Monday Mailbag – First thoughts on Petrovic and Manning?

Welcome, friends, to yet another edition of the Monday Mailbag where we answer all of your Oilers related questions and give you a few minutes of time killing distraction from whatever it is that you’re trying to avoid. Needless to say, there are plenty of things to talk about as the Oilers look to get themselves back on track after finishing 2018 on a horrible slide. This week, we look at Chiarelli’s most recent trades, Koskinen’s next contract, wasted space, and much more. As always, I need your questions to make this work. If you’ve got one, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk and I’ll get to you as soon as we can.

The Petrovic one did for me, but not Manning. I don’t see him as much of an upgrade, if any, over Gravel and for a team starving for goals from bottom six they traded away a player who has the fourth most over last 1.5 years. Manning is also under contract for next season at $2.25m. So they have Klefbom, Nurse, Sekera, Russell, Jones and now Manning just as LD. I didn’t see need for that trade at all.

I didn’t mind the acquisition of Petrovic as a 6-7 guy for depth because he can play in a limited role despite recent struggles. I didn’t get the need for the Manning deal or the price tag. Why move one of the few forwards you’ve got who can score a little for another 6-7 D-man when you just acquired one? Makes no sense. Plus, Manning has another year on his contract.

Neither made sense to me but I could live with the Petro deal because it was unwanted for unwanted but the Manning deal made much less sense. Manning was deemed untradeable because he was so awful and Caggiula was finally having a season that didn’t suck.

They just don’t make any sense. I know that Chiarelli had to go do something and I honestly don’t mind the Petrovic deal even though he was bad against LA but at the same time, you could have called up Ethan Bear and claimed Brandon Davidson on waivers. Bear and Davidson could have been just as good of a bandaid plus it would have allowed you to keep Cagiulla and the draft pick. It was another bonehead decision by Chiarelli.

I could buy into the Petrovic trade, but there’s not a chance I was letting the Manning trade go without complaining about it. Sure Caggiula isn’t an all-star, but he was one of the VERY few people putting up points on our team, and we gave him away for Manning and some nobody in Europe. Not sure why Chia keeps piling on bottom pairing defencemen to our roster.

I could understand what Chiarelli was trying to do with the Petrovic deal, but I’m completely lost on the Manning trade. Are you really telling me that there wasn’t another left-handed, third-pairing defenceman in the NHL that you could go out and acquire? When people that follow the Blackhawks come out and say, “Wow I can’t believe they got rid of that contract,” then you’re not really in great shape.

Still too early to tell for me. He’s only had 20 starts. If his numbers stay similar to what he is at now, I could see a two or three year deal for him. No reason to go any longer, and with so few games he likely is around $4 mil/season. He essentially would replace Talbot’s contract for next season.

If I’m Chiarelli, I’m not talking contract with Koskinen or Talbot right now. Bigger fish to fry as the team slides out of the playoff picture. When Koskinen was hot some people were talking about throwing stupid money at him. He hasn’t played 30 NHL games yet. I’m not ready to offer long term or big money for that despite some of the impressive stretches he’s had. Need to see more.

4×4 with a NMC, obviously.

I think he’ll get a new deal here in Edmonton and I could see it being similar to the one he has now, but with a little bit more term. Is something around two years with a cap hit of $2.75 million realistic? I think so. At the same time, if he gets hot once again and plays like a legitimate starting goalie for the last 35 games of the season, I could see him demanding something in the $3.5 million range.

If Koskinen remains flat for the remaining of the year I could see us letting him go. However, if he shows us some bright spots as he did at the beginning of the season he’ll likely get signed. My guess is a two-year deal worth around six million?

I have no idea and I don’t even want to guess. As good as Koskinen has been, we should be nervous that he got a NMC on a contract as an unproven UFA. With Chiarelli negotiating there’s no telling how much the overpay could be.

I thought Lucic would have more than one goal. I thought Rieder would have more than zero. I think everyone had those two pegged to be a bit more productive. Those two have been the biggest offensive disappointments. I was wrong on Lucic. I thought he could score 15. He is on pace for two. Rieder I thought could score 10, he is on pace for zero. The scary part for both is that their scoring chances are becoming less and less. Rieder and Lucic are prime examples of why term, not money, is so important in UFA contracts. Lucic still has four more years, but Rieder is UFA this summer.

How could you ask for more from the top end? Biggest surprise has been Chiasson’s early production.

I was hoping for more offence from Puljujarvi and praying Lucic could at least return to semi-respectable numbers. I love Puljujarvi’s game and I think he does a lot of nice things, but not enough offence. Lucic isn’t an NHLer anymore.

I really expected more from Jujhar Khaira this year. He’s been better as of late and he looked good when he was playing with skill, but he hasn’t been consistent. After watching him take a big step forward last year, I had high hopes for him this year. I though Puljujarvi would breakout this year and I also expected more from Milan Lucic, but who didn’t expect more from #27?

I honestly thought Milan Lucic was going to be his regular self again this season. I was obviously wrong. Other than that, I expected a bigger breakout season for Jesse Puljujarvi. I think the rest we can blame on Peter Chiarelli.

I’ve been wrong a lot. First, I said Lucic was going to score 20. Swing and a miss. I also thought Puljujarvi was going to get 23. Juuuuust a bit outside. Lastly, I thought Talbot was going to get back to looking like the hero he was when the Oilers went to the playoffs back in 2016-17. Strike three, Baggedmilk is out!

The Oilers are well past the “right approach” with Puljujarvi. I have no idea how he’d look had he been given proper time to develop. I never saw him as a big time goal scorer, but if he was producing points in AHL instead of floundering offensively in NHL, I wonder how much better he would be next year. I’ve always felt we wouldn’t see him emerge as a player until he was 22. I felt he would need time to grow into his body, but also mature as a young man, which is what majority of players need. I don’t get too caught up in where he was drafted. Taking him fourth, 10^th or 20^th shouldn’t change the development path, but it seems the Oilers felt he had to play early because they took him high. As for trading him, it is a legit option at this point. Is it right all depends on the return.

I don’t like the idea of moving Puljujarvi now because his value is diminished. You get nothing back. On top of that, I don’t trust Chiarelli to make any move that constitutes more than a tweak.

Nope. It’s desperate nonsense. Normally I would say, “Depends on what they can get in return,” but the GM can’t win trades. So just NO.

I’m not sure what the right approach is. For Chiarelli’s sake, he really can’t sit on his hands or else he will lose his job. As a fan of the team, you’re hoping he isn’t allowed to make another big move because I think we all know how that will go. The Oilers need Puljujarvi to become a 20 goal scorer. It would go a long way in solving their secondary scoring problem. At the same time, if they don’t think he’ll ever be more than a decent third liner, then they should cut bait while he has a sliver of value. It’s a tough decision, but good teams get these decisions right.

If Chia moves Jesse Puljujarvi it’s going to be strictly out of desperation. Jesse should be in the AHL this season but is being forced to play in the NHL due to lack of depth. And with that, Puljujarvi may get punished because of it by getting traded.

First of all, Puljujarvi should be in the AHL right now and the fact that the Oilers are trying to crowbar him into the lineup is only because Chiarelli didn’t give them NHL ready options to play in his place. If they trade Puljujarvi now, and remember he is only four months older than Kailer Yamamoto, then they will surely regret it down the line. They don’t have the depth on the wing that’s necessary to make this kind of move.

Of course Lucic isn’t coming close to living up to his contract. It is worse than most predictions at the time of the signing. I felt the last three years of the deal would be iffy, but unless something drastically changes it will be the final 5.5 years that were. For him to fall off this quickly is remarkable. To go from a 59-point pace season on December 23^rd, 2017 to scoring only two goals in his next 82 games is something I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen players decline, but to fall off a cliff offensively like he has is freaky.

Lucic is the prime culprit. It’s not close.

Lucic, Kassian, Brodziak, Russell, Manning, Benning, unhealthy Sekera, Petrovic. So that’s $20M+ of dead cap space for players that can’t help on a regular basis.

Lucic makes $5.0m too much, Kassian makes $1.0m too much, Benning makes $500k too much, Russell has been good but he still makes $1.0m too much, Sekera is pretty much $5.5m in dead cap space at this point, Manning makes $1.5m too much, Petrovic makes $900k too much. Well run teams only have one or two overpayments and that’s how they afford to pay their stars. The Oilers have six or seven overpayments and it’s why they’re in the spot they are.

There are a lot of guys on the team getting paid slightly too much, like Kassian, Benning, Russell and Sekera to name a few. However Lucic is problem #1 at this point for over payment.

Buddy, there are a lot of guys on this team that are not pulling their weight. How would I be doing if I guessed that 35%+ of the cap space is being used on guys that aren’t helping that much?

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