Rumor: Rumors & Proposals Thread | The Oilers Biggest Roster Need Is?

[TheNumber4]

Not sure if anyone has pointed it out but Emberson and Kulak have played together the past couple games and we're absolutely caved.

Last game against Colorado they had a 29 CF% (Kulak) and 30% (Emberson) with only Drake Caggiula being worse. The xGF% was 11 and 17% respectively and a HDCF of 0%.

The night before against Utah they didn't fair any better. Emberson was a 7 CF% with Kulak at 28%. The xGF% for Emberson was an abysmal 0.47% with Kulak at 9.89%.

If Kulak isn't playing with Nurse, I'm not sure I like these two together as a pair. I think that might be part of the reason the Oilers want someone who can play both sides. They can either play with Nurse or elevate Kulak and have them play with Emberson.

I thought Emberson showed some struggles lately that we haven't seen in awhile. Got torched by MacK, but like what defenceman doesn't, that's just what MacK does.

These last two games weren't even our best games despite the excitement over the wins. Struggled out the gate in both games. We've played way better as a team.

 

[Spawn]

Several problems

We sort of cannot trade out 25 or 26th first rounders due to the conditions to the trade.
even at 50% that means 5 mil added to this year but more importantly the next 2 years (please do not say "oh we will just toss him on the LTIR")
Bouchard's new contract will be for between 10 to 11 million--If you want Karlsson --we trade Bouchard?

EK is also 34 and there is no middle ground with his health

I don't necessarily disagree with you that EK doesn't make a tonne of space. But it's certainly doable at 50% retained. Would just need to include Evander Kane in the deal back and its essentially money in money out. Pittsburgh likely wouldn't have much problem taking him back for the rest of this season and the next. He'd be a good fit with either Crosby or Malkin for the next ~17 months and then they could deal him for a pick at the 2026 deadline.

Would work next season too assuming the projected cap increases and Bouchard at 10-11M.

We can make a trade to whatever team for 25 OR 26 depending on how the condition plays out. We better be able to anyways, otherwise Stan f***ed up huge for our TDL.

At one point we were targeting around $5M in Cap Accrual weren't we? I assume we can't be too far off. Worst case scenario, I'd swap out Kane's $5M for an EK65@$5M in a heartbeat. That'd cover this year and next if we can make a trade, but yeh it's still tough.

Lets just say hypothetically if we can make the money work, I'd take him on this team in heartbeat.

We cannot trade the 2025 pick. There are no restrictions on the 2026 pick though. The Oilers can trade that whenever they want. It would nullify the conditions on the 2025 pick (top 12 protected) that are currently in place from the Sam O'Reilly draft trade. So the Flyers would then get that pick regardless of where the Oilers finished.

 

[TheNumber4]

One man breakout, Erik Karlsson. Still has elite skating at 34, maybe the injuries are behind him?

Side note: Rust blows.

 

[belair]

Would've been nice to grab Brannstrom when he was on waivers instead of signing Dermott.

 

[TheNumber4]

I don't necessarily disagree with you that EK doesn't make a tonne of space. But it's certainly doable at 50% retained. Would just need to include Evander Kane in the deal back and its essentially money in money out. Pittsburgh likely wouldn't have much problem taking him back for the rest of this season and the next. He'd be a good fit with either Crosby or Malkin for the next ~17 months and then they could deal him for a pick at the 2026 deadline.

Would work next season too assuming the projected cap increases and Bouchard at 10-11M.


We cannot trade the 2025 pick. There are no restrictions on the 2026 pick though. The Oilers can trade that whenever they want. It would nullify the conditions on the 2025 pick (top 12 protected) that are currently in place from the Sam O'Reilly draft trade. So the Flyers would then get that pick regardless of where the Oilers finished.

Okay good. I assumed we'd still have the 2026 to trade with or 2025 in the unlikely scenario the pick got protected cause our season tanks into bottom 12.

 

[Oilhawks]

Would've been nice to grab Brannstrom when he was on waivers instead of signing Dermott.

Well, Dermott had an inside track with the coach, Brannstrom didn't

 

[TheNumber4]

Would've been nice to grab Brannstrom when he was on waivers instead of signing Dermott.

Just watched him struggle against the Pens. Maybe Nucks are overhyping this guy.

 

[Jumptheshark]

I don't necessarily disagree with you that EK doesn't make a tonne of space. But it's certainly doable at 50% retained. Would just need to include Evander Kane in the deal back and its essentially money in money out. Pittsburgh likely wouldn't have much problem taking him back for the rest of this season and the next. He'd be a good fit with either Crosby or Malkin for the next ~17 months and then they could deal him for a pick at the 2026 deadline.

Would work next season too assuming the projected cap increases and Bouchard at 10-11M.


We cannot trade the 2025 pick. There are no restrictions on the 2026 pick though. The Oilers can trade that whenever they want. It would nullify the conditions on the 2025 pick (top 12 protected) that are currently in place from the Sam O'Reilly draft trade. So the Flyers would then get that pick regardless of where the Oilers finished.

Sort of-we would have to have the flyers agree that we take the conditions off of the 2025 draft pick.
2025 pick is top 10 protected.

 

[Spawn]

Sort of-we would have to have the flyers agree that we take the conditions off of the 2025 draft pick.
2025 pick is top 10 protected.

We wouldn’t.

But even if we did, why would the Flyers be against doing that since it guarantees if we got a top 12 pick they would get to keep it rather than the pick being deferred to next season.

 

[Captain Controversy]

There's no possible chance of EK coming to Edmonton. Too much money even if he is retained.

See if calgary will trade Rasmus Anderson.

In your opinions, how would the oilers be able to achieve a player like Karlsson or Anderson?

 

[TheNumber4]

Good god the Penguins suck. EK65 serving up dishes all game. His team mates can't do f*** all.

There's no possible chance of EK coming to Edmonton. Too much money even if he is retained.

See if calgary will trade Rasmus Anderson.

In your opinions, how would the oilers be able to achieve a player like Karlsson or Anderson?

Rasmus no chance. Calgary ownership are petty and would never help the Oil.

EK65 slim chance. Only if Dubas gets desperate and wants to do Karlsson a solid.

 

[TheNumber4]

Is there a realistic RHD Puck Moving D-man that could hit the market this year?

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Not sure if anyone has pointed it out but Emberson and Kulak have played together the past couple games and we're absolutely caved.

Last game against Colorado they had a 29 CF% (Kulak) and 30% (Emberson) with only Drake Caggiula being worse. The xGF% was 11 and 17% respectively and a HDCF of 0%.

The night before against Utah they didn't fair any better. Emberson was a 7 CF% with Kulak at 28%. The xGF% for Emberson was an abysmal 0.47% with Kulak at 9.89%.

If Kulak isn't playing with Nurse, I'm not sure I like these two together as a pair. I think that might be part of the reason the Oilers want someone who can play both sides. They can either play with Nurse or elevate Kulak and have them play with Emberson.

I struggle with these x stats in isolation to make conclusions about individual players. As an Oiler Emberson's zone starts this season are 58.4% d-zone, 41.6% o-zone. Deployment is one critical component of game management under coaching control. Against Colorado, Emberson had second highest PK toi with 5:07 minutes, that's 26% of his total toi. Notably his short-handed zone starts this season are 93.3% d-zone, 6.7% o-zone.

Seems clear this player has coach's confidence to weight heavy defensive zone starts and to play in overwhelming PK defensive zone tilted ice. Makes sense when considering these variables that his work is in goal suppression at the cost of goal production work (xGF% and real production) better done by the Ekholm Bouchard pair matched with McDavid's elite league ice tilting in the opposition o-zone. I think advance stats have a blind spot for goal suppression players. That said Emberson came out with a point in the Colorado game. He had a couple defending wobbles notably against super elite MacKinnon but his coach was confident to roll out in critical, big PK minutes which in stopping the Ave attack was a critical part of their big win

The Utah game Emberson's game usage was carefully managed with a team defense low of 13:34 toi. Still came out of that game at +-0

A big key in this team's defense is the coaching staff managing its deployment to utilize their strengths including by comparison Bouchard's splits 73.9% o-zone, 26.1% d-zone (highest o-zone starts of his career) and Ekholm, 58.6% o-zone 41.4% d-zone. As well, Knoblauch has actively managed his middle pair deployment in game deploying Nurse and Kulak in key situations and carefully managing the ice-time of his #5=6 d-man generally around 13-14 minute toi.

I think there is a blind spot in x stats for defensive defensemen based on using xGF% as a critical measure. Important to overlay with zone start information which is active and controllable coaching function in personnel deployment in-game.