It’s been tough watching Anton Lander struggle this season. After notching 11 points at even-strength in 38 games last season, plus 10 more points on the powerplay, it appeared that the young prospect was finally turning a corner in his NHL career. Unfortunately for him, this season has been a disaster. He’s definitely not playing at the level he was at under Todd Nelson and, to my eye, hasn’t been involved in as many offensive zone plays. I thought he had more of a presence in front of the net last season and looked a lot more assertive with and without the puck. Diving into the numbers from War on Ice, we see that he isn’t generating as many shots or scoring chances compared to last season, and hasn’t had a positive impact on team possession. What should keep him on the roster is his very manageable contract, his ability to play center and win draws, and his ability to draw penalties (where he ranks 5th in the league in penalty differential).
SEASON
GAMES
TOI/GM
G-A-P
P/60
CF%REL
SCF%REL
GF%REL
2014/15
38
11.87
1-10-11
1.46
2.1
2.01
-8.41
2015/16
48
9.18
0-2-2
0.27
-2.95
-2.15
-18.83
As bad as Lander has struggled, Mark Letestu hasn’t been that much better. He has seen his ice time increase significantly with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins out of the lineup, yet he only has six points at even-strength all season. His point production per 60 minutes is a paltry 0.61, ahead of only Lander and Luke Gazdic among Oiler forwards this season (Appendix A).
Heading into free agency this summer, forward Milan Lucic can expect to get paid. His past performance, including a championship in Boston, along with his reputation of being a big, physical player will ensure that there will be many teams interested in signing him, ready to pay top dollar for the 27 year old. He’ll be coming off of a three year deal that he signed with Boston, which paid him $18 million.
With Peter Chiarelli managing the Oilers now, there will definitely be some chatter about Lucic signing in Edmonton. But there are a few things to consider if Edmonton wants go down that route.
First off, adding Lucic is going to require a heavy contract, likely in the 6-7 year range. It’s likely his last “big’ contract, so I wouldn’t expect he and his agent to sign for a discount unless it’s with a legitimate contender like Los Angeles. Adding him would require the Oilers to move out another contract, or two, plus somehow find enough cap space to sign a few unrestricted (and possibly restricted) free agent defencemen.
Joined Lowetide this morning on TSN 1260 to discuss the Oilers. Full audio clip is below starting around the 8:00 mark.
Couple thoughts:
With McDavid coming back in, I’d prefer to see him reunited with Yakupov and Pouliot. The trio was one of the best lines in hockey before McDavid got hurt and posted a 52% Corsi For percentage in their time together (Source: Puckalytics). I thought Yak looked like a different player with McDavid, very active, especially in the neutral zone. I’d rather have seen Eberle pushed down to play with Letestu and Kassian (who as a pair have done very well so far since Kassian was called up). Looks like the coaching staff see otherwise and have slotted Eberle with McDavid, which you can’t go wrong with either. The fourth line looks like a mix of Lander, Hendricks, Pakarinen and Korpikoski. Fully expect Gazdic and Klinkhammer to be waived, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Gazdic stays and Lander is shipped out instead.
The defence is looking mighty weak and won’t look any better unless Sekera-Fayne are split up. The Oilers bottom four are Nurse and Reinhart on the left side, and Schultz, Clendening and Gryba on the right side. Among those five, I cannot find a combination that I like. Fully expect Schultz to be shipped out sooner rather than later with Clendening sliding right into his spot and paired with Nurse.
One player who I hope gets an extended stay in Edmonton is Pakarinen. He’s been a good depth winger with a tendency to shoot the puck, something McLellan has been preaching since his arrival. This season, among forwards who have played at least 20 games, Pakarinen is only behind Hall, Yakupov and Purcell when it comes to individual shot attempts per 60.
Pakarinen is an RFA this summer and qualifying him should be a no brainer. In a perfect world, he’d replace Korpikoski who has been dreadful this season, but is still being paid another $2.5 million next season. Unfortunately, Pakarinen will continue fighting for ice time, but should be retained as a good depth winger.
One thing that I’ve been spending more time on are the numbers being posted by the Oilers prospects in Bakersfield. A great website that captures some of theses stats is Prospect-Stats.com. Sean Tierney, who writes for Hockey Graphs and Today’s Slapshot has been nice enough to put together and publish team dashboards recently. Below are the Condor’s goals-for relative to teammate stats, 5v5:
We knew LaLeggia has been having a good season. Just didn’t know it’s been this good. Happy to see Musil on the plus-side, hopefully he gets some time in Edmonton before his contract is up. By this measure, Oesterle hasn’t been playing at a level I was expecting, but he’s still a prospect at this point. We know Reinhart hasn’t been great, but I think he’s almost guaranteed to be on the roster before guys like Musil and the rest.
With the trade deadline coming up at the end of February, most of the focus has been on the players with either expiring contracts (Teddy Purcell,Eric Gryba) and players that have struggled to adjust to Todd McLellan’s system (Justin Schultz, Mark Fayne). One player that I’m surprised hasn’t really been considered as an expendable asset at this point is 29 year old Lauri Korpikoski. The winger is currently in the third year of a 4-year, $10 million contract he signed with Arizona.
A few weeks ago, I dug into Korpikoski’s numbers a little more, mainly because he had played a lot of time with Anton Lander, who has been in an awful funk all season. It was all part of exploring what effects Lander was having on his teammates and vice versa, and if what I was seeing on the ice matched what the numbers were telling me. When I took a longer look at Korpikoski’s history, I came away with one key finding: Korpikoski is not a good player.
Over the course of his career, Korpikoski has been a terrible possession player and has been a pretty significant drag on his most common linemates. Here we see how his teams have done possession-wise at even-strength (score adjusted) with him on the ice, and when he’s on the bench (Source: War on Ice).
Looked into the production and possession numbers of Oilers winger Benoit Pouliot to dispel any rumors about him being anything less than a top six forward.
This past Monday, Lowetide and I discussed players that might be shipped away at the deadline and what the Oilers could possibly get in return. Teddy Purcell is the most likely forward to be dealt considering his expiring contract and his high trade value. And on the blueline, the Oilers could potentially trade awayMark Fayne who has struggled at times under the new coaching staff or Eric Grybawhose contract is expiring this summer and who might be of value to a playoff-bound team looking for a 6th/7th defencemen. Justin Schultz is another prime candidate to be shipped out as he hasn’t exactly proven himself to be a $3.9 million player.
Now obviously the Oilers can’t get rid of all three of these defencemen as they play on the right-side. But based on the possession numbers and the contract situations going into the summer, something has to give. And now that they’ve claimed a right shooting defencemen in Adam Clendening, who is touted as an offensive player, something is likely to give in the next few weeks.
To get a sense of the value each defencemen brings to the team and the different lines, I compiled the Corsi For % of each player with the different centermen at even-strength this season.
Something that’s been of interest to me has been faceoffs and some of the odd numbers the Oilers have been posting this season.
In November when the Oilers had that poor start, an area that the coaching staff wanted to improve on was faceoffs. I’m of the sense that faceoffs are important, but tend to be overvalued as there are other events in a game that have a greater impact on scoring and possession that aren’t tracked. Regardless, since the coaching staff has talked about faceoffs throughout the season, and how much the team has been working on them, I thought it would be worth looking at the latest numbers.
Joined Lowetide this morning on TSN 1260 to discuss the Oilers. Full audio below, starting around the 7:40 mark.
Couple thoughts:
Shot Blocking
As frustrated as I was with RNH breaking his hand trying to block a shot, I can’t say I was too surprised. McLellan has never been averse to having his skilled guys kill penalties. And this past summer when I was looking into the Sharks history with McLellan behind the bench, one thing I found was that his teams blocked a high proportion of shot attempts at even-strength.
Keep in mind, the Sharks were one of the best possession teams with McLellan behind the bench, and often did well suppressing shots. Regardless, his team’s were committed to blocking shots and did so often. McLellan even reaffirmed the importance of blocking shots last week and said it was something that was expected of players (Source: 630 CHED).
Moneyball
Have to say that I’ve been pretty impressed by Kassian’s play thus far. He’s been fortunate in that he’s been able to slide into a roster spot with Hendricks having been suspended. Partnered with Letestu, Kassian has not been sheltered at all playing against top lines and is actually faring well when it comes to shot attempts for and against when he’s on the ice.
I’m especially fascinated by Kassian’s performance because it’s the second “moneyball” type experiment Chiarelli has conducted. The first being Anders Nilsson who was playing in the KHL before being acquired by the Oilers and replacing Scrivens. At this point, Kassian is a low-risk investment by the Oilers that has the potential to impact the roster makeup for next season. Which brings us to the next topic..
The Expendables
IF Kassian can continue playing well and keep things together off the ice, he could become a permanent fixture on the left side with Letestu, basically replacing Matt Hendricks. Now a couple things could go down. Hendricks could be moved down to the fourth line wing and slide to center as needed, which is something I’m in favor of. That would essentially be the end of Gazdic who really hasn’t established himself as a full time player. The other player who I think should be moved if Kassian is signed is Korpikoski who hasn’t been at all effective this season. He still has one more year on his deal that pays $2.5 million. Money that could be spent on a forward that can actually have a positive impact on his team.
Having said that, because of his age and his perceived value at the trade deadline, it would not at all surprise me if the Oilers move Hendricks instead and keep Korpse. Hendricks will be 35 this summer and has one more year remaining on his contract which will pay him $1.85 million. He’s played very well in a bottom six role this year, but isn’t likely in the Oilers long term plans.
One could also make the argument that if Kassian does well and is signed that Benoit Pouliot should be the one traded. First off, it makes no sense to get rid of a productive player like Pouliot, who is also one of the few players who forechecks really well. He does come at a hefty price tag of $4.0 million per season for the next three seasons. But that’s money well spent when you consider his scoring rates and impact on team possession. Side note: it only occurred to me today that Chiarelli once traded away Pouliot when he was in Boston to make room for a younger player in Caron (Source: Boston.com). It’s a different situation today, so I do not expect history to repeat itself.
Ice Time
Micah Blake McCurdy recently tweeted out graphs that display player ice time over the course of the year. Highly recommend checking out Micah’s work at Hockey Viz.
In the first graph, we see how Nurse has been getting a ton of ice time, and it really hasn’t been at all reduced despite his struggles. Can’t really blame him as there aren’t many options for McLellan. Also interesting to see Schultz getting some more ice time, which I personally think is a way to showcase him a bit more leading into the deadline. He hasn’t been getting as many offensive opportunities as last year, but his deployment has definitely changed in the last few weeks.
As for the second graph, the only thing that stands out is RNH’s reduced ice time after his flu bug (thanks to Bruce McCurdy for pointing that one out). We also see here that Letestu is getting a lot more ice time as the season has wore on. He’s definitely found some nice chemistry with Kassian and Pakarinen in the last few weeks, so hopefully that continues. Definitely something to keep any eye on as this could alter the Oilers roster going forward.
With the Pacific Division being as terrible as it’s been this season, there have been some rumblings that the Oilers could, somehow, someway, sneak into the playoffs. Currently, the Oilers are six points back of third place Arizona in the division. Having Connor McDavid and Oscar Klefbom back in the very near future will definitely improve the team, but let’s not kid ourselves. The Oilers aren’t good enough to make the playoffs.
After the Oilers brutal start to the season, going 3-7, my colleague Scott Reynolds looked into how many other teams over the past ten seasons collected only six points in their first 10 games and who had a poor goal differential. The good news is that there were a small handful of teams that went on to make the playoffs or at least push for a playoff spot following a rough start. But from what I found, those teams that started poorly had strong underlying numbers but had scoring and goaltending issues that sunk them early on. The teams that bounced back were good possession teams that saw improvements in their PDO to get back into the playoff picture.
Following last night’s loss to the Lightning, McLellan was asked what forward Zack Kassian was bringing to the team and what the coach’s overall thoughts were regarding his game:
Zack is a pretty honest player. That’s something that I’ve figured out in his three or four games with us. He wants to do things well. He wants to do things right. His power game and his ability to power his way through and play physical is important. Nice to see him get rewarded with a goal tonight. As time goes on here, I can see myself and the coaching staff trusting him more and more. – Todd McLellan (Source: 630 CHED)
Now Kassian has played relatively well in his four games as an Oilers, scoring a goal and an assist so far. Paired with Mark Letestu, Kassian has averaged just over 15 minutes of ice time at even-strength per night and has been a decent possession player (51.45% Corsi For, score adjusted, +0.62 CF Rel). I’m a little surprised that McLellan was musing about trusting him more, so I took a look at the ice time he was getting, who he was going up against, and how he was faring when it came to shot attempts (Source: Natural Stat Trick).
The SuperFan 
