Milan Lucic: Rebounding into an Aging Ceiling?
One key to success for the Oilers next year is a decent year from Milan Lucic. What does ‘decent year’ even mean though? What can we reasonably expect out of Looch next year?
Let’s Go Streaking With Ryan Strome!
Strome is back! Two years x $3.1M. Given the negotiator, that’s a decent number given Strome’s qualifying offer ($3M) and arbitration rights. These days, anything that isn’t a big overpay is a win in Oilersland. That said, I have a lot of time for Strome. He’s a legitimate NHL player, and his signing helps clarify…
Relative Schedule Pace and the Benefits of Mediocrity
Today, I want to talk about a concept I call Schedule Pace or maybe more accurately, Relative Schedule Pace. NHL teams each have a schedule that starts and finishes at approximately the same time. What I’m after is a definition of “pace” that addresses the fact that over the course of a season, some teams…
Benning the Numbers (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this series of articles, I pulled a variety of key statistics on Matt Benning that I use to characterize and assess players, particularly defenders. Those numbers should have reconciled well for you vis a vis the eye test. We have a player who helps the team a lot on the attack,…
Benning the Numbers (Part 1)
Another day, another contract! The Oilers and Peter Chiarelli just signed Matt Benning to a 2 year contract with an AAV of $1.9M. The signing passed with considerably less fanfare and controversy than the Caggiula signing, maybe partly because everyone is distracted by the (surprisingly good) draft. By most indicators, Benning is a third pair…
Drake Caggiula and the McDavid Contract Effect
So after a long unintended hiatus (partly vacation, partly busy at work, partly family obligations, partly didn’t-want-to-talk-about-the-Oilers-for-a-while), somehow not-the-rapper Drake has inspired me to get off my *ss (“started from my bottom now we here”) and write an article!
The Unbearable Lightness of Power Play Opportunities
Everyone is frustrated with the awful state of refereeing in the NHL. When you look at how rare power play opportunities have been, though, no-one else has the right to be as frustrated as the Edmonton Oilers.
The Fall and Rise(?) of Milan Lucic
Milan Lucic now sits with five points and no goals in 2018. Taylor Hall, meanwhile, has the entire league thinking “Hart” as they admire his cannonball style and 25-game point scoring streak.
The Oilers and Moral Victories
In light of the Oilers’ too-rare three-game win streak (against the Pacific Division no less, the guys that we’re built to beat, wahoooo!), I thought it would be fun to look at one of our other favourite types of victories over the last many years: the moral victory.
The Oilers and early goals: The bad, the bad, and the ugly
Heading into San Jose on February 10th, the Oilers knew a few things: After two losses in Disneywood, the Oilers needed a win. Given these are the teams the Oilers are chasing for an unlikely post-season spot, they had to salvage at least a few points to keep the California trip from being an utter…
A word about Andrej Sekera
I figured I would kick off my OilersNation debut by defending one of the Oilers underrated players — Andrej Sekera.