Prospects

Edmonton Oilers Prospects Roundup: Lavoie and Tullio a bright spot for the struggling Condors

The Edmonton Oilers’ prospects saw plenty of action this past week. With a limited amount of games across all leagues, we had to give this week’s spotlight to the newfound chemistry of Raphael Lavoie and Tyler Tullio. Let’s dive right into it!


Welcome to the TOR Edmonton Oilers prospect update. Each week, we’ll take a dive into how the Oilers’ prospects have done in their respective leagues. We have defined a prospect as a skater who has played fewer than 65 NHL games, and is younger than 25 years of age. All data is from EliteProspects. We also use an NHLe calculator built by Christian Roatis (@Croatis) which is used to estimate a player’s equivalent point total in the NHL based on how they are performing in their respective league. The calculator uses the difficulty of the given league combined with the ease at which a player puts up points to determine the NHLe.


It was a rough week for the Bakersfield Condors, losing all three of their games by one goal. While the Condors are in tough spot, buried near the bottom of a strong division, there can still be some positives taken from these results. In general we want to see the team maintain a good fighting spirit, an atmosphere that should help their young players in the long run.

Some standouts from the week include Raphael Lavoie, keeping his current hot streak going, adding four points, and Tyler Tullio, who added three points of his own. The two even connected for a few goals, and any continued success together would be huge for their standing within the Condors, and Oilers, organisational depth chart.

Tullio has done well to hold his own, halfway through his rookie pro season, but the challenge going forward will be to move beyond surviving and into thriving. Having already won player of the week honours this season, this week showed another peek at the peak of Tullio’s game.

Meanwhile, peaks and valleys have been the story of Lavoie’s career in the AHL. The skills and process of a strong net front attacker are there, puck control, passing, and scoring touch. Perhaps not too dissimilar to Klim Kostin during his time with the St. Louis Blues organisation, the ability might be there, but the manner in which the player is applying themselves could use some tweaking.

Tullio does well going to the net to finish, but clearly the standout of this play is Lavoie. While a zone entry off a one-on-three dangle is not the move we’d like to see every time, it does demonstrate some of the puck skills Lavoie possesses.

We see more strong work from the duo of Tullio and Lavoie here. Tullio does really well to chase down the loose puck, protect with a tight turnaround, and finding linemate Luke Esposito in the middle with a nifty backhand. There are some elements of power and playmaking in Tullio’s game that shine here.

Meanwhile, after Esposito finds Lavoie behind the goal line, Lavoie makes a slick move to avoid the goalie’s poke check, steps out to attack the front of the net, and tuck the goal five-hole. This is a high level maneuver in tight, showing a lot of what makes Lavoie so dangerous as a net front scorer.

This and That

AHL

Carter Savoie, another AHL rookie, added a goal this week. A fantastic one knee finish on this cross ice feed, Savoie shows a high skill level to put home the one timer. The fact that he is being trusted in a late game attacking situation is a great sign, tying the game with 19 seconds to go.

We’ve often seen strong lateral work from Olivier Rodrigue this season, here not only getting across for the high tip, but staying strong on the post for the follow up flurry.

Another instance of stick-to-it-tiveness, as Rodrigue stares down a breakaway. It might be surprising to see Rodrigue’s numbers improve this season with the Condors struggling, but regardless of save percentage there are still lots of really positive signs here.

Xavier Bourgault had a goal this week, though not the most productive week of his season he is continuing to hang around the top goal scorers and point getters on the Condors.

This isn’t the first time in this article that we’ve seen captain Brad Malone set up a rookie teammate with a brilliant cross ice pass, this time finding Bourgault for the tap in.

Finally, it was not exactly a banner week for Ryan Fanti. With Calvin Pickard back in the fold, and coming off a 21 save on 26 shot loss this week, Fanti was sent back down to the ECHL, where he started the season. It hasn’t been the smoothest of transitions to the pros for Fanti, but at least in the ECHL he should be able to get some more playing time. A rough year is not a huge concern for Fanti’s long term hopes, but he will certainly be looking to build off these results next season.

WHL

Reid Schaefer, circled, takes the cross crease pass and shows good awareness in taking his time. With the defender and goaltender at his mercy Schaefer makes no mistake with the wrister.

Coming back from his U20 gold medal win, where Schaefer played a depth role, Schaefer finds himself back with the Seattle Thunderbirds, who are one of the WHL’s top teams. Recently, the Thunderbirds also traded for top prospect Dylan Guenther, a move that adds a star WHL scorer to the lineup. Along with fellow trade deadline acquisition Brad Lambert, the Thunderbirds should be expecting to make a deep run into the WHL playoffs, which is good news for Schaefer.

Traded from Brandon to Saskatoon, Jake Chiasson got off to a good start with his new WHL team, collecting a secondary assist here. Already with a role on his weak side flank on the Blades power play, Chiasson might well find a raised level of success and production with his new team. This boost in production might already be underway, as Chiasson has increased his points per game with his new club with three assists in three games.

OHL

Sneaking into the play late, Matvey Petrov finds himself alone in front. Petrov has far too much quality not to capitalise on the grade A chance.

KHL

Nikita Yevseyev has bounced around the third and fourth pair recently, even playing on his weak side. Here we see him pinch down for the loose puck, taking a hit along the boards to set up his teammate at the blueline. Although not the most dazzling highlight, this does show an element of physicality that Yevseyev possesses.

NHLe Leaderboard

NHLe is a metric used to estimate a player’s offensive output at the NHL level from their point totals in their respective league. Here are the Oilers’ current top five (bracketed numbers denote movement from the previous week).

  1. Matvey Petrov 36.8 (1)
  2. Maxim Beryozkin 31.0 (2)
  3. Reid Schaefer 29.0 (3)
  4. Tyler Benson 25.5 (4)
  5. James Hamblin 25.1 (5)

Overall regular season totals for Oilers’ prospects

Forwards

PlayerTeamLeagueGPGATPPPGPIM+/-NHLeLeagueNHLe
Justin Bailey (RW/LW)Bakersfield CondorsAHL1746100.5924-3AHL23.5
Tyler Benson (LW)Bakersfield CondorsAHL110770.646-5AHL25.5
Maxim Beryozkin (LW/RW)KHL36413170.47106KHL31.0
Xavier Bourgault (C)Bakersfield CondorsAHL3187150.488-1AHL19.1
Skyler Brind’Amour (C)Quinnipiac Univ.NCAA2199180.86412
Maxim Denezhkin (C)totals2567130.52760totals
Seth Griffith (C/RW)Bakersfield CondorsAHL31918270.8718-7AHL34.7
James Hamblin (LW/C)Bakersfield CondorsAHL1646100.6320AHL25.1
Mattias Janmark (C/W)Bakersfield CondorsAHL4224123AHL39.9
Klim Kostin (LW/RW)Bakersfield CondorsAHL92240.4415-4AHL17.5
Shane Lachance (LW)Youngstown PhantomsUSHL28176230.82291USHL18.2
Raphaël Lavoie (C/RW)Bakersfield CondorsAHL206390.4510-5ECAC10.3
Jeremias Lindewall (RW/LW)Östersunds IKHockeyAllsvenskan201340.26-11HockeyAllsvenskan
Brad Malone (C/LW)Bakersfield CondorsAHL1819100.5622-2Hockey East18.0
Tomas Mazura (C)St. Lawrence Univ.NCAA173580.4741Hockey East15.1
Greg McKegg (C/W)Bakersfield CondorsAHL301560.2400AHL8.0
Joel Määttä (C)Univ. of VermontNCAA215270.3316-2
Matvei Petrov (RW/LW)North Bay BattalionOHL361337501.392222OHL36.8
Noah Philp (C)Bakersfield CondorsAHL304260.2173AHL8.0
Carter Savoie (LW)Bakersfield CondorsAHL234370.38-5AHL12.0
Reid Schaefer (LW)Seattle ThunderbirdsWHL231512271.173811WHL29.0
Tyler Tullio (C/RW)Bakersfield CondorsAHL264480.3181AHL12.4

Defencemen

PlayerTeamLeagueGPGATPPPGPIM+/-NHLeLeagueNHLe
Philip Broberg (D)Bakersfield CondorsAHL72240.570-2AHL22.7
Jake Chiasson (C/RW)Brandon Wheat KingsWHL371017270.7316-20WHL18.1
Jason Demers (D)Bakersfield CondorsAHL28011110.3955-5AHL15.5
Vincent Desharnais (D)Bakersfield CondorsAHL130220.15191AHL6.0
Philip Kemp (D)Bakersfield CondorsAHL3156110.36172AHL14.3
Michael Kesselring (D)Bakersfield CondorsAHL29103130.4530-2AHL17.9
Slater Koekkoek (D)Bakersfield CondorsAHLAHL
Luca Münzenberger (D)Univ. of VermontNCAA170550.2918-5
Markus Niemeläinen (D)Bakersfield CondorsAHL100220.262AHL8.0
Maximus Wanner (D)Moose Jaw WarriorsWHL35721280.83522WHL19.8
Nikita Yevseyev (D)
Bars KazanVHL2000092
Ak Bars KazanKHL435270.16117KHL11.2

Goalies

PlayerTeamLeagueGPGAASV%
Olivier RodrigueBakersfield CondorsAHL172.980.911
Samuel JonssonRögle BK J20J20 Nationell192.330.909
Calvin PickardBakersfield CondorsAHL102.890.909
Ryan Fantitotals14

Gregory Babinski

twitter: @axiomsofice

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