Monday Mailbag – Have the Oilers done enough to make the playoffs?

Whether you’re killing company time or reacquainting yourself with your couch because you’re playing hooky from life, the mailbag is here to help you make it through another Monday. As always, I’ve taken five of your questions that need answers from our panel of heroes and experts, drawing from them the answers that you need to better live your lives. This feature depends on you and if you have a question you can email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk. Without further adieu – the mailbag. 

Their improvement will have to come from within. Outside of McDavid, the rest of their best players need to be better. I believe Draisaitl will be more consistent, although I don’t think he was nearly as bad as some suggest, and a healthy Klefbom, Sekera and Larsson will help. The PK will be better (can’t be worse), and so will the PP, likely due to coaching and players be more attentive to details. Las Vegas lost two of their top five scorers. They won’t be as good. The Pacific is wide open in my eyes and the Oilers should be in the mix.

They did as well as could be expected without making a trade to move out salary. Keeping up with other teams isn’t the focus. Do what you can to address the needs you have and if you do that properly the rest will take care of itself.

I think they did about as well as you could have expected them to. I’m interested to see if they add another near minimum contract that could possibly fight for a spot. As for keeping up with the rest of the pacific, that will come down to health and goaltending.

Keep up with the Pacific? No. However, I think they did reasonably well given all their constraints. As far as the UFAs go, this crop isn’t hurting them. I like Rieder as a one year with the player betting on himself.

They didn’t have the cap space to sign notable players. With that in mind, Kyle Brodziak, Kevin Gravel, and Tobias Rieder is a solid day. I don’t think they’ve done enough compared to other teams in the division, but that’s more a critique of their roster moves in general than what they did in free agency. Calgary lost Dougie Hamilton and Michael Ferland, but added Derek Ryan, James Neal, Noah Hanifin, and Elias Lindholm. They’ll feel the loss of Hamilton, but they definitely upgraded at forward. Austin Czarnik is another nice gamble that could pay off. Los Angeles added Ilya Kovalchuk. San Jose extended Evander Kane and has a boatload of cap space to use still. Arizona added Alex Galchenyuk and Michael Grabner. The Oilers are banking on internal improvement, but a lot of the Pacific added impact players.

I really like the Tobias Rieder signing and think he could be a nice add to the PK and the bottom six. I also like the Brodziak signing because he can win faceoffs and kill penalties as well. Is it enough to get them back into the playoffs? I can’t say for sure but I certainly hope so and so does Peter Chiarelli or else one of us will be looking for a new job next summer.

Brodziak and Rieder will help the PK. I also think Brodziak with Kassian and Khaira could be a very good 4th line. Rieder is better than Cammalleri/Jokinen so I’d say it is an upgrade.

Yes, I think Rieder and Brodziak will help improve the team. Rieder can score enough to play higher in the line-up at times and he can PK. Brodziak fills a need at centre. Decent face-off and PK guy who provides some leadership in the way he plays.

I think it will improve the team based on penalty killing help alone. Rieder’s speed on the wing certainly can’t hurt.

These do not improve the team over last year. Rieder is not the offensive player that Maroon was. Gravel is an AHL player. Brodziak is back home but is he an upgrade to Letestu and by how much? These signings just keep the Oilers treading water. The improvements have to come from within.

No. They essentially replaced Patrick Maroon and Mark Letestu with Kyle Brodziak and Tobias Rieder. Brodziak takes Letestu’s role and Rieder is a depth guy that could play with skilled players, like Maroon, but has more speed. Gravel is just a depth guy.

I would say it’s a slight upgrade from how they ended the season. By that point, Maroon had already been traded and so was Letestu so I think bringing in Rieder and Brodziak will help from where things ended, but you’re right to be concerned. I think making the playoffs this year will depend on a lot of guys having big seasons and that’s never a great spot to be in.

I don’t see Bouchard being a difference maker this year, but he will be in the future. Oilers D is healthy. That will be a big difference, but the addition of Trent Yawney will be the biggest reason you see improvement. Jim Johnson wasn’t an overly positive coach and it wore on the players. Yawney is a good communicator and has worked well with young defenders. His addition will be noticeable.

If Bouchard changes anything it’s either because he’s an exceptional talent who proves he belongs here or because the Oilers rush him along. If it’s the latter, then it’s going to be a long season again. If it’s because he belongs, and the rest of the group stays/gets healthy and performs as it did two seasons ago, the defence will be adequate.

Bouchard may possibly change the way you look at it. The only thing that could make you feel better is that Andrej Sekera should be at his healthiest point in 18 months….that’s huge for this team.

The only thing I could say that would make the situation better I said a year ago. Signing Russell locks the defence in and prevents improvement and allocated money to the wrong part of the lineup, but what the hell do I know?

No, Bouchard shouldn’t be in the NHL. It all depends if Oscar Klefbom, Andrej Sekera, and Adam Larsson remain healthy. Darnell Nurse is a nice safety option back there, but he needs to sustain his play all season. There’s a making of a solid top-four group there, but still a lot of question marks.

Bouchard shouldn’t play in the NHL unless he’s ready. Oilers fans have to get used to proper development paths for these guys and realize that not everyone can make an impact at 18 or 19. I wish the Oilers could send him to the AHL but that’s not an option, so their best bet is to give him another year of development in junior. As for the defence being better, all we can do is hope that a healthy Klefbom and Sekera will be enough to get things back on track. If not? Chiarelli’d.

Draisaitl was a bit inconsistent, but far from the disappointment some suggested he was. He still produced 70 points, and I will bet everything I have he won’t go pointless on the PP in the first 20 games.

Draisaitl’s PPG was .90 last season compared to .94 the season before. Given the drop-off the entire team had, that’s right in line with reasonable expectations. I’m not sure there’s a lot more people can reasonably expect from Draisaitl in terms of production. I don’t see him as a 90-point player. If he’s in the 70’s every season for the next 6-8 years playing away from Connor McDavid, that makes him a high-end second-line centre — only 20 centres in the league had 70-or-more points last season.

It’s critical for this team to have Draisaitl drive his own line, I think he’s more than capable of doing that. His numbers will jump significantly next year if they can get the power-play back on track.

I believe he’s capable of doing it, but he still needs to prove it. Pretty strange to say for a man making $8+M a year. That said, he scored a lot of points without much from the PP. A decent PP makes everyone calm down.

I’d agree, because it’s still difficult to tell what he can do without Connor McDavid. Draisaitl spent 44% of his five-on-five time with McDavid last season. That’s still too much for me, and makes a 70-point season less impressive. I want to see what he does with almost no McDavid time. Play them together four-on-four, on the power play, and in overtime, but Draisaitl needs to be on his own line five-on-five if the Oilers want to succeed. Can he still put up 60-70 points without all that 97 time?

Leon is going to have the same problem that Nuge had last year and people aren’t going to get it. The problem, of course, is who the hell is going to play beside him? Chiarelli traded away most of the skilled wingers on the team and now we’ve got centremen that will be forced to drag pianos behind them to make something happen. Le sigh.

There is only one choice.  Strudwick #43. But other good choices would be Beers (#2) or Price (#26) as in Priceless! **I’ll show myself out.**

Get him a Craig Muni jersey. Not really an obscure player, but Muni was also born on July 19.

Can I say Puljujarvi? Because I really want to say Puljujarvi. I’ll go Khaira…I think he has what it takes to become a legit fan favourite for the next five years.

Can’t go wrong with Ulanov. He’s the best.

Obscure player? You still want someone that could be here for a while. I’d go Benning or Strome.

SHAWN VAN ALLEN! Remember when he was the answer? How about Mats Lindgren? Both beauty options.

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