Monday Mailbag – Does Evan Bouchard crack the opening night lineup?

Happy Canada Day long weekend, Nation! I hope you’re all using your day off to be as productive as you want to be, and if you’re working today then I recommend that you tell your boss your old pal Baggedmilk has declared that naps be mandatory from between 1-4pm. Getting back to business, it’s mailbag time again and I thank you for being here and being a part of the process. As always, I’ve taken five of your questions and sent them off to our panel of writers to give you a free dose of their worldly wisdom. Without you guys the Mailbag doesn’t work, and I need questions for next week so if you have something you’d like to ask you can email me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter. Without further adieu, the Mailbag.

Is he on the ice? No. Could he be on the 23-man roster, yes. I think the Oilers will keep him around for a few games, but ultimately he goes back to junior at some point.

I think there’s a decent chance he can play his way into a 9 game look. The right side of the defense is weak and depends on Russell and Benning. So yeah, there’s a chance even if small.

There’s no doubt he will get an extremely long look. There are sure to be defensive changes this summer still to come, but with our current lineup (Nurse, Larsson, Sekera, Russell, Benning, Klefbom) I don’t think Bouchard makes the cut.

I mean, probably. We obviously need to see how training camp and the pre-season go first, but I would imagine that the Oilers will give Bouchard a long look before making the final decision. Actually, they’re in a tough spot with him because it’s not like he has much left to prove in junior and he’s unable to play in the AHL, so it’s either the NHL or back to London. There should be a rule that you can play one or two junior aged players in the AHL if they’re good enough, and I think Bouchard is probably good enough. Back to the question, I think the Oilers give him nine games and go from there.

Worst. Many didn’t pan out. Any contract that is five plus years to a UFA rarely looks good. Pouliot didn’t. Sekera and Lucic need to rebound or they won’t end well either, although when they signed Lucic it was unlikely the contract would end well. But the worst, even though it was only for two years, was paying Nikita Nikitin $4.5 million/year for two years. He played 42 games the first year and had 10 points, and then the second year he played 11 NHL games, but spent the majority of the year in the AHL. So the Oilers paid Nikitin $9 mill to play 53 games and produce 11 points. That is Horrawful.

Some of my favourites: Tyler Pitlick, Sam Gagner, Milan Lucic (minus the contract, obviously), Mark Letestu. Some of my least favourite? Nikita Nikitin.

I liked the Andrej Sekera signing a lot at the time and still do if his robot leg can manage to update its software from where it was at last season. Sekera went through a pretty major surgery and the Oilers desperately need him to get back up to form. As for the bad, Nikitin was an awful deal all around. MacT actually traded a pick to get the “privilege” of talking to Nikitin before anyone else could. If Milan Lucic gets traded, that could also go down as one of the worst. He came with swagger and potentially goes out with a limp.

It isn’t ideal. The Oilers will be on the road for 19 days and only have eight points up for grabs. It is a lot of travel to Germany, Sweden, then back to Boston, New York and Winnipeg. It will be great for Draisaitl to show his teammates his hometown. I’m told he already has some things planned for the team, and Klefbom and Larsson are thrilled to play in their home country. It might help with team bonding, but it is a risk to travel that far, be on the road in numerous cities for only a total of eight points. The key will be how the organization monitors the fatigue level of the team when they return home. Todd McLellan will have to listen to his leaders, and if they say the group is tired he will need to adjust his practice plan accordingly.

I’m content with it. If it’s going to happen I’d rather it happen right off the hop so they could easily bounce back if something bad happens. HOPEFULLY, the travel doesn’t really affect them. They have like a five-day break in between so no worries.

Yeah it seems weird to do these games now. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a game in Europe right before the All-Star break or something like that? Then the teams playing would be heading into a break rather than into the start of their season. I’ve travelled a lot and jumping timezones can bung you up so the Oilers had better hope they can overcome that part of it quickly. It’s one thing to jump seas when you’re on a holiday, it’s another when you’re expected to play sports at the NHL level.

Very good player. But no, he will be overpaid significantly. He likely is getting $10-$11 million/year and if he is paid that much he will need to produce 70+ points every year. I think he can do that for the first three, maybe four, but then it will be a big challenge for him to give his team a good point/$$ ratio.

He definitely hasn’t played the way he was expected to in the NHL since his draft. I think on a different team he could play up to expectation but if he gets paid north of 10 mil, I would be hesitant to consider it being worthwhile.

Let me start off by saying that John Tavares deserves to get every single penny he can. Dude is a hell of a player and he’s going to make a difference wherever he goes. He’s earned the right to shop himself and he’s going to see some Brinks trucks backing up to his house in the near future. That said, I think that this contract is going to look really bad in a few years. JT is turning 28 years old this year and he’s going to be making huge money for a long time. It’s going to be fine for the first couple of years, but I’m waiting for the year 4-5-6 reaction. It’s likely to be a much different story.

Too early to tell, but the problem for Montreal is Kotkaniemi won’t have much skill to play with. How can they shelter him, especially if they trade Max Pacioretty? They will need to be extremely patient with him and realize many top European forwards, excluding Patrik Laine, take time to develop. Aleksander Barkov, 2nd overall to Florida in 2013, scored 24 and 36 points his first two seasons, then he jumped to 59 in his third season and 78 in his fifth. Montreal must be patient and they need to find some centres who can play ahead of Kotkaniemi and shelter him from the tough minutes.

Pretty shocking. They went with what would suit their organization best and I respect that. We can speculate all we want right now but we won’t REALLY know if it was a good idea for a few years.

Who cares about what Montreal did — the Oilers lucked out and got Bouchard at 10! Besides, is it really so surprising that Marc Bergevin did something weird?

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.