The Oilers have no doubt the best forward group in the league

[Broberg Speed]

I actually think Foegele is a big loss personally

You do realize Foegele was a healthy scratch in the playoffs?

 

[Senor Catface]

But Draisaitl spent most of his year with Hyman/McDavid, some would say the new guys are a downgrade.
View attachment 891191

It's pretty hard to add all those big numbers up, but you should try and then compare.

 

[MessierII]

Kane was hurt all year and RNH has never been great at evens

Foegele had a good year for us, but it seemed like a one off in a contract year tbh.

My biggest issue with Foegele isn’t even the streakyness I can live with that. We had 3 runs with the guy and he didn’t have one good playoff run. His streakyness ran dry when it mattered. I wanted to move on.

 

[iCanada]

I’m what you call a “sore winner”

Strange point of pride, but congrats I guess?

I find therapy and touching grass helps sometimes.

 

[McJadeddog]

I mean he’s not wrong. Skinner IS soft and one dimensional. Arvidsson IS often injured.
I actually think Foegele is a big loss personally

I think Oilers had a solid day however.

Almost no Oilers fan consider Foegele a big loss. The vast majority of his scoring was against bottom feeders, although I will give him credit for playing well in the finals. Wish him the best personally, as he seems like a great guy, so glad to see him score a big bag with LA. Hope he has a great season and earns his paycheck, I really do.

All that being said, I take Arvidsson over him, even with the injury concerns. He is just better, and by a lot in fact.

The player with broken ribs and finger no showed?

Or the player that had 8 points in two elimination games to drag the oilers back into the series and won the Conn Smyth?

Seriously, you won the cup and you should have went and enjoyed yourself at the Cup parade with other 650 diehard Panther fans.

650 is a pretty high estimation of how many people were there, lol.

 

[sepHF]

But Draisaitl spent most of his year with Hyman/McDavid, some would say the new guys are a downgrade.
View attachment 891191

At the start of the year McDavid was hurt so they stuck him on the wing and put Draisaitl at center since he wasn't really able to take draws. Besides that they'll load up sometimes if they're chasing a game or after a PK / end of periods. With Henrique returning they should still have the flexibility to be able to do the same thing this year

McDavid played with RNH and Hyman mostly under Knoblauch. Woodcroft definitely played him and Draisaitl together more often

 

[iCanada]

Best forward group or not, that wasn't the problem. The problem was their BEST players vanished when it mattered most. You can't win if your 2 best players show up for 2 or 3 of the 7 games.

Skinner, Kane and Perry. Good grief.

You absolutely can win if your best posters only show up for two or three of the 7 games. Literally we just saw it this year.

Tkachuk - 1 goal, 2 assists, -5
Reinhart - 1 goal, 1 assist, -5

The panthers seemed to do ok.

 

[Turin]

Nuge has never been a big even strength producer. It's pretty well documented that he's an average 5 on 5 player most years with good 2-way ability and a power play specialist. Nuge also had 38 even strength points this year, and much more in the playoffs. Kane played through a sports hernia the entire year.

There's very little chance Foegele replicates last season, and his playoff performance was atrocious. Arvidsson and Skinner both have extremely long resumes of being much better even strength performers than Warren Foegele. The Oilers upgraded on Foegele immensely and their 2nd line just upgraded beyond anything even close to what Leon Draisaitl has ever played with.

Except for the fact that Draisaitl has played the majority of his career minutes with McDavid lol.

Draisaitl-Arvidsson is great. I think Skinner-Draisatil might drive the coach up the wall though.

 

[Three On Zero]

At the start of the year McDavid was hurt so they stuck him on the wing and put Draisaitl at center since he wasn't really able to take draws. Besides that they'll load up sometimes if they're chasing a game or after a PK / end of periods. With Henrique returning they should still have the flexibility to be able to do the same thing this year

McDavid played with RNH and Hyman mostly under Knoblauch. Woodcroft definitely played him and Draisaitl together more often

Even under Knob the duo was still the most common linemates. With the addition of two potentially better wingers that will likely change next season. Forward depth has always been an issue with the McDavid era but we could be finally seeing that come to an end

 

[ReimanSum1908]

Yeah adding soft one dimensional Jeff Skinner and often injured Arvidsson doesn’t really do much for them. I mean I guess Mcdavid can carry them to the finals and then no show the important games at best.

When that one dimension is scoring goals, and McDavid was playing next to Warren Foegele during the last playoffs, that's not likely to be much of an issue.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Can’t wait to see the Oilers deal with Cup Finals hangover this season and plummet back down to Earth.

Cool. Digging the direction that the pens are taking as well.

How are you this bitter? Your team won the cup and this level of bitterness is still in your life.

The lack of class and humility from that fella is gross

 

[McFlyingV]

Except for the fact that Draisaitl has played the majority of his career minutes with McDavid lol.

Draisaitl-Arvidsson is great. I think Skinner-Draisatil might drive the coach up the wall though.

Sure early in his career and under some coaches who kept going back to the McDrai well time and time again because the depth scoring on the team was awful. Team's far better when McDavid and Drai and running their own lines, but historically that has left Draisaitl with 3rd line wingers. This will be the first time in his career that he's had two top 6 wingers when he's centring his own line which is more what I was alluding to.

Skinner might honestly be a better fit with McDavid.

 

[Soundwave]

It's the best group of forwards since the 2022 Avalanche or 2021 Tampa squad. Hard to argue against it.

I mean adding just Arvidsson alone would have been a pretty good upgrade for Draisaitl to play with, but Skinner and Henrique too and keeping both Janmark and Brown who were great on the PK for them that's an enormous win.

Foegele is an OK player but his brain processes the game about a half a second too slow, terrible hands, would blow a lot of scoring chances.

Skinner may not be a perfect player, but he doesn't have to be, he needs to know where to put the puck when given glorious feeds from McDavid, Drai, RNH, etc.

Skinner is top 10 in the NHL for 5 on 5 goal scoring rate the last three years.

 

[BlackDogg]

Will believe it when I see it.

They need to go farther in the playoffs this year before I'll bite.

 

[The Panther]

I liked Foegele overall, and I'm sure he'll be missed, but honestly it's no big loss. He just had what was probably a career season with 20 goals and 41 points (five of them in one game vs. Anaheim), and those totals are easily replaceable, especially given that he'll likely regress a bit next season.

But where Foegele let everyone down was in the playoffs. Yeah, he finally woke up and contributed a bit in the Finals, but where was he in rounds one through three?? Through the first 17 playoff games, he had one empty-net goal and 2 secondary assists (i.e., ZERO primary points in 17 playoff games). I realize it's harder to score in the playoffs, but Foegele could have made a difference there; for example to shorten the Van series so everyone wasn't banged up and tired. He was a big fat zero.

I still like the guy and wish him well. But he's damn streaky.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

They need to get rid of Evander Kane.

 

[Steven Toast]

he had 37 even strength points last year. Ranking him 4th on the oilers. That is a significant loss of even strength production

Its not a loss if Skinner (34 ESP), Ardvisson (10 ESP in 18 GP) and Henrique (36 ESP) are on the team.

 

[Hank Plank]

Bandwagoner, got it.

What wagon are you on?

 

[Three On Zero]

They need to get rid of Evander Kane.

The guys a cancer, the only out for him is a buyout. Unless they have any arbitration cases they won’t get a second buyout window.

 

[sepHF]

Even under Knob the duo was still the most common linemates. With the addition of two potentially better wingers that will likely change next season. Forward depth has always been an issue with the McDavid era but we could be finally seeing that come to an end

McDavids was RNH and Hyman:


469 minutes with RNH-Hyman
295 with Draisaitl-Hyman

Draisaitls line was a blender all year so he didn’t have consistent line mates to rack up a lot of minutes with

He played with Kane/McLeod/Foegele/Holloway/Brown/Perry/Janmark/Henrique. It should look different this year with a more consistent top 6

 

[Slapshot_11]

Not seeing it

Creampuff and often injured small forward doesn't really move the needle

 

[ChaoticOrange]

I thought my team had a pretty poor draft, but there’s not much argument that they crushed it today.

Add a top 4 RD and we’re cooking with gas.

 

[Deen]

What are they going to do with Derek Ryan?

 

[MessierII]

What are they going to do with Derek Ryan?

He’ll be the same as this year. Depth forward.

 

[McFlyingV]

What are they going to do with Derek Ryan?

Most likely will be in the AHL to start the year unless they dump Ceci to open up cap space to carry a 22/23 man roster.