Marchment (47 points).

I dont see how they are any better next year. I guess they believe Otter and Johnston bounce back under a better coach.

 

[North]

And a few Oiler D-men didn't do all that well when the finals certainly mattered. He's an excellent D-man, I wish the Oilers had him.

I don’t.

 

[McDoused]

There's rumour that Buffalo turned down the 3rd overall pick for Peterka. I'd love to get the player but I don't think we can get it done.

The Buffallo situation is interesting. Its that they don't want picks and prospects, even with the value of a top 5 pick. They want immediate help. However, it just doesn't work that way. You need to sell assets and then flip those picks for new assets. It sounds like they cant retool on the fly and aren't creative enough to get a guy with term that might want to stay in Buffalo.

 

[North]

When has Demko ever been healthy?

His issue is one he has to learn to play with. He’s not ever going to be completely healthy.

 

[MoontoScott]

St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong fires 'shot across the bow' on potential Joel Hofer offer sheet | TSN

With goaltender Joel Hofer being rumoured as a potential offer sheet candidate this summer, St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said Monday that suitors can go ahead and try.

www.tsn.ca

Blues manager makes statement