Monday Mailbag – August 31st

There’s a long weekend on the horizon and you’ve got a few work days to kill. As always, the Mailbag is here to help you put those long company hours behind you and bring you one step closer to the debauchery that will be your long weekend. The most important part is that you try to look busy, and nothing makes you look busier than reading intently. The Mailbag doesn’t work without your questions so if you have something to ask you can email me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk. 

I think he’s still a very solid defenseman, but for some reason I though Zach Bogosian was going to be a lot better. When he was drafted right after Doughty I told my friend that while Doughty was going to be good, Bogosian was going to be an absolute killer. Obviously I whiffed on that one PRETTY badly. I would still take him on the Oilers any day of the week, but he’s obviously not Doughty, or Pietrangelo for that matter.

If we want to go with an Oilers player I think we were all pretty disappointed PRV didn’t pan out. Big kid, with a smooth stride and speed to burn, who for one reason or another just hasn’t been able to figure out the NHL. Thought he would be a steal at #10, but now doesn’t look like he’s long for the NHL at all.

Ron Chipperfield. He owned the WHL scoring championship in his draft year and was an outstanding junior player. I thought it was weird when he didn’t go No. 1 overall but remained convinced he would score a bunch in the WHA and or NHL. He had a career, but
not close to the heights his junior numbers implied. I always cheered for him, though.

So many over the years. From my days covering the WHL, I thought Warren Babe would be a terrific NHL player but concussions ended his career. I thought Len Barrie had a chance to be a very good player after 185 points as a 20-year-old. Surprised Dave Chyzowski had such a limited career. As for players I first saw in the NHL, I expected way more than what we got from Gilbert Brule.

I don’t know about a star, but I always thought Sam Gagner would do more and your example of Ales Hemsky is pretty good but I don’t think he needed to do more. He was a very underrated winger. Back to Gagner, there always seems like he has another level that’s *this* close for him to reach but something always gets in the way. Having a new coach every single year didn’t help him but I thought the 2013 lockout year was going to see him reach that other level. He was on a 65 point pace (over 82 games) that year. I think I’ll always wonder what the Oil could have done differently (so many things) to help him develop more long term.

I always thought Ales Hemsky was going to be more than he is. The guy has the hands and the talent to be a star in the NHL, but the problem is that that talent only shows up every couple of months. I’m sure Hemsky drove his NHL coaches crazy with what he’s able to do, but only does on a limited basis. 

Like you said I think it’s virtually impossible for anyone in their 20s to NOT be on social media or the internet in some capacity. So you have to think that a player like Taylor Hall or Connor McDavid, who are talked about non-stop, have to come across, AT MINIMUM, a small percentage of things said about them. ESPECIALLY with Twitter and Instagram. I’m the definition of “curiosity killed the cat” so I’d have an impossible time not seeing some fartbag twice my age telling me how much I suck on Twitter because the Oilers lost or whatever if I were in their shoes. I don’t think they go out searching for any of this at all, but it seems impossible to avoid fully without going to the extreme and disconnecting from all social media/the internet. Long story short the internet is terrible and we should all get off Twitter! Also, please follow me on Twitter @JSBMJeanshorts!

I have no idea but can say he’s adept at using the media via twitter. He comes off as a pretty normal guy and I love the back and forth with Eberle.

I don’t think the vast majority of players put much stock in what fans have to say — good or bad. Social media shows us every single day that you don’t have to have the first clue or a lick of common sense to have a Twitter account.

I’ve been told by a few people that lots of Oilers have at the very least kept tabs on the major blogs. I don’t know how true that is but my guess is it’s impossible to stay away from reading it all the time. They also will have friends and family who read the sites and let them know if we’re talking them up or down. It’s unavoidable.

I know they read the blogs. How? I’ve seen Taylor Hall retweet a couple of articles from the Nation. Sure they were most interviews that he’s done, but he retweeted them none the less. Whether or not he actually read the thing is another story entirely. Maybe he stared at the words? I do that sometimes. 

Ovechkin! He’s got the perfect mix of insanely skilled offence (top 3 best shooters in the league IMO), crash and bang, power forward style of play that I loved watching in a guys like Forsberg and Lindros growing up, and he also has tons of personality on and off the ice. He’s one of my favourites, and it’s wild to me that the NHL doesn’t do more to make him the face of the league.

Patrice Bergeron. As a Bruins fan since Orr (Oilers since Al Hamilton), watching his brilliant two-way game is a pleasure. Fabulous hockey player.

Ovechkin. Size. Speed. Skill. What else is there?

I guess I really enjoy watching Ovie play. He’s not my fav player, but if I were to just sit and watch someone for pure entertainment it would probably be him. He’s electric.

When he’s at his best I love watching Pavel Datsyuk. He’s like a cat burglar out there. The things that guy can do with the puck on his stick is absolutely amazing. Pavel Datsyuk is an asset at both ends of the ice, and if you’re not paying attention to him he’ll make you look stupid at the same time. Great player.

My first number was 19, for no reason other than that was the jersey I was given. Then I switched to 9 because of Paul Kariya for a season or two. Then for the majority of my minor hockey days I wore either 4 or 44 for Rob Blake and Chris Pronger respectively.

I wore No. 5 because no one wanted it and defensemen wore low numbers. It was easily seen from the stands as the guy fishing the puck out of the net for the poor goalie I’d failed.

No. 9 for Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe. Biggest stars when I was a kid before Bobby Orr came along.

When I play any sport my preferred number is 13 because my birthday is on the 13th. I wasn’t allowed to wear 13 when I played football for O’Leary High School because Rick Walters – who once upon a time dropped about 1000 balls for the Eskimos – wore 13 and they retired the number. I had to wear 14 and it was BS. I mean, Rick Walters? What the hell? Anyway, the last time I played organized hockey they just gave me whatever number and I didn’t have much of a preference. I was still relatively young.

I usually wore number 10 when I was playing. Why? Because I loved Pavel Bure. Bure was my favourite player growing up and I wanted to play him. The guy had moves and speed and could pull off those moves at high speed. 

The Franson situation makes no sense to me. I have to think he’s asking for either too much money, or too long of a term. I’ve also heard he basically only wants to sign with a legit contender, so part of the problem may be him being a little too choosy in terms of where he signs. The only other thing I can think of is GMs sometimes suffer from What Have You Done For Me Lately disease. While everything points to Franson being an incredibly solid, depth defenseman he did have a bit of a rocky ride during his short time Nashville. So I wouldn’t put it past a lot of GMs looking at that and passing, which is insane, but not remotely out of the ordinary *looks at Don Sweeney and laughs hysterically*. 

It also seems like the majority of GMs finally realized how the cap works this summer, and that going out and throwing money at guys who are “good in the room” or have won the cup by virtue of being a part of a great team doesn’t generally pan out that well. Perhaps some of that is due to the influx of analytics experts being hired by NHL teams? No…. I’m sure there’s no correlation there….. 

The cap the cap the cap. It’s going to be a big damn deal next summer, Peter Chiarelli’s not buying out players this year looks like it might be a stroke of genius.

Cap issues. Mediocre players (like Franson) wanting too much money. Not a good combination.

The biggest change facing guys like Franson is that the Cap didn’t REALLY go up. The NHL/PA used an escalator to up the Cap 5% but without it there would be no extra money for UFAs at all and what did come as extra was eaten up very quickly. Teams just don’t have the money to give raises to everyone (ahem, Schultz) every year just for being average. You combine a tight Cap with massive deals like the ones belonging to the NHL’s Stars and it’s a recipe for a lot of teams not having 4M to hand over to UFAs.

I can only assume Cody Franson is asking for too much money or term or both. With the salary cap barely moving this year there were a lot of teams that normally spend money that have not. It was interesting to see GMs being forced to act like adults with their coin purse. You know they wanted to give out big ticket contracts but they didn’t have the ability to do so, and I think that’s what happened with guys like Cody Franson. It will be interesting to see where he signs and for how much.