We are 19 games into the season and I thought I’d look back at the offseason acquisitions. In July, Jeff Jackson was being labelled a hero online. Many wondering if he should be the GM. I didn’t like any of his moves too much and thought we were getting older and slower. I was also worried that we were addressing the wrong things. Our top priority should have been a legit second right-handed defenceman and a platoon goalie (not backup) for Stuart Skinner to push him and replace him if he falters. Then we hired Stan Bowman in a very controversial move. So let’s see how Bowman and Jackson did. Roughly 15 transactions to review.
The good results of the offseason moves
Mattias Janmark’s signing to three years—it’s aging really well, he’s improved and is in our top 10 of scoring so far.
Noah Philp for one year. This is a great signing. However it is low cost and low impact. In a “win now” Cup window, this won’t be that big a deal.
Cory Perry to one year. This is aging well so far. He has four points in 17 games. He’s a good fourth liner and useful in a playoff run.
The not so good parts
That’s it. That’s all I had for good. A good bottom-six penalty killer, an AHL player, and a future HOF journeyman. So here’s the bad:
Jeff Skinner to one year. He has six points in 17 games which puts him on pace for 30 points. There are already talks to trade him. He also has a legendary curse of never making the playoffs.
Signed Calvin Pickard to two years. I like Pickard and he did well in spot duty last year. His journey back to the NHL is inspirational. However, he’s clearly the backup and Skinner needs more competition or a guy to step in when he falters. Olivier Rodrigue didn’t take the necessary step to push for NHL work. We needed to sign someone that could push Stu or replace him in case of injury. Using hindsight, Kevin Lankinen would’ve been a much better signing. I feel we need to trade for a goalie like Vitek Vanecek, Karel Vejmelka, or Mackenzie Blackwood. All three would be inexpensive and available.
Connor Brown was signed for another year and although we all loved him in the playoffs, he has now played 88 regular season games and has 16 points. His salary last year, bonus last, and salary this year is $5M. He has not come close to earning that. At some point, we need to stop saying he’s snakebitten. 88 games is a very long sample size.
Viktor Arviddson was signed to two years and put on a line with Leon Draisaitl in the top six. He has five points in 16 games. That puts him on pace for 25 points if he can stay healthy all season (not a strength of his). I am a Arviddson fan but he needs to do a lot more with this opportunity. Another guy I’d consider trading.
Vasily Podkolzin was a decent risk. He has three points in 17 games and won a really nice fight. This is Klim Kostin 2.0 to me. When he looks good, he looks great. The toolbox is amazing but the results aren’t there.
Troy Stecher signed to two years has played 13 games with zero points and TOI is 14. This was my biggest frustration of the offseason. We needed to replace Cody Ceci with a better second line defenceman. Ideally push him to third pair. Instead we got rid of Ceci and replaced him with guys that are worse than him. Stecher himself is not a bad player but he’s a fifth, sixth, or seventh type and we needed a fourth. Our D got worse.
Ty Emberson has one point in 15 games, a -5, and TOI is 14. Again, not a bad player but he’s not replacing Ceci and we needed something better than Ceci. I think maybe the Oilers thought they could play Stecher and Emberson side by side with Nurse at the same time? They failed badly at improving our D. Emberson himself is not a bad player but he’s a fifth or sixth on a Cup contending team.
The worst parts of the offseason moves
Josh Brown was signed to three years. I have no idea what they were thinking? This kind of player is always available. AHL is full of them. Why three years? Maybe the worst offseason contract given?
Adam Henrique signed for two years and while he is an offensive player, he only has two points in 17 games. I’m not even sure if he’d be claimed on waivers for free. That second year is a dagger. He’s not succeeding as a third line centre so maybe a trip to wing in the top six would help?
We lost Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway to an offer sheet. This made us older and slower and this is probably on Ken Holland.
We traded Ryan McLeod. He was a beautiful bottom-six player with some untapped upside. This also made us older and slower.
Too soon for verdict to be out on these moves
We did pick up Matthew Savoie. I’m hoping he gets into our top six by playoffs and takes off! He’s a skill player and skill players love other skill players. That could end up great. However, he is small and he has yet to make any meaningful NHL impact. Also his drafting team traded him for a second rounder. He went NHL to AHL to WHL last year. He now has eight points in 12 AHL games. The pro game is proving difficult.
He could also be a great trade chip. One guy the Oilers should be looking at heavily is David Jiricek. There is something wrong in Columbus and there is trade speculation. Could a trade around Savoie plus for Jiricek be possible?
We lost Raphael Lavoie to waivers. I didn’t think Lavoie would ever get a fair chance in Edmonton. He needs to be in the top six to succeed. He’s Brendan Perlini, Dominik Kubalik, or Ty Rattie on his best day. However, he was young and had upside and we lost him for free.
In my opinion. This offseason was disastrous. We got within one goal of a cup and lost a lot of younger, faster, and cheaper players while picking up aging veterans who aren’t delivering. Edmonton didn’t address our goaltending and didn’t address our defence. They just picked up “names” that aren’t doing enough.
Our youngest player most nights is Evan Bouchard. Amazingly, the blame can be spread out between three men: Holland, Jackson, and Bowman. Bowman needs to land a stud defenceman in a homerun trade and take advantage of that LTIR space. He has yet to make his mark and has some work to do. This is a very good team but it needs a few new faces to make that final step.
Connor McDavid just reached 1000 points. This is what he’s being surrounded with to try and get to the Cup Finals again.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
