Rumor: Rumors & Proposals Thread | Where's the Beef?

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

People shit on Yamo and Puljujarvi, but the only issue the organization had with them was their AAV that they earned based on production. At ~$800k those are valuable young players that you know have chemistry in the room.

PJ had zero chemistry in the room and even less on the ice where it really matters.

 

[Messrules11]

People shit on Yamo and Puljujarvi, but the only issue the organization had with them was their AAV that they earned based on production. At ~$800k those are valuable young players that you know have chemistry in the room.

Chemistry? We paid Pulju 3M and all he did was lick his face.

 

[Reasonable Oil Fan]

What an odd pair Puljujarvi and Laine have turned out to be

 

[rboomercat90]

I don't buy the whole "toughness" thing anymore. Being tough to play against doesn't mean big and strong. It means being relentless on pucks, constant forecheck pressure, and everyone no matter their size finishing their checks. Being a dogged nuisance that won't let you catch your breath. This doesn't require punching faces or throwing devastating hip checks. Conor Garland plays a tougher game than most players in the league and he's tiny.

But that's just me.

I feel the same about the silly "we're sooooo old" that everyone is spouting now. Like the team is a bunch of geriatrics out of a nursing home. It's a mean nothing buzzphrase being used in lieu of meaningful talking points and critiques.

That McDavid and Draisaitl have both taken retaliatory penalties already has shown how far removed you are from reality with your importance of toughness take. We’re 3 games into the season and these two are already fed up with all the cheap shots they’ve taken because there’s no deterrent for teams to target them. I’m not even talking about somebody like Rempe that the Rangers use to crack skulls. I’m talking about players just willing to throw the body or hit other teams better players. There is no grit in this lineup and that leaves McDavid and Draisaitl to fend for themselves. They’re big boys, they can do it but I’d rather the two of them focus on other things.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

That McDavid and Draisaitl have both taken retaliatory penalties already has shown how far removed you are from reality with your importance of toughness take. We’re 3 games into the season and these two are already fed up with all the cheap shots they’ve taken because there’s no deterrent for teams to target them. I’m not even talking about somebody like Rempe that the Rangers use to crack skulls. I’m talking about players just willing to throw the body or hit other teams better players. There is no grit in this lineup and that leaves McDavid and Draisaitl to fend for themselves. They’re big boys, they can do it but I’d rather the two of them focus on other things.

For 82 games after an extremely long season last season? I think that is a recipe for disaster. Drai got his ribs caved against Vancouver, Connor definitely took a beating, etc. I don't know how physical the Canucks will be this season but the Flames are not going to lay off of us for sure and other contending teams will target our top players.

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

The heart isn't showing and the toughness is non existent. What games are you watching?

Well we are 3 games in. I trust the heart they had in the playoffs will come back

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Well we are 3 games in. I trust the heart they had in the playoffs will come back

The heart will but they need a spark a physical leader to drag them into the fight and make guys answer when they take liberties on our top players.

 

[rboomercat90]

For 82 games after an extremely long season last season? I think that is a recipe for disaster. Drai got his ribs caved against Vancouver, Connor definitely took a beating, etc. I don't know how physical the Canucks will be this season but the Flames are not going to lay off of us for sure and other contending teams will target our top players.

You’d have thought that after what happened to McDavid and Draisaitl against the Canucks (and quite frankly every post season) that management’s top priority going forward would have been to make sure that never happened again. Seeing this lineup it looks like they’re fine with it.

 

[nexttothemoon]

Oilers have removed these goals from the lineup (either by choice, trade, offer sheet or injury):

Kane 24
Foegele 20
McLeod 12
Holloway 6
Gagner 5
Ceci 5
Carrick 2
Erne 1
Desharnais 1

Now sure most of those will be very easy to replace... ie Gagner/Ceci/Carrick/Erne/Desharnais will all be replaced in goal scoring by the depth on this team.

Point though is that's 76 goals gone from the lineup by players that at least had some chemistry on the team.

I would also suggest that I highly doubt Hyman can repeat his totals from last season... he could certainly drop back to being a 30-35 goal scorer again which would still be a great asset... but I doubt his 54 goal season is repeatable.

So if you add another 20 goals to the sum up above... that's ~95 goals that has to be replaced by a combination of the players new to the club and the old guard.

Oilers have new players

Podkolzin 0 goals last year
Emberson 1 goal last year
Dermott 2 goals last year
Arvidsson 6 goals last year
Skinner 24 goals last year

That's ~95 goals out and ~33 goals in.

Yes Henrique will score more BUT Henrique will have a hell of a time potting 20+ in the bottom 6 playing with the likes of Janmark and Brown who give their all but have hands of stone.

I know everyone was saying this teams strength is their offense... and it may well be because defense and goaltending are average... BUT even the offense isn't going to be able to instantly replace those ~95 goals as if it were nothing. This team has a target on their heads every game they play and I could easily see this being a regression year in terms of offense... especially when you couple that with the issues of D and in net which is never optimal for a team that is essentially forced to try and "outscore" their weaknesses and issues every single night.

I'm not exactly optimistic that the team can take their C defense and C goaltending and mix it with what might be B- offense this season... and come up with a recipe for success out of all that.

 

[CanadasTeam99]

That McDavid and Draisaitl have both taken retaliatory penalties already has shown how far removed you are from reality with your importance of toughness take. We’re 3 games into the season and these two are already fed up with all the cheap shots they’ve taken because there’s no deterrent for teams to target them. I’m not even talking about somebody like Rempe that the Rangers use to crack skulls. I’m talking about players just willing to throw the body or hit other teams better players. There is no grit in this lineup and that leaves McDavid and Draisaitl to fend for themselves. They’re big boys, they can do it but I’d rather the two of them focus on other things.

This is how soft we are

Today, Elias Lindholm was credited with 8 hits.

 

[GOilers88]

That McDavid and Draisaitl have both taken retaliatory penalties already has shown how far removed you are from reality with your importance of toughness take. We’re 3 games into the season and these two are already fed up with all the cheap shots they’ve taken because there’s no deterrent for teams to target them. I’m not even talking about somebody like Rempe that the Rangers use to crack skulls. I’m talking about players just willing to throw the body or hit other teams better players. There is no grit in this lineup and that leaves McDavid and Draisaitl to fend for themselves. They’re big boys, they can do it but I’d rather the two of them focus on other things.

There's no deterrents lol. It's no different than any other year. That's what it is when you're the best.

They should be dishing it out as well as taking it. Everyone on the team. They're capable of it. But they look lazy, disinterested and uninspired thus far.

 

[rboomercat90]

There's no deterrents lol. It's no different than any other year. That's what it is when you're the best.

They should be dishing it out as well as taking it. Everyone on the team. They're capable of it. But they look lazy, disinterested and uninspired thus far.

I guess where we differ in opinion is whether certain players are capable of certain things. I hope you’re right but I fear you’re not.

 

[Vagabond]

Seriously? Some of our best teams have been a blend of toughness and skill. They knew full well that Kane was going to be out for some time and their answer was Josh Brown.

We had Lucic and Maroon when we went to the 2nd round the one season and then we had Kane and Kostin the year we made it to the WCF. Last season we got murdered against the Canucks and with a hurt Kane had no answer. We cannot afford to run such a soft team when every two bit disturber will be targeting our top players because they know that we won't do the same to theirs or make them shit teeth. You need a mix in this league and right now our mix is soft and it isn't going to be getting better without a move or two.

Agreed. Plus that year we had Matt Hendricks as well.

 

[FlameChampion]

I personally can’t really buy that we look so flat because were old, slow, not physical enough etc. A RD upgrade shouldn’t make or break the team at the beginning of the season.

Sure some of these could be reasons why the team doesn’t ultimately get it done. But what we witness at the beginning of the season with this team doesn’t even make sense. But it feels like it happens every season.

Feels pointless to even really evaluate the team at this point because were just a mess for whatever reason. Too bad we’ll never know what Jackson, Bowman or Knoblauch truly think,

 

[belair]

Oilers have removed these goals from the lineup (either by choice, trade, offer sheet or injury):

Kane 24
Foegele 20
McLeod 12
Holloway 6
Gagner 5
Ceci 5
Carrick 2
Erne 1
Desharnais 1

Now sure most of those will be very easy to replace... ie Gagner/Ceci/Carrick/Erne/Desharnais will all be replaced in goal scoring by the depth on this team.

Point though is that's 76 goals gone from the lineup by players that at least had some chemistry on the team.

I would also suggest that I highly doubt Hyman can repeat his totals from last season... he could certainly drop back to being a 30-35 goal scorer again which would still be a great asset... but I doubt his 54 goal season is repeatable.

So if you add another 20 goals to the sum up above... that's ~95 goals that has to be replaced by a combination of the players new to the club and the old guard.

Oilers have new players

Podkolzin 0 goals last year
Emberson 1 goal last year
Dermott 2 goals last year
Arvidsson 6 goals last year
Skinner 24 goals last year

That's ~95 goals out and ~33 goals in.

Yes Henrique will score more BUT Henrique will have a hell of a time potting 20+ in the bottom 6 playing with the likes of Janmark and Brown who give their all but have hands of stone.

I know everyone was saying this teams strength is their offense... and it may well be because defense and goaltending are average... BUT even the offense isn't going to be able to instantly replace those ~95 goals as if it were nothing. This team has a target on their heads every game they play and I could easily see this being a regression year in terms of offense... especially when you couple that with the issues of D and in net which is never optimal for a team that is essentially forced to try and "outscore" their weaknesses and issues every single night.

I'm not exactly optimistic that the team can take their C defense and C goaltending and mix it with what might be B- offense this season... and come up with a recipe for success out of all that.

The biggest regression you mentioned is the likely drop in Hyman's goal total. Production from Kane, Foegele and McLeod came heavily on Draisaitl's watch watch last season and overall, I think that it's easy to see the production of that line see better consistency considering the quality of shooting added to the line.

Henrique's line, assuming he stays as the 3C is going to need to find some semblance of offense or there will be changes occurring throughout the year. A callup of Savoie being the simplest solution.

 

[McFlash97]

Sometimes you just have to use basic logic when watching this team. What the Oilers had last year towards the end was an extremely lucky case of players who had functional speed that helped them tremendously. Whether that was pushing the pace of play, or get in on the forecheck, regain puck possession, backtrack, teams just couldn't counter this. We had too many guys who could fly. Had size, and were still young.

An experienced GM would have picked up on this. It's mind numbing to think that Jackson and Bowman didn't sit there and figure this out. They lost every single one of these guys in just over a month. Not 1, not 2 , not 3 , but 4 guys. There is absolutely no excuse for this type of ignorant mismanagement of a Stanley cup roster.

This screams like both these guys can't judge functional talent on the ice and who you need to move your team forward. Bowman literally gave an online interview about how underrated guys like Emberson and Stecher are, and they have the talent to play in a top 4 role with this team. That's pandering to the fairweather fans who will eat his shxx up. Any real hockey guy could see right through Bowmans bullshxxx.

 

[nexttothemoon]

The expression... a team is more than the sum of its parts comes to mind.

On paper it's quite easy to say that losing "minor" very replaceable pieces like Foegele/Holloway/McLeod/Broberg/Desharnais/Ceci shouldn't affect the team a lot... because yes those players individually are NOT major talents to replace BUT they obviously collectively had some chemistry in this lineup and after the team turned it around from the shit start last year... that team had the chemistry/bonding/gelling to be able to make it to the 7th game of the SC final.

That's not "nothing" and sometimes the chemistry is VERY hard to repeat when you take out many ingredients and put back others... and expect the same overall result. Sometimes the cake just doesn't turn out correctly when you take out certain ingredients and replace them with others that "should be" just as good or better on paper... but in practice what comes out of the oven is just not as good... because again... a recipe... a team etc... is more than just the sum of its parts... and unfortunately you can really only find out in retrospect just how delicate that chemistry balance was that made that team a true SC contender.

I think it's actually a very fine line between a SC contender and a team that is a bubble team that just misses the playoffs.

Losing Kane I think is actually quite huge as well... and it can't be stated enough just how much his swagger and grit is missed along with the decent offense he provides. That's an ingredient that can't be easily replaced and I know many would say he hasn't been great since his string of injuries began anyway so how much of a loss is he really. Well I think he is a huge loss just because of that level of truculence he provides which can lift players teamwide and obviously there's a void there now... plus even in a down year a clearly injury-hampered Kane still provided 24 goals which isn't easily replaced as well.

We all expect Arvidsson and Skinner to step in and save the day but realistically those 2 players getting 25-30 each is probably realistic and even then that may not automatically happen when both are aging and somewhat injury prone.


Overall imo (and I hope I'm just overly pessimistic and have a false gut feeling... because I've been wrong before)... but it just feels like the chances are very high for a team wide regression this year. I basically had this feeling in the summer and in pre-season as well in looking at the entire makeup of the team and my main concerns have actually been on offense because we already all knew the D and G were average at best... but I think the offense on this team is where they are most vulnerable because if they can't outscore their issues (and I don't know if they can this year with the way this team is structured)... the team is in for a very tough campaign because every opponent in the NHL brings their best when they play the Oilers every night... so there's no easy games on the schedule to be able to make up for mediocre performances.

 

[North]

The issue is the same at the start of each year. They don’t play with any sort of cohesion.

The forwards don’t support the d and the d can’t do it without the forwards help.

They’re still playing like it’s preseason. No intensity at all.

Less talented rosters put in the effort and get better results.

If your best players are your worst and your worst players are your best, it’s not going to be fun.

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

Is anyone else a little annoyed we didn't keep Holloway? We could have easily shipped out Perry and apologized.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Is anyone else a little annoyed we didn't keep Holloway? We could have easily shipped out Perry and apologized.

Bowman's first order of business should've been getting both signed to reasonable contracts.

I really hate this mentality of "fix it at the TDL" because there's no guarantee we make it that far.

 

[Heavy Dee]

Bowman's first order of business should've been getting both signed to reasonable contracts.

I really hate this mentality of "fix it at the TDL" because there's no guarantee we make it that far.

Jackson chose to go old and slow. This is all on him. The guy never built a team before and Katz trusted him to put them over the top.

 

[CanadasTeam99]

Is anyone else a little annoyed we didn't keep Holloway? We could have easily shipped out Perry and apologized.

Broberg..Whatever. Overpay him. Good for STL

I would have liked to Keep Holloway. It could have EASILY been done.

I think Jackson got cocky and arrogant and thought these 2 would "take less" like others did, but those others alrrady made a boat load of $$.

He did not prioritize them at all. I don't like Brobergs attitude. He has had 1 foot out the door (and the prick talked to Holloway about leaving on offersheets). Holloway should have been a priority.

 

[K1984]

I personally can’t really buy that we look so flat because were old, slow, not physical enough etc. A RD upgrade shouldn’t make or break the team at the beginning of the season.

Sure some of these could be reasons why the team doesn’t ultimately get it done. But what we witness at the beginning of the season with this team doesn’t even make sense. But it feels like it happens every season.

Feels pointless to even really evaluate the team at this point because were just a mess for whatever reason. Too bad we’ll never know what Jackson, Bowman or Knoblauch truly think,

It seems that this start is a feeding frenzy of folks blaming the start on what they want it to be based on what they predicted the problem would be to start the year. Too old, too slow, new d men suck, not tough enough, Broberg and Holloway were the answer, Skinner sucks, etc, etc.

When literally not one single thing is going well, everyone can pick the problem that suits them. We could have the meanest, youngest, fastest, toughest lineup in the world, but the team still isn't going to do shit with the entire leadership group playing their worst possible hockey and a goalie that can't stop a beach ball.

 

[GOilers88]

It seems that this start is a feeding frenzy of folks blaming the start on what they want it to be based on what they predicted the problem would be to start the year. Too old, too slow, new d men suck, not tough enough, Broberg and Holloway were the answer, Skinner sucks, etc, etc.

When literally not one single thing is going well, everyone can pick the problem that suits them. We could have the meanest, youngest, fastest, toughest lineup in the world, but the team still isn't going to do shit with the entire leadership group playing their worst possible hockey and a goalie that can't stop a beach ball.

It's on the entire group as a whole. People talking like it's because the team is nothing but old, geriatrics who can't handle a contact sport glued together by a management team that doesn't have a clue about hockey are just doing the usual "nothings good we need drastic change" before the first two weeks are even over.

I admit it's a bad start, but we literally do this every season and by the end everyone is pissing sunshine and roses. You wonder at what point do people stop doing the same thing year after year.

Then you realize they won't.

 

[K1984]

It's on the entire group as a whole. People talking like it's because the team is nothing but old, geriatrics who can't handle a contact sport glued together by a management team that doesn't have a clue about hockey are just doing the usual "nothings good we need drastic change" before the first two weeks are even over.

I admit it's a bad start, but we literally do this every season and by the end everyone is pissing sunshine and roses. You wonder at what point do people stop doing the same thing year after year.

Then you realize they won't.

Any diagnosis of structural team problems at this point is grossly premature, as you say. Especially when all the players that everyone railed on for being too old or too slow are the only ones out of the gate that are at least playing anywhere close to an acceptable level individually.