Monday Mailbag – Where does Alex Chiasson fit in the lineup?

Happy Monday, fair citizens, and welcome to a brand new Mailbag where I’ve taken your questions about life, emailed them to our writers, and copied and pasted their answers right here on this very website for your education and enjoyment. This week, we’re Alex Chiasson’s spot in the roster, expectations for Jesse Puljujarvi, and a whole lot more. 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.

A good season would be 23-25 points. That would be quite good in a 56-game season. I’m basing that on him playing on the third line regularly. He likely will be on the 2^nd PP unit, but they won’t see much PP time. It is difficult to score a lot of points if you aren’t on the PP.

Last season (which had an average of 70 games/team) only 54 forwards averaged 0.5 points/game at 5×5. If JP scores 23-25, and let’s say 20 of those are at 5×5 it would be a good season. If he plays really well and ends up getting 5×5 time in the top-six, then he could score more. But 23-25 would very productive for me.

Yes it is. Every time I look at a player’s production in the KHL and try to figure how that might translate, I think of Patrick Thoresen, who couldn’t make it here but ended up scoring 65 points in 54 games with Ufa Salavat Yulayev and had a bunch of seasons among the scoring leaders. Jesse is a much different player, bigger and stronger, and I think he has a chance to be productive here. It will, of course, depend largely on where and with whom he plays, but he’ll start with Kyle Turris and get third-line minutes. I think something in the range of 10-12 goals and 25 points is a reasonable expectation because it looks like he’ll get some second-unit PP time.

I think some people are getting carried away with their optimism and setting the bar too high as I explained on Oilersnation Radio this week. With that being said, I think he’ll score 11 goals this season. That seems like a fair amount of expect from a skilled player who will start the season on the third line. The people saying he will score 20+ are just simply setting the bar too high.

My prediction is 12 goals and 20 points, and I think that’s a solid total in a compressed year for a young player in his first season back in the NHL. Obviously, I’m hoping for more than that but I also think it’s a reasonable bet.

I’m not sold Archibald moves back. I could see him playing with Turris/Puljujarvi or with Khaira/Chiasson and that leaves Ennis, Kahun and RNH as the other  LW to start the season. Neal won’t be ready to start the year, and this lineup needs some size in it and Chiasson is a solid vet who battles, and is very good on the PP. HE will be in the opening night lineup. Injuries will occur during the year, or COVID will likely sideline a player, so having depth is good. But I see Archibald and Chiasson in the starting lineup next Wednesday.

Until Kahun and Neal are completely ready to go, that’s tough to say. What’s to stop Archibald from playing LW behind RNH, Kahun and Ennis with Chiasson staying on the right side to start?

I honestly don’t know. With James Neal out of the lineup, I think we will continue to see Archibald on the left and Chiasson playing RW on the fourth line, but once everyone is healthy, I just don’t see how Chiasson fits into this lineup.

I think Chiasson will be in the lineup on the fourth line with the possibility of getting some PP time in there too. Tippett seems to like Chiasson and despite the overpay, I think he’ll be able to provide reasonably solid minutes for the team when he’s on the ice.

The only one is to have the players shorten their shifts in OT.

I want to see how he handles the PP units. So much success last year, but this time around you’ve got to factor in Barrie, a right shot, and Puljujarvi, who weren’t here. You don’t want to mess too much with something that was so successful, but there are new faces in the mix and that right shot from the point. Also interested to see how he distributes games/minutes with his 6th and 7th D-men and who gets those slots most often.

The first season was such a massive success that it’s hard to pick one out. The powerplay and penalty kill were both tremendous and he made some great moves like putting the Nugent-Hopkins-Draisaitl-Yamamoto line together. I guess the one thing I’ll say is that he needs to do a really good job of handling the goaltenders in a shortened season.

Reunite NugeDraMoto, please. Thank you.

The third round won’t start until June, and by then the vulnerable should have been vaccinated and some people in society. If travel across the border hasn’t be rectified, then the Canadian team will need to travel to US. Possibly play all the games there, but with no fans, I see very little home-ice advantage.

No idea. Looking weeks ahead, let alone months, is tricky given COVID. Everything can turn on a dime. With what’s already happened with Dallas and Columbus, I’m still waiting to see what the post-holiday COVID numbers look like and if they’ll impact the scheduled start Wednesday and the first few weeks of the season.

I think the NHL is hoping that border restrictions will loosen by that point. I could see them moving to a bubble for the final two rounds though. It would take less than a month to play if the schedule is condensed so the players might sign off on it.

We don’t even know if we’re going to get our games on Wednesday and Thursday because of the Canucks cancelling their practice yesterday, so I’m not even going to try and come up with a guess as to what happens a few months from now.

I like both. Broberg suffered a charley horse in practice early in the tournament and that impacted his play. Holloway was excellent on the forecheck and his skating and tenacity impressed me. I expect him to play this year and at least next season at Wisconsin where he will get stronger and likely gain more confidence offensively as he will play on the powerplay and a lot at 5×5. He is the type of forward the Oilers will need in the future. A skilled winger with some size and good skating ability.

Broberg was less than 100 per cent because of injury for most of the tournament, so we didn’t see that effortless skating stride. That said, you could still see the skill he has in that blowout win over the Czech Republic. Holloway also was slowed by injury, but I like his pursuit of the puck and the mix of grit and skill in his game. We didn’t see either of them at their best.

It sucks that Broberg wasn’t fully healthy for most of the tournament, but I’m still very high on him. I think he’ll be a top-four defenseman in the next two seasons. As for Holloway, I was very impressed with his speed and how he was able to create turnovers off the forecheck. He wasn’t the most skilled player on Team Canada but he was one of their most important and impactful forwards.

As everyone else said, it was a bummer to see Broberg get banged up, but I thought that Holloway was fun to watch. He’s big, fast, hard on the forecheck, and that’s the kind of player the Oilers need more of in their lineup.

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