As it stands today, the Edmonton Oilers will start training camp with a mix of young, developing defenceman along with some established individuals. With Connor McDavid on the way, and an experienced coaching staff, it’s become apparent that the club has decided to move away from the re-build phase to one that involves competing for a playoff spot.  The management group will rely less on young prospects to carry the load, and hopefully find the right mix of experienced players and emerging talent to solidify the defensive unit.

Full article is at The Copper & Blue.

A couple of weeks ago, I expressed some concern with the depth the Oilershave at center for the upcoming season. As of today, it appears that the four pivots will be Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Connor McDavid, Anton Landerand Mark Letestu. RNH, to me, is a legitimate top six centerman with all the potential in the world to be one the league’s best. He took a big step forward last season, posting some very respectable numbers, making expectations much higher this coming season. McDavid may or may not start at center, depending on how training camp goes, but he’s penciled in for now and will make some noise. Lander is another player who established himself as a NHL regular last season, but a lot of his points came on a very good powerplay under Todd Nelson. I’m not expecting a whole lot from Letestu, considering his history, so I’ll have to wait and see what exactly the Oilers saw in him.

Full article is at The Copper & Blue.

Without a doubt, the 2014/2015 season is one to forget for 29-year old defenceman Nikita Nikitin. After being acquired from the Columbus Blue Jackets for a fifth-round pick last summer before his contract expired, and signing a staggering 2-year deal worth $9 million, Nikitin failed to establish himself as a top four defenceman. The Oilers had the right idea in bringing in a defender in his late twenties, allowing some of the prospects to continue developing in the appropriate leagues. But the price was steep for a player with just over 200 NHL games under his belt. And there were few signs that he would be a difference maker.

Full article is at The Copper & Blue.

Thanks to Dirk Hoag of On the Forecheck, we can see how many miles each team will be travelling this coming season. No surprise that the Oilers will be travelling quite a bit given their location in North America and the distance from most NHL cities. And of course, the eastern teams have an easier travel schedule as most of the cities are relatively close to one another along the eastern seaboard.

The Oilers will be travelling an additional 3,804 miles this season compared to the previous year. It’s over 9,000 miles above the average among the 30 NHL teams, ranking them second overall. It’s a little absurd, but that’s just the reality given Edmonton’s location and the league’s balanced schedule. Here’s how much they’ve traveled historically, and compared to the average.

Full article is at The Copper & Blue.

It’s been a busy summer for the Oilers as they’ve worked towards improving the team, specifically their defence as well as the goaltending. Both areas were glaring weaknesses last season so it should come as no surprise that GM Peter Chiarelli pointed it out in his introductory press conference, and then proceeded to wheel-and-deal this off-season. The additions of Cam Talbot and Andrej Sekera are good bets at this point, with more, hopefully, on the way to improve the club’s overall performance.

My concern now is the depth at the center position.

For the first time in a longtime, the Oilers are absolutely loaded down the middle with young, high end prospects like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, to go along with 22-year old Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and 24-year old Anton Lander, both of whom took big steps in their development last season. As of today, the line combinations for opening night could look something like this:

Full article is at The Copper & Blue.

Thanks to some wonderful work by Ryan Stimson over at In Lou We Trust, we can begin to assess the passing ability of NHL players and their contributions to zone entries and scoring chances. Ryan and his team watched a number of games to collect the data (manually, I should add) and are now publishing the data for public use. A lot of thought was put into why this tracking was important and the methodology to collect the data.

A fantastic visualization tool has been developed by Spencer Mann, who has applied a few metrics to convert the passing data into some useful information. You can access his charts, along with a useful glossary, on his Tableau page.

Full article is at The Copper & Blue.

After playing three full seasons as an Oiler, the general consensus among fans seems to be that the team should somehow rid themselves of young Justin Schultz. It’s a fair take on the 24 year old defenceman. Despite getting a bulk of ice time at even-strength and powerplay, and getting more than his fair share of offensive zone starts, Schultz has struggled to put up points. As a result, his defensive miscues have been magnified, with the lofty expectations of management making it even worse for Schultz.

Here’s a high level summary of his performance to date.

Full article is at The Copper & Blue.