Monday Mailbag – Are you worried about Connor?

Happy Boxing Day, Nation! I hope all of you had an excellent Christmas with your friends and family, and I also hope that you’re reading this from the comfort of your homes and not back at the office. If you have something you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk. Now sit back, relax, and take in the soothing lessons of today’s mailbag. Have a good week, everybody.

Crosby is extremely strong on his skates. Malkin is a big, skilled centre. The Pens didn’t have a lot of size but they also had three elite skilled forwards who have been top-10 point producers in the NHL the past five years. No other team has that, so they are somewhat of an anomaly in that sense.

The Penguins were extremely tough to play against because they forechecked very aggressively and got to lose pucks. There are many different ways to be hard to play against, and mixing in some skilled, size never hurts.

 

There isn’t one way to win the Stanley Cup. The Hawks, Kings, Bruins and Penguins all had different variations to their lineup. The Kings and Bruins won being big, heavy teams, while the Hawks had a mix and the Penguins had elite scorers and were a fast-skating team.

But they all had many top-end skilled players, who were extremely competitive in all areas of the ice.

You can play a gritty, heavy game without being physically bigger than your opponent. Some big teams play small and some small teams play big. It’s about attitude, not stature.

I think things like size and battle and puck recovery do have importance, but also believe they show up in the numbers. If you think about Milan Lucic and Patrick Maroon and Darnell Nurse, they are probably no bigger than JF Jacques and Alex Plante. Size and skill are the key, the Oilers big men now have more ability and range than in the past. I think all of this shows up in the results, so do not regard them as intangibles.

Neither Pittsburgh nor Chicago before them was a particularly big, heavy, team, though of course the Kings were. If we go back a few years further, Detroit won its last Cup without a lot of size or overt physicality, too. None of this should be news to anyone. I would differentiate between size and grit, though; a player like Pavel Datsyuk or Patrice Bergeron has a lot of grit and it’s an essential element to winning hockey games. Size has value, too; it’s simply subordinate to actual talent in terms of building a winning team. There’s been a lot of celebration of Edmonton’s increased physical dimension this year and understandably so, but given the choice between that and, say, Connor McDavid there is no choice.

I think it varies with year-to-year. The Pens won with a fast team last year, but the Blackhawks won with a bigger, skilled team the year prior. I think both styles of play are able to win a Stanley Cup, Chia is just choosing to build his team around size and gritiness.

I always love the season that follows a new Cup winner. When LA wins the Cup everyone wants to get bigger and stronger. When Pittsburgh wins the Cup everyone wants to have multiple scoring lines. To me, it looks like the Oilers are going for a blend of both but we’re far from a finished product. It will be interesting to see what the lineup looks like come October 2017.

No. Not for a second. Not a milli-second. A non-issue. I’m answering this on December 22nd. If I go back two weeks to the 8th, he has played seven games and has four points. A small dip in production, yes, but he still leads the league in scoring. He’ll be just fine. No issues for me at all. And the Oilers are 4-2-1 in those seven games. It illustrates they can win without him carrying the team all the time. That is a huge positive.

No. Not in the least. He’s 19 and leading the NHL in scoring. What are you expecting from him?

No. Not at all. He is still getting chances and eventually those chances will cash.

No. Not even a little bit.

Nah. I know the kid is a miracle worker, but I wasn’t expecting him to put up 1.2 points/game for ALL 82 games this season.

I hate when 19-year olds are leading the league in points, don’t you? What a bum that kid must be. Listen, let’s pump the brakes a little bit here. Connor is 19 years old and already making established NHLers look stupid and he’s barely gotten his feet wet. Of all the things to worry about, his points aren’t one of them. If only we could get him to shoot more.

Buyers. No reason for them to be sellers. They will look to add a veteran right-winger who has some scoring ability,  and possibly another veteran right-shot defender.

Yes, it’s early. Too early to say with any accuracy because we don’t know what this team will look like or where it will be in the standings two months from now.

I think they may be both, as was the case last season when they acquired Patrick Maroon while also sending away Justin Schultz and Teddy Purcell.

I expect a blended approach to the deadline. If there’s a chance to add a useful offensive player with an RH shot on the cheap – think the reverse of last season’s ‘Teddy Purcell for a third-round pick’ deal – that would make sense. It also makes sense to cash-in to the extent possible on players who don’t fit long-term with the Oilers. Matt Hendricks is internally replaceable now, for example. I hesitate to mention it because I don’t want to derail the comments, but a Kris Russell trade makes sense, too. Edmonton needs a right-shot offensive defenceman in its top-four, and Russell’s in that slot right now, so I don’t see re-signing him as a move that makes sense, plus he’s going to have real value as a rental again this year (last year he fetched a player, a prospect and a conditional first round pick). Others may disagree, but in my view this is a deadline where the Oilers should keep one eye on the present and one eye on the horizon.

This thought excites me. I think it will be the first time in years the Oilers will finally be looking to buy at the deadline. I could see them trying to land some more RW depth. Depending on injuries at the time, maybe some more defencemen. Hopefully speed too!

I don’t see them fishing for a big piece at the deadline especially with the expansion draft coming up. I can see some minor deals happening like adding a veteran RW on an expiring contract, getting rid of expiring contracts, or mixture of both. I just can’t see much more than that at this time.

Not much. Eberle is in a funk. He hasn’t been able to finish, but I don’t see how Hall being here would change it. He still has to shoot the puck, plus he is playing with McDavid.

RNH might miss him more, but again, I don’t see it being the reason. Hall was here last year and RNH did very little after the first 13 games of the season.

The onus is on them to play better. Nothing more to it in my eyes.

None, or next-to-none.

The offense seems off for Nuge, although he played with Pouliot much of last season. I will say there has been an effect, not sure how to measure it though.

I can’t speak to what it means for the team off the ice. On the ice, Hall – RNH – Eberle would have made one stellar second line.

I think they’re obviously missing one of their best friends. But more importantly, it may give them the benefit of having a larger ownership in the team, and having a better chance for more ice time and more production.

I mean they probably both miss him. Taylor Hall is a driver, and both of those guys struggle to fill that same role. That said, both players have been in the league for a while now and they have to pick it up and start playing to their potential. I bet if you ask both Nuge and Ebs neither would be happy with their offensive production right now.

GT snowracer when I was 10 years old. I loved that thing. I can’t recall being more happy opening a gift than when I opened it.

My family doesn’t do a lot of gifts at Christmas. We just like hanging out with each other, but one year I found a book my mother had wanted for a long time, but never would have bought for herself. I had overheard her talking about it a few months earlier. She loves to read. She honestly has read over 10,000 books. The Red Book by Carl Jung is the biggest book I’ve ever seen and she was very excited when she opened it.

As a kid, a Big Bruiser tow truck. Bruiser was all the rage when I was four. As an adult, finally having our son Sam home from the hospital and healthy in 2006.

Hmmm. I didn’t celebrate Christmas as a child, but my Mom and Dad bought me a table hockey game one December and I played that table hockey game for years afterwards. Any number of gifts from my kids would all count as being great, too.

I bought my wife a diamond necklace many years ago, we didn’t have a bunch of money and it was the first really nice thing I could get her (this was several years after we were married). She loved it very much, and I remember feeling very good about the fact I could afford something for her that had that kind of impact, that told her how I felt in a real way. So, that one.

Couldn’t tell you for sure.

This is a tough one, mostly cause I have a horrible memory. One of the first thoughts that come to mind was my very first goalie mask my brother gave me when I was a wee-child. Nothing’s better when you’re an aspiring goalie to get your first ever, painted mask, making you the coolest kid on the team.

I’ll never forget the day that I got a Super Nintendo and whichever NHL game came out that year. NHL ’95, maybe? ’94? I can’t remember exactly which one it was but I was jacked up about it.

The best gift I ever gave was probably something like the guitar I bought for my dad. He was so pumped to get it that it was pretty cool to give him something that he’s wanted for a while but didn’t necessarily want to buy for himself. Either that or a diamond necklace that I bought for my mom that she still wears to this day.

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