Monday Mailbag – June 15th

It’s your favourite time of the week! The mailbag is back with the answers to all the questions you’ve always been wondering about.  If you want to submit a question, just email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter. The questions don’t all have to be Oilers related, so be creative. Our panel brings a world of wisdom and will be sure to answer your dilemma. It’s your time to shine, Nation. Enjoy.

We do see them some times, most recently with Shea Weber. Mostly, because to make an offer the other team can’t match a G.M. generally needs to overpay in money and then hand over a massive pile of draft picks, plus risk reprisal. General managers are risk averse; I think eventually we’ll see offer sheets become more common but one needs to really work out for a team first before the imitators will follow.

I agree with your assertion. The NHL has a perfectly good tool for GMs to use and they refuse. It’s crazy, hopefully Peter Chiarelli puts an end to the OS drought.

What part doesn’t make sense to you? Offer sheets not only involve an over pay in salary but compensatory draft picks. You are also taking the price point in negotiating new deals out of the hands of the team that has the player. While it’s allowed under the CBA, it’s a predatory move. Why not make a hockey trade instead?

It doesn’t make much sense to me either. I mean, to an extent I understand the theory of not wanting to piss off other GMs, making your own roster vulnerable to an offer sheet. But it seems silly that all 30 GMs seem so afraid to rock the boat by taking advantage of a perfectly legal way to acquire talent. Those GM meetings must be a HELLUVA good time seeing as everyone is the best of friends! Though there definitely is a bit of gambling involved in all of it. Take the Oilers for example; obviously Dougie Hamilton would be a huge get, and could potentially be the Oilers #1 defenseman for a solid decade. HOWEVER, if the Oilers have to give up a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rounder in a year where they could theoretically be picking inside the top 10 again, that could leave the prospects cupboard pretty bare. I personally would rather have a 21 year old stud defenseman than another bag of magic beans, but if I’m Chiarelli the gamble there is definitely something I’m thinking about. 

Long story short I would love it if offer sheets just started flying around non-stop. It would create so much chaos! THINK OF ALL THE BARN FIGHTING REVENUE!

You have to overpay a player and give up compensation, which is a double whammy. 

If you want to sign a top-end player the compensation is considerable. If you signed a 3rd or 4th line player to a $3.6 mill deal and only had to surrender a 2nd round pick then I’d strongly consider it. I believe teams would match, however, and often teams don’t want to make an offer sheet just for the sake or making one. If they make the offer, they want the other team to walk away, and usually that means you overpay significantly.

I think there is an unwritten rule and it’s sort of a mutually assured destruction arrangement but the reality is that it’s a tool that should be used more often. The salary cap is going to prevent rich teams from just choking out the poorer ones with RFA offers. At the end of the day everyone has the same amount of money to allocate towards the cap. Beyond the unwritten stuff, probably the biggest reason teams don’t do it is because it isn’t guaranteed. GMs have to put all the work in devising an offer the player will accept and the other team might not match and yet still they match fairly often. You trade for a guy, he’s yours. You sign a UFA, he’s yours. Sign an RFA and you have to wait a week to find out.

That is a good question. As a GM I would be looking for a great opportunity to use them but would be reluctant to pull the trigger. Although offer sheets are part of the system, using them puts a target on your back.

I love offer sheets. I think GMs often forget that the NHL is supposed to be entertainment and offer sheets would be another flavour of entertaining for fans. I wish there was more of them. Now, that being said, I understand that they don’t offer sheet other team’s players because they don’t want the same thing happening, but I still wish for more of them. They bring a sense of drama to the NHL even in the boring summer months. 

Nikita Nikitin. Ideally, a salary-retained trade sends him away at the draft, but if that doesn’t happen it makes sense to bite the bullet and buy him out.

I think they could, with Niki Nikitin being the No. 1 candidate. The Oilers have cap room, so PC may decide to let the 2015-16 contracts run but there’s value in a buyout imo.

Nikita Nikitin is the obvious choice although I’m not sure Chiarelli will do it unless he lands a proven player to take his place.

I doubt it. As much as we would all love to pretend the Nikitin signing never happened, he’s still a (barely) able-bodied defenseman, and his contract isn’t as big of an anchor as we make it out to be. They can afford to eat this one last year and be rid of him forever next summer. And other than that no one else has that bad of a contract, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, Nuge/Hall/Ebs are a perfectly reasonable $6 Mill cap hit each. And as of right now the Oilers have just over $20 million in cap space to work with. As bad as the pervious management regimes have been, at least they haven’t handcuffed the team with a bunch of Clarkson-esque contracts.

Only one I see is Nikitin, but even that is doubtful. The Oilers are unlikely to make the playoffs next season, so it makes sense to just pay him for a year and then be free of his salary next summer. Same goes for Teddy Purcell. If you buy them out, then you are wasting $1.5 mill against the cap next year for nothing. Unless Chiarelli wants to send a message that Nikitin’s lack of commitment to the team (not being in great shape last year) is unacceptable, I’d be surprised to see a buyout.

I think Nikita Nikitin is the only one that the Oilers need to consider buying out. It’s a brutal contract for a brutal player and buying out his one year means only two years of cap penalty after the buyout. The best option is probably retaining 50% of his salary and finding a suitor, but good luck with that. I wouldn’t buy out anyone else. Ference is next on the list but you have to wait a year.

Tough to say, there are some candidates. I would take a hard look at Nikitin. PC should have a very honest discussion with him to see where he is at for next season.

The minute Nikitin’s pen hit the paper on his contract he was a prime candidate for a buyout. I don’t see it happening though. Nikitin only has one year left to ride out whereas buying him out would keep him on the books (albeit at a lowered rate) for two years. I bet Chiarelli tries to move him for literally anything, or just rides the season out. 

Based on what the scouts say, it feels like the gap between Taylor Hall and Sidney Crosby – a good No. 1 overall pick and a truly generational talent.

I’m not qualified to make that kind of projection but absolutely agree Eichel could turn out to be the better player. The one thing not in doubt is McDavid’s being the clearly better player now and that bodes well for his future. They’re very likely to have phenomenal talents.

I defer to the scouts who have viewed these players for hundreds/thousands of hours. The consensus is McDavid is the clear-cut No. 1. I can make no compelling argument that contradicts that.

The gap is bigger than the cute one between Jordan Eberle’s front teeth! Actually I’m going to take a bit of a contrarian stance on this one; I think they’re going to be more of an Ovi/Malkin situation than a Crosby/Bobby Ryan. Connor McDavid is the best junior player I’ve seen since Sid (stop me if you’ve heard that before), and he’s going to be an absolute superstar, but Jack Eichel is no slouch either. As an 18 year old freshman, playing his first year of college hockey he put up 71 points in 40 games, playing against guys who were two to three years older than him, who had already been drafted, been to pro training camps, etc. That’s unbelievable. In any other draft year he’d be the belle of the ball, which is the same thing that happened to Malkin. He’s one of the best players in the world, has scored at rate which is a razors edge higher than Ovechkin (1.19 points per game for Geno compared to 1.17 for Ovi) plays a similar, power forward style of game as Ovi, and yet, I would still take Ovechkin over Malkin any day of the week. There’s just something special about him. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is. 

I think McDavid is going to have an advantage coming out of the gate, getting to play with Hall/Nuge/Eberle/etc, whereas Eichel gets to play with…. Matt Moulson? Tyler Ennis? But I have a feeling, all things being equal injury wise, their careers are going to be a lot closer than people are predicting. It’s going to be a super fun rivalry to watch (hopefully)!

Eichel is very good. He is also considered a generational player. I’d say the gap will be similar to Crosby/Malkin. McDavid sees the game on a level like no one else in his draft, and that is why he’s the consensus number one.

Since they haven’t played in the same league I guess there’s a sense of “We can’t really tell” regarding the gap between them, but McDavid is number one with a bullet at this point. NOBODY can tell the future so anything is possible. To me McDavid has the ability to be the best player in the NHL before the end of his ELC. I’ve only seen him play maybe 10-12 games but I’ve never seen anybody else who actually created something fantastic on every single shift before.

I think they will both be very strong players with different styles. What Eichel did in the NCAA as a freshman is very impressive. He is a great prospect, but when I see the way McDavid carries the puck up the ice, crossing over in ever changing sequences, I would not pass him by on the first pick. The debate will follow them around till they retire.

I honestly don’t know the answer to this question. McDavid has been consistently ranked #1 ahead of Jack Eichel but it seems like the gap is very very narrow. I assume this is a very similar Taylor or Tyler type situation that we’ll be hearing about for the next 15 years. I don’t want to not answer the question though, so I’m going to say that McDavid is like poutine and Eichel is like fries and gravy. Both are great, but one is better.

Pittsburgh’s AHL farm team. Nelson wants to be an NHL head coach, and I would guess that he sees his best chance as coming with another organization as an AHL coach. Pittsburgh is a good landing spot because a slow start could cost their head coach his job. Carolina’s AHL job is probably appealing for the same reasons, though the Hurricanes roster is a lot less impressive than the Penguins’.

Scranton, PA.

Grand Rapids in the AHL.

I’m going to trust Matty’s hall of fame instincts and say he’ll land in Grand Rapids, coaching the Detroit farm team. I mean, to me it makes the most sense; he played there for three seasons and got his first AHL coaching gig as an assistant for the Griffins. Combine that with his recent success helping quite a few Oiler prospects make the jump to the big leagues while coaching the Barons to four consecutive playoff appearances and he seems like a no brainer for a team with as rich a development history as the Red Wings have had for decades. God speed Uncle Todd. We hardly knew ye.

In the AHL. He wants to  be a head coach. He feels he is a head coach and he’d rather be one in the AHL than be an assistant, especially in an organization that overlooked him on three different occasions for the head coaching job.

I’m going with Detroit’s AHL team. Nelson’s name has popped up all over the place in the last week and all of them in reference to HC jobs in the AHL. I think it’s just a matter of time before he gets hired away from the Oilers. We’re going to lose a good one, I think.

Looks like in the AHL. 2016 he will be behind a NHL bench.

Sure seems like he’s going to be a head coach in the AHL within the coming days. I still think there would be value to having him hone his craft under an experienced head coach in Todd McLellan. To me, he knows all he needs to know coaching at the AHL level but having the ability to watch McLellan maneuver would only help him in the long run. I’m still holding out hope.

My favourite memory is my first NHL game, between Vancouver and Edmonton. Dad took me, my brother and my best friend to the game (I believe it was the 2002-03 season) and my best friend and I got to sit one row up from the glass. The whole thing was amazing but the one moment I remember the most was Janne Niinimaa getting hit by Matt Cooke right in front of me. Cooke was flying, the boards and the glass shook and my first thought was that Niinimaa was dead, which was quickly followed by the thought that he was seriously injured, which was just as quickly followed by him bouncing back to his feet and skating away like nothing had happened. It’s a little thing; I’m probably the only person on Earth who remembers that hit, but it was the first time I really appreciated how amazing these athletes were.

I used to watch games with my whole family as a kid, watching the Leafs on Saturday and then the adults moved to the table for the card game. I always stayed with the broadcast to the end, past the three stars and the entire HNIC song. That’s my favorite hockey memory, my Grandma’s house, plaster walls, beer, laughter, smoking, black and white tv, Dave Keon, the warmest quilt in the history of time. All of the people who were with me are gone now, but I’ll never forget any of them. 

That’s my favourite memory and the reason I’m a fan to this day.

Listening to Jim Robson call Vancouver Canucks games on CKNW radio. The Canucks were lousy but Robson was great. I was also thrilled to meet Robson for the first time in the media lounge at Pacific Coliseum in 1981 or 82 after I somehow convinced the Canucks to issue me a season media pass while I was still in journalism school. Man, was I out of my league.

Not a specific game in particular, but we’ve always had a blast when the World Juniors are in Europe, the games start at like three in the morning, and the boys come over with some cases of beer and we’re all passed out by 8AM. Hazy memories, but some fun ones.

Being at Gretzky’s jersey retirement. The feeling of respect and nostalgia in the building was amazing. Every person in the rink, including Gretzky, was caught up in the emotion of the ceremony.

My favourite memories of being a hockey fan are just hanging out with my dad watching hours of hockey. He had satellite with all the channels (that he TOTALLY paid for) and I would come back from school and we would go downstairs and just flip from game to game watching the Eastern games then Western games. If you had ever met my Dad you would know that we were very different except both of us could just watch hockey all the time. Of all the different hockey memories I have, my most fond ones are just hanging out with him.

My strongest memory is as a player. The first time my NHL team made the playoffs was a very special feeling. Everything about the playoffs is different. I didn’t get a lot of time in playoffs but that is a feeling I will never forget.

My favourite hockey memory is probably what cemented my love for the game. When I was a kid my dad used to occasionally win tickets to the games at work and he would take me. We’re talking about the early/mid 90s here and Rexall was only half full at the best of times. I remember my dad taking me down to the glass during warm up so that I could watch the guys up close. This was also when fans were able to walk down and stand outside the dressing room waiting for autographs and I got a lot of them this way. I didn’t get to go to games often, but when I was lucky enough to go it was always a special time and my dad is the greatest for recognizing how much I loved going.