Monday Mailbag – What do you expect from Mikko Koskinen?

Can you believe that it’s only July and that we’re still two and a half months away from the season starting? We’re getting to the dog days of summer and still have so many McDavid-less days to go before our beloved Oilers come back, and it’s up to me to help us all kill a little bit of time that will help us get there. On this day, we take a look at the answers to everything you’ve ever wanted to know when it comes to the Edmonton Oilers and life in general. My friends, it’s mailbag time.

Cap space doesn’t matter? I’ll take Drew Doughty. If cap space matters, I’d like to a see a proven top-six right winger. Too much wishing and hoping going on at that position.

I would like to see the Oilers shed one of their anchors this offseason so they might not be compelled to buy out one later. If they can move Lucic now, they might not have to buy out Russell just to make room next June. It’s not about making Edmonton good this season, it’s about having the ability to do things in the future.

Sign Jannik Hansen to a cheap, one-year deal. He can skate, penalty kill, and adds another right-handed shot.

This isn’t going to happen because we don’t have the cap space, but we NEED another established top six right winger. Right now we’re just banking that JP or Yamamoto will have breakout years. OR that Rieder will break through. It makes me nervous without having an established guy up there.

I would like to see them add a proven, veteran winger to the right side to add a little more competition there but I doubt it will happen based on the cap situation. Chances are that they won’t do anything else because they just don’t have the space, so the growth will have to come from within.

Over-paying him shouldn’t mean over-playing him, but I suspect the Oilers will unless he totally soils the sheets. For me, Talbot is good in the mid-to-high 60’s for games — 65-68 — so I’m thinking 14-17 for Koskinen, if he isn’t a sieve.

I expect Koskinen to get a minimum of 20 starts and for the money he’s getting paid, he should be at least a .915 save percentage. I have no other expectations. At least if he’s underwhelming he just goes away.

I think a similar season to what Anders Nilsson did here Nilsson was another KHL goalie who had similar numbers to Koskinen. I’d say Koskinen plays around 20 games. McLellan just doesn’t play his backup much and I’d be surprised if he started to now.

Honestly, I have no idea. I assume McLellan will try to play him more based on his salary, cause having him sit on the bench for 65 games this season at $2.5mill is not a good scenario. If Koskinen plays well, I’d like to see him play 20-30 games this season. If he’s battling with Cam for a top spot then even better. I don’t think it will get that far, but we’ll see.

I honestly have no idea. Koskinen’s KHL numbers were really similar to Anders Nilsson’s before he signed with the Oilers a few years back so I’ll guess we’ll see something kinda like that. I’ve never seen him play so I really don’t know how to answer the question. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

If he stays healthy, which has been a challenge, I don’t see why he can’t match the career-best .84 PPG he had as a rookie. I think 66-72 points is a reasonable expectation.

I think if he’s with Connor all year that RNH puts together a 30-40-70 season. I believe he can do that. He was on a 31 goal pace this past year and he really didn’t get that much time with 97. I think they can be dynamic together and that RNH only improves his instincts as a winger.

If he stays on McDavid’s wing for most of the season, something like 32-37-69 wouldn’t surprise me.

I’d love to see Nuge notch 60 points this season. I think if he and Connor click all season it will be an easy 60 points for him.

I can see Nuge hitting 30 goals and 60 points if he sticks with Connor all season long. Connor McDavid makes everyone that plays with him better, but I think Nuge is one of the few that can actually make Connor better and that’s a relationship I hope we’ll see for a long time.

Puljujarvi will get more points and games. He’s already had to try to adjust to NHL competition and that’s something Yamamoto has yet to do for any extended period of time.

My gut says that Yamamoto gets more games and points than Puljujarvi and that it will have a lot to do with opportunity. Despite being almost the same age, the team looks at JP as having been given his chance but KY as having untapped potential. I think he gets more time in the top 6, on the PP, and with 97 in particular because of it. JP deserves the chances too but the team is pretty dumb about these development issues.

Puljujarvi. He’s already been in the NHL the last two seasons. Yamamoto can be sent to the AHL and his entry-level contract would be pushed back another season if he played less than 10 NHL games, although that hasn’t really stopped the Oilers before.

GAH this topic stresses me out. I’m going with Puljujarvi based on his age and experience from last year.

I assume Puljujarvi will stick for the whole season but I don’t really have anything to base that on. I’d like to see Yamamoto get some AHL time in before making the full-time jump to the NHL but based on the depth chart, that may just be a pipe dream.

For me, it’s doing the list-type series we’ve run for the last few years — Top-this, Top-that. There’s always room for speculating about trade and free agent possibilities during the off-season, which is fine, but it’s really not my thing. If you’re not around the team every day or talking to agents and hockey people, then you’re just guessing or repeating rumors that may or may not be valid.

*tugs collar* Uhhhhhhhhh.

Talking with other people helps. Sometimes there’s an interesting idea because people love hockey year-round and can’t wait for the season to begin.

For me, it’s trying to think outside the box of traditional media and Oiler topics. I’d like to hope that everyone understands that summer content is a little different than in-season content and gives us a little break when we choose to talk about dumb topics over the summer. As crappy as summer is to try and talk hockey stuff, it can be a really fun opportunity to get creative and present topics in unordinary ways.

During the summer, we look at doing reviews, prospect profiles, and looking ahead at next year. Ideally, we want to have multiple articles per day for you guys to read but it can be tough to do when nothing is happening, so sometimes things have to get a little bit weird. It’s always funny to see when we post something a little bit out there and finding out who has a sense of humour and who doesn’t.

Lexus South Pointe is the official automotive partner of Oilersnation. As citizens of the Nation, you receive exclusive discounts & perks no matter what you drive!

Our state-of-the-art facility also includes a virtual golf simulator, spa, and rooftop patio. Find us on the corner of Ellerslie and Gateway for all your vehicle needs. Check us out on our website here.