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.

 

[Scrapin Ice]

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

You need to ask a much more detailed question than that no. 4! Is there a D man that will be available that is the foil to Nurse, that we can make the cap work on somehow and that our competitors won't scoop up and at a price we can live with?

You might want to have a plan 'B' there guy!

 

[McAsuno]

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

I'm wondering if they would potentially target Seattle's Will Borgen. Having a down year, but I suspect it has to do with Seattle playing horribly more so than actually himself. I recall Stauffer yapping about him as a target before and Seattle highly looks like a seller this season.
If not, than I think the likes of Ristolainen, Matheson, Fowler, or Murphy are potential options. Artem Zub would be my pipe dream for a player to acquire.

 

[ThreeOfAPerfectPair]

Looking at how Fabbro is doing in Columbus, I'm even more baffled than I was when it happened (and I was very baffled even then) that Nashville waived a 26 year old top 4 Dman because he makes $2.5m. Even Chiarelli would have at least gotten something for him. They essentially traded Fabbro and Tomasino for a 4th round pick, that's Bad Asset Management 101.

I hate to jump in on the "Do Something Stan" bandwagon but he couldn't have offered a 6th rounder or something for Fabbro? I'm aware of the salary but they could have made it work.

According to Gazzola the Oilers scoffed at the idea of even putting a claim in for him.

 

[TheNumber4]

You need to ask a much more detailed question than that no. 4! Is there a D man that will be available that is the foil to Nurse, that we can make the cap work on somehow and that our competitors won't scoop up and at a price we can live with?

You might want to have a plan 'B' there guy!

Half of that was covered when I said realistic, the other half I'll figure out later. Just trying to get a list of candidates together guy!

According to Gazzola the Oilers scoffed at the idea of even putting a claim in for him.

This confirmed?

 

[Burnt Biscuits]

I feel Knob's system can reign him in. I mean Emberson and Stetcher and Dermott can survive and play mistake free most often then not. EK65 should be able to if he buys in.

I don't think any of those 3 needed much convincing to play defense (Knob previously coached 2 of those 3) and I'm not seeing anything close to what I'd call mistake free hockey from that bunch.

To me EK is a homerun swing for a team hoping to catch lightning in a bottle, twice he was brought in to elevate an aging core and both times he seemed to do more to make those teams worse rather than better.

I just don't see the need to take such a gamble and potentially get stuck with that kind of term and money, we seem to be at a stage where it is more about a small handful of shrewd moves to supplement/support our core.

 

[Fourier]

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.

This is not a specific criticism of your post but in general I have major concerns about over valuing zone start numbers in terms of their impact on other stats. There are several factors that are most important for me in coming to this. First, the vast majority of shift stats are either on the fly or neutral zone starts. The second is that top offensive players create more ozone faceoffs. There is also the fact that bottom pairing defensemen are often used against 3rd and fourth liners in the defensive zone and those players tend not to generate a lot of shots or scoring opportunities even with offensive zone starts.

I looked around a bit and found the following article that articulates some of this:

How much do zone starts matter part II: A lot on their own, not that much in aggregate

In Part I of our review of zone starts, we looked at the how the traditional definition of zone starts varied from what most people would consider a “true” zone start, and found that when we applie…

puckplusplus.com

In fact McCurdy did a significant study on this and his analysis showed that only 5% of the players in the league would have seen more than a 1% change in their possession numbers if zone starts were adjusted out of the picture.

Now zone starts can indicate a coaches belief in a player. But I think that to do so accurately does require some additional context.

By the way if you look at a guy Bouchard he has fantastic possession numbers that are often attributed to playing with Ekholm, McDavid and Leon and to positivce zone start stats. Yet if you take these three out of the picture his possession a stats since 2022-23 are about 10 points better than the teams numbers with out any of the four on the ice with similar zone starts. In fact in almost every combination possession improves with him on the ice vs not:

Line Stats - Natural Stat Trick

 

[Soundwave]

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?

I mean technically Evander Kane for EK @50% would work. I'm not saying the Oilers should do that though, but the cap aspect of it would work.

 

[94 Oil Drops]

I don't think any of those 3 needed much convincing to play defense (Knob previously coached 2 of those 3) and I'm not seeing anything close to what I'd call mistake free hockey from that bunch.

To me EK is a homerun swing for a team hoping to catch lightning in a bottle, twice he was brought in to elevate an aging core and both times he seemed to do more to make those teams worse rather than better.

I just don't see the need to take such a gamble and potentially get stuck with that kind of term and money, we seem to be at a stage where it is more about a small handful of shrewd moves to supplement/support our core.

I'd like the idea of going after EK if he had 1 year left on his contract but he doesn't. He's 34 and getting stuck with another 3 years of an expensive, aging player wouldn't be good even if Pittsburgh retains a whole bunch of hit cap hit.

Id rather target a guy like Carrier in Nashville (who aren't going anywhere this season) and see if we can land him instead. He's younger and is making $3.75 per year until 2027.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

This is not a specific criticism of your post but in general I have major concerns about over valuing zone start numbers in terms of their impact on other stats. There are several factors that are most important for me in coming to this. First, the vast majority of shift stats are either on the fly or neutral zone starts. The second is that top offensive players create more ozone faceoffs. There is also the fact that bottom pairing defensemen are often used against 3rd and fourth liners in the defensive zone and those players tend not to generate a lot of shots or scoring opportunities even with offensive zone starts.

I looked around a bit and found the following article that articulates some of this:

How much do zone starts matter part II: A lot on their own, not that much in aggregate

In Part I of our review of zone starts, we looked at the how the traditional definition of zone starts varied from what most people would consider a “true” zone start, and found that when we applie…

puckplusplus.com

In fact McCurdy did a significant study on this and his analysis showed that only 5% of the players in the league would have seen more than a 1% change in their possession numbers if zone starts were adjusted out of the picture.

Now zone starts can indicate a coaches belief in a player. But I think that to do so accurately does require some additional context.

By the way if you look at a guy Bouchard he has fantastic possession numbers that are often attributed to playing with Ekholm, McDavid and Leon and to positivce zone start stats. Yet if you take these three out of the picture his possession a stats since 2022-23 are about 10 points better than the teams numbers with out any of the four on the ice with similar zone starts. In fact in almost every combination possession improves with him on the ice vs not:

Line Stats - Natural Stat Trick

I appreciate your post and most definitely defer to your expert level understanding of math and statistics. And for taking time to share the article. I appreciate that hockey is not a strict, static game and that zone starts are a dynamic component of a moving game at high speed with tons of random, often non-repeatable events. I conflate several things in my post but narrowing to Emberson I find it difficult to conclude he was 'caved in' the Colorado game when considering several things:

- 5:07 PK toi against a #7 NHL PP 27.2% efficiency (PK was a big percentage of his ice-time and the team function killed 6 of 7 penalties taken)
- Colorado is league 9th in GF with 81 so are well above average in finishing
- His 19:56 toi is 4:55 toi above his 15:01 avg toi.

Zone starts aside, there is managed deployment to roll out Emberson on the road against a quality scoring team with big ice-time, second team high d-man PK ice time, and he produced a point. Pretty solid small sample imo.

 

[McDoused]

Not sure I've seen HFOil so united against analytics. Stop making excuses for poor performances, the data speaks for itself.

And? They have some games with 70 and 80's for xGF%.

Overall, they haven't been able to maintain a positive corsi of xGF%.

Emberson last had good games against NYR, MTL, NYI and NJD. Were they with Kulak though?

Note that Kulak split time with Nurse and Emberson (8 minutes each) in the NYR game. This is actually the only game I've highlighted where the pair played better together (61.90 CF% with) compared to 50 CF% without for Emberson.

Prior to that time Nurse was injured so in the MTL game Emberson split time with Kulak and Stetcher. When they did play together Emberson was at 50%, apart he was 71.43%. The Islanders game Nurse was still injured and Emberson mainly played with Kulak, together their CF was 54.55% with, without it was higher at 59.09%. The NJD game the pair together had a 50 CF%, without they were actually at 80 CF%.

In the past 15 games the pair haven't really looked good together. I would much rather have Kulak elevated with Nurse (as they play very well together) and have Emberson play with someone else.

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.

Last I checked everyone had to play against Mackinnon and they didn't get torched. Emberson only played 1:19 against MacKinnon 5v5 (the lowest TOI against any specific player) so they actually tried to shelter him. Once again, if the entire team didn't play well then why did this pair specifically get caved while the other 4 Dmen all have a CF% above 50%?

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.

The numbers that I am using are 5v5 numbers, not PK numbers. If anything, you are doing my work for me, if the coaching staff wants to use Bouchard as an offensive defenseman on the right side, we need someone capable of playing the defensive game on the right side. Kulak to this point has looked really good beside Nurse.

Look I'm not saying that Emberson isn't a good player or that he can't be good in a certain role. I actually am starting to like the player. My point is that when targeting a defenceman in a trade, I can see the appeal of getting a guy who can play both sides because Kulak has done well with Nurse. Whoever we bring in should ideally be able to play with Nurse and push Kulak down but should also be able to carry a pair if Kulak does get elevated.