Source: Hockey’s Future

Lots to look forward to now that Connor McDavid is officially an Edmonton Oiler.

The actual announcement on Friday night was a little anti-climatic however, as the impact of McDavid’s impending arrival was already felt weeks ago. Soon after the Oilers won the lottery, the club improved their front office with the additions of Nicholson and Chiarelli. And behind the bench, they quickly moved to bring in one of the top coaches in the game in McLellan. I thought it would have been nice to have Wayne do the official announcement, but the release of the new third jersey made up for everything.

As for the rest of the draft, I’m still battling with a few things.

Leading up to the draft, it felt like the Oilers were progressing and were going to be different than years past. But over the draft weekend, a few moves were made that gave me flashbacks to the past nine years. We’re coming off some bad, bad management eras. And over these years, a lot of questionable deals went through, most of which fans knew were terrible the day they were announced. I’ll touch on this a bit more in the post.

Here we go.

Reinhart

The deal for Griffin Reinhart was an absolute over payment. I think he’s a good young prospect who definitely has a legitimate chance of becoming an NHL player. My issue is that he likely won’t be a full-time NHL player in the next year or two. I realize the Oilers will likely push him into the roster anyways, but the fact remains that NHL defencemen take a long time to develop. The two picks that the OIlers gave up should have been used to get an established top four defenceman who you could pencil in to your roster for the 2015 season. Another reason why I don’t like this deal is because it gave me flashbacks to the Tambellini era. If I recall correctly, the Oilers really wanted Reinhart in 2012 (thanks Oil Change). Plus Tambo took a gamble on another high pick in Cam Barker in 2011. Brutal.

There had to have been teams that wanted the 16th pick, considering some of the major talent available there. It does appear that the Oilers really had their second first-rounder and their second rounders earmarked for a player chasing Hamilton earlier and settling on Reinhart. That to me is encouraging. It’s just too bad they still haven’t solidified any component of their defensive unit with this acquisition.

Marincin

Once the Reinhart deal went down, I knew it was the end of the line for our boy Marincin. The young Slovak has progressed nicely as an Oiler, really showing well early on in his career. The Oilers did a very nice job bringing him along, letting him develop at the AHL level under Todd Nelson’s staff and giving him a shot at the NHL level. He took on a lot of tough competition for a 22-year old, and still managed to hold his own. He’s a rangy guy that broke up plays and did a lot of good things on the ice.

Seeing this deal go down made me think back to MacTavish’s track record dealing with defencemen. For whatever reason, this club has a hard time developing defencemen. And when they get it right, they have no idea how to retain them. Plus, the club picked up a former Marlie, which made me think back to the Acton, Fraser and Aulie acquisitions that all failed.

What annoys me is that it was the Leafs that were smart enough to see his potential and acquire him for next to nothing. Toronto has a strong management team in place with analytics experts. They also made a few of those 2-for-1 draft pick deals, which demonstrates their understanding of pick values. They’re obviously in rebuild mode, but I’m fairly confident they’ll turn it around if they keep making smart moves like these ones.

Talbot

Absolutely loved this deal.

I originally thought Talbot would be a good fit for the club as he did well as a backup and I figured he’d come cheap, I poked through his numbers and felt he’d be a bit of a gamble, and maybe they club might rather keep Scrivens as the “goalie-with-potential” and add someone like Brian Elliott through trade or sign Enroth or Neuvirth through free agency.

Of course, all my thoughts went into a spiral when Darcy “Woodguy” McLeod put together a case for acquiring Talbot, while Bruce McCurdy put a nice argument for Eddie Lack. And when rumors swirled about the acquisition cost going up (something about a first rounder), I started looking at other expensive options like RFA Jonathan Bernier. I’m just glad the Oilers landed a good goalie for lower draft picks.

I seriously learned a ton about goalies during this whole discussion on who the Oilers should acquire. It was also a fantastic example of how strong of a discussion you can have when data is available. I know most of us are using War on Ice, Hockey Analysis and others, which is great. But if the NHL wants their fans to drive discussion, and in a way promote the game, they have got to take a serious lead in collecting and providing accessible, high quality data. Work with the existing companies if you have to. Just collect as much as data as possible and get the data out there and keep it free.

Recommended Links

Harvest Moon 2015 – Lowetide

Meet the Newest Edmonton Oilers – The Copper and Blue

What do the Edmonton Oilers Come Away With From the 2015 NHL Draft? – Cult of Hockey

Tangled Up in Blue – OilersNation

Last week I put together a short case on Shawn Horcoff and how he could potentially help the Oilers next season. Over the past two years in Dallas, Horcoff played fewer minutes than he did as an Oiler and took on weaker competition. Last season, Horcoff notched 29 points, with 22 coming at even-strength. He was a decent possession player at even-strength (52.68 Corsi For%, +0.73 CorsiRel), despite having fewer offensive zone starts relative to his teammates. He played mostly wing, but finished 6^th on the team in faceoff attempts (going 50.2%), meaning he did play center as needed.

Thanks to War on Ice, we can dig into those 22 even-strength points a little more and see in what score situations (i.e., whether the game was tied or if a team was leading) Horcoff got his points. Before digging into his individual production, it’s worth looking into how his team did last season.

The Stars finished with a respectable score-adjusted Corsi of 52.4%, which was 9^th overall in the league. Goaltending appears to have been an issue for them as their keepers finished with the third worst on-ice save percentage at even-strength, finishing ahead of only the Oilers and Hurricanes. Here’s a quick snapshot of their Corsi For% at different score situations, and NHL rank (Source: Puck on Net):

So what we know is that the Stars were a good possession team that did well when the game was tied or when they were down a goal. What might get overlooked is which forwards on the roster produced at different times of the game. Here’s a summary of how Horcoff produced at different score situations.

Couple things to note here. Among the Stars forwards who played a minimum of 200 minutes, Horcoff had the best CF% and Corsi Rel when the game was tied. He also had fewer offensive zone starts compared to his teammates, but still managed to produce at a third line level. When the team trailed by one or two, in the limited minutes he played, he finished in the top three when it came to points/60.

If we look at how Horcoff produced when the game was close at even-strength, as in the game was tied or within one goal in the first or second period or tied in the third, we see a few more interesting numbers.

So 16 of Horcoff’s 22 even-strength points came when the game was close. He produced at a very nice clip and held his own possession wise in this situation, with fewer offensive zone starts. Among his teammates playing forward, he finished 6th in points/60 and Corsi For%. Not too shabby for a 36 year old, bottom six forward.

Here’s a list of players who played between 450 and 500 minutes when the score was close, had fewer zone starts and produced more than 2.00 points/60.

I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that Horcoff’s linemates (who always did better with him) made the list.  But so too did an unrestricted free agent that will likely cash in on a heavy, long term deal. Beleskey is definitely much younger, but I find it interesting that his production when the score was close is quite similar to that of Horcoff’s.

Thoughts

The Oilers will definitely need to acquire depth at center this off-season, as an injury to RNH, Lander or Gordon would be absolutely devastating to the club. McDavid and Draisaitl are on their way, but we won’t know until training camp if they’ll start the season on wing and ease their way into center. It’s a tough position to play, and the Oilers can use all the experience they can find to help the prospects along. Horcoff would be a good candidate as he can start on the wing and move to center as needed. He shouldn’t be an expensive acquisition and I’m sure if the Oilers don’t sign him, he’ll be picked up by another club this summer.

Excited to be joining The Copper and Blue as a contributor. I’ve been a long time reader of the website and look forward to working with a great group.

My first post is up. I discuss the development of young Martin Marincin.

A lot of my ideas about the game come from articles at The Copper and Blue. A lot of writers have had a huge impact on me, especially people like Jonathan Willis, Bruce McCurdy and Derek Zona, all of whom have ties to C&B. So it means a lot to be writing for the website now. Should also note that C&B was a big inspiration for my final research paper in grad school. It’s a fantastic example of fan-generated content that has pushed the development of new information and ideas. Examples include the Top 25 Under 25 series and a lot of the early analytics work by Derek.

I’ll be posting every few weeks there, really expanding on what I currently do here at The SuperFan. So really, I now have two channels to push my Bring-Back-Horcoff agenda.

Appreciate all the support I’ve received recently. Big thanks to C&B managing editor Ryan Batty for the invite. The guy is a gem.