Would you trade Bouchard?

Would you trade Bouchard?

  • yes

    Votes: 37 23.0%
  • no

    Votes: 120 74.5%
  • other

    Votes: 4 2.5%

  • Total voters
    161
People like you also overrate Bouchard. He's not "one of the best 5 on 5" defensemen in the NHL. That sentence right there just shows the ridiculousness.

He doesn't make the "odd" defensive mistake, he is now starting to make the "same" defensive mistakes.

He processes the game to slowly, teams have figured it out and are pressing him.

Do we trade him? Probably not because our RHD depth would be horrendous. That said if he wants anything North of 10 Million AAV it's going to be a pretty big problem.

- Just want to give a shout out to Ty Embersson who as established himself as a top 4 NHL Defencemen!!
It’s funny watching you rip Bouchard every chance and then congratulate Emberson on being a top 4 D man, when Bouchard is miles better than him as a whole.
 
During last years playoffs, we saw Bouchard play at an elite level both offensively and defensively. This year, his offence is still good but to me, he is horrendous defensively. This past summer I was ready to trade Kulak because he only played well in the post season, but he suddenly figured out how to bring his playoff game to the regular season. Will that happen with Bouchard? Do we wait or jettison his ass before his contract is up? If it was up to me I'd jettison his ass and get a starting goalie but I'm usually wrong.
Well, that's just not true at all. Kulak has always been a solid regular season player, hell he made Vinny look like a competent NHL dman last season. He just takes his game to another level in the postseason in terms of how well a #4/5 can play.

As far as Bouchard is concerned, no you don't trade him. That's just stupid.
The same people crying for him to be traded are the same ones that will be crying when the Oilers can't find another Bouchard for the next decade and, let me tell you, players with that skillset at that age are almost impossible to acquire.

These are the same arguments with Draisaitl. Lazy, defensive lapses, needless poor passes at times.
Well, the reality is that while these players do make mistakes because they have the puck so darn much, the good they bring FAR outweighs the bad so sure trade Bouchard but I don't want to hear the bitching when that massive hole left by Bouchard's departure isn't filled for years and years.
 
Over the last 3 years his xGF% away from all of McDavid, Ekholm and Draisaitl is 59.81% in 617 5 vs 5 minutes. Since the start of 2023-2024 away from all three he has a 58.34 % GF% and an xGF% of 59.92% though in only 138 minutes.

Since the beginning of 2023-24 his numbers away from Ekholm are:

TOI 405 min CF% 59.83 SF% 59.82 GF% 55.81 xGF% 61.46 SCF% 59.76 HDCF% 61.98

This is sort of like the McDavid/Leon situation. The two players complement one another very well but both can be good at the same time.

I've quoted those numbers before too... and to put those in perspective, his numbers away from McD, Drai and Ekholm are MILES better than Makar away from even just MacKinnon.

People are in active denial about just how tilted the ice gets every time Bouchard steps on it.

And it makes sense... 90% of the ice tilting plays that he makes are super simple right? A tape to tape pass doesn't look all that impressive until you have a whole night of Andrew Ference and Ken Sutton putting muffins off peoples' skates... how quickly people forget that defence requires clean breakouts.
 
I've quoted those numbers before too... and to put those in perspective, his numbers away from McD, Drai and Ekholm are MILES better than Makar away from even just MacKinnon.

People are in active denial about just how tilted the ice gets every time Bouchard steps on it.

And it makes sense... 90% of the ice tilting plays that he makes are super simple right? A tape to tape pass doesn't look all that impressive until you have a whole night of Andrew Ference and Ken Sutton putting muffins off peoples' skates... how quickly people forget that defence requires clean breakouts.
This is where the issue arises. Mistakes are very notable events so the brain attaches much more bandwidth to them. Moreover, people are now looking for them. When the see them. Bingo. All else does not really matter. Guys like Bouchard are poster cases for observational bias.
 
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People like you also overrate Bouchard. He's not "one of the best 5 on 5" defensemen in the NHL. That sentence right there just shows the ridiculousness.

Your eye test is clouded by your emotion - not logical.

Every single stat, literally EVERY SINGLE ONE, shows that Bouchard IS one of the best 5v5 defenders in the league.

 
This is where the issue arises. Mistakes are very notable events so the brain attaches much more bandwidth to them. Moreover, people are now looking for them. When the see them. Bingo. All else does not really matter. Guys like Bouchard are poster cases for observational bias.

Agree, lots of cognitive biases at play here. Negativity bias, confirmation bias, etc.

 
This is where the issue arises. Mistakes are very notable events so the brain attaches much more bandwidth to them. Moreover, people are now looking for them. When the see them. Bingo. All else does not really matter. Guys like Bouchard are poster cases for observational bias.
It's easier to make judgement on the player if he's asking for 11M. As good as Nurse has been playing this season, he's still not worth 9.25M and he's in year 3 of his deal. Right now it's fair to say Nurse is playing like 7.5M Dman. Is he ever going to look like a 9.25M Dman during that deal?
 
No, once you trade Bouchard then you're looking for another one.

I also think his lack of defensive focus is mostly matching the mindset of the group overall and coaching.

Defensive responsibility is an afterthought as long as the puck is going in the net the other way.

Knoblauch doesn't seem to want to change it, maybe the next coach is the one to reinforce this.

Bouchard can improve defensively but won't unless the team focus changes.
 
No way you can trade Bouchard but you also can’t pay him upwards of 9 million a season. He looks like a 7-8 million dollar Dman.

It’s extremely unfortunate that we gave Nurse that awful deal, going to be hard for the oilers management to justify not paying Bouchard more…
 
No, once you trade Bouchard then you're looking for another one.

I also think his lack of defensive focus is mostly matching the mindset of the group overall and coaching.

Defensive responsibility is an afterthought as long as the puck is going in the net the other way.

Knoblauch doesn't seem to want to change it, maybe the next coach is the one to reinforce this.

Bouchard can improve defensively but won't unless the team focus changes.
What? The Oilers are one of the best defensive teams in the league under Knoblauch by just about every metric.
Knoblauch is the exact opposite of what you imagine he is.

There's a reason why Jeff Skinner gets scratched so much, there's a reason why guys like Emberson are out there at the end of games protecting leads, there's a reason why Podkolzin has stayed in the top 6, he's probably a part of the reason why Draisaitl is playing the best defensive hockey of his career. Knoblauch, moreso than any Oiler coach I can remember, preaches defense hard
 
I find myself yelling at boneheaded plays of his almost nightly this year.
That being said, he's very good offensively and not bad defensively when he isn't boneheading it up.

The tape of errors this year is long and rough, I wouldn't pay more than 8.25 a year.
 
You mean in the game where he led the team in 5v5 TOI, had a 60% shot share, 70% chance share, and outscored the other team 2-1 when he was on the ice?

The only problem with Evan Bouchard is a bunch of you still think it's 1999.
So you're saying Bouchard is a forward?
 
What? The Oilers are one of the best defensive teams in the league under Knoblauch by just about every metric.
Knoblauch is the exact opposite of what you imagine he is.

There's a reason why Jeff Skinner gets scratched so much, there's a reason why guys like Emberson are out there at the end of games protecting leads, there's a reason why Podkolzin has stayed in the top 6, he's probably a part of the reason why Draisaitl is playing the best defensive hockey of his career. Knoblauch, moreso than any Oiler coach I can remember, preaches defense hard
Like. Nothing that poster said about the Oilers D or coaching is correct.
 
I think we're going to have a lot of angry fans because they don't understand the concept of salaries going up when the salary cap goes up.
The same was said about Covid Nurse. 4 years now and the Oiler still haven't won the cup and Nurse is still overpaid by a fair margin.
 
The Oilers had less Kris Russell types than most want to admit. Klef, Larsson, Sekera, Nurse, Petry just off the top of my head were all not like Russell

And the people who don't like Bouchard hated all of those players too. They were also wrong in all of those cases.

Except for Larsson who absolutely is a Kris Russell type.
 
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It all comes down to the price. We don’t want to pay twice for mcdavid and draisaitl.

The Rantsnen negotiations should be a wake-up call for all players looking for their bag.

If you want to stay on a team that has a chance to win, better negotiate in good faith.
 
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The same was said about Covid Nurse. 4 years now and the Oiler still haven't won the cup and Nurse is still overpaid by a fair margin.
He’s overpaid by a few million but ultimately that was the market at the time. At least he has been very solid defensively this year. Dude has been a rock back there. If only he had a little better offense. lol
 

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