The Hockey News has thoughts on the Edmonton Oilers
By Cam Lewis
6 years agoIt’s almost September, meaning we’re nearly into real hockey talk and out of speculation and nonsense silly season. But since we still have a few more weeks until camp opens and pre-season begins, let’s talk about what The Hockey news has to say about the Oilers and the 2017-18 season.
Spoiler: It’s good! But not as good as that glorious header image suggests.
The 2018 Stanley Cup Runner-ups!
With a cap tip to Zimmer on Twitter, this year’s Hockey News Yearbook has the Oilers finishing second in the Pacific Division, but making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final only to be dropped in six games by the Penguins, who will apparently win their third-straight championship.
This prediction is fun because it has the Oilers going on one hell of a ride through the playoffs. They have them beating the Flames in the first round in the first Battle of Alberta since 1991, then going on to avenge their 2017 loss to the Ducks before taking down last year’s Western Conference champs, the Predators.
How much weight should we put into this? Very little, of course! I mean, it’s the Hockey News, and like everyone else, they have no idea what’s going to happen. Just take a look at last year’s prediction in which they figured Tampa Bay and Dallas, two teams who ended up on the outside looking in, were going to square off in the Stanley Cup Final. So much for that!
But still, I’m happy that we can flip open a magazine and see the Oilers all over playoff and awards preview pages rather than draft and lottery preview lists.
2017-18 Awards Watch
Cam Talbot comes in sixth on their Vezina Trophy prediction list, sliding behind Matt Murray, Carey Price, Braden Holtby, Sergei Bobrovsky, and John Gibson. He’s also one ahead of old pal Devan Dubnyk! Last season, Talbot came in fourth in Vezina voting with 17 first placed votes. He had a very good .919 save percentage, but the most impressive part was that he did it while playing a whopping 73 games. It’s hard to say if Talbot will have the gas to have another season like he did in 2016-17, especially if he’s going to have that large of a workload again.
Neither Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl came in THN’s Rocket Richard Trophy prediction list. They have Patrik Laine scoring the most goals in the NHL next season, but both of the Oilers’ dynamic duo have been relegated to the honorable mentions section, which is probably fair considering they finished 25th and 27 in the league in goals last season and the team features a well-balanced offence. Oscar Klefbom was given a shoutout on the honourable mention of their Norris Trophy prediction, but unsurprisingly no Oilers D-man finished in the top-10.
THN hasn’t published their Hart Trophy predictions yet, but imagine McDavid would top the list. He did top their Top-200 Fantasy Players rankings list, while Leon came in 15th, Talbot 29th, Milan Lucic 99th, Klefbom 123rd, Patrick Maroon 167th, Jussi Jokinen 182nd, and Ryan Strome 184th. That’s, uh, not a good look for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
How are the Oilers going to look in 2020?
One final thing from the Hockey News that might be of interest to Oilers fans is their 2020 Vision series. In this, they look at all 31 teams and where they’re going to stand at the beginning of the 2019-20 season, which, alarmingly, is only two years away!
Anyways, the interesting points of note:
- No Patrick Maroon. The power forward who enjoyed a breakout season next to Connor McDavid in 2016-17 is set to become a UFA on July 1, 2018, and THN doesn’t have him coming back. That’s reasonable considering the deal given to Milan Lucic to play the same role and the money being commanded by McDavid and Draisaitl.
- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is still around. With four years left on his deal and Edmonton having the aforementioned McDavid and Draisaitl manning the two top centre roles, it seems RNH might be on the outside looking in just like his pals Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle from Rebuild 2.0.
- Mark Letestu is back. Letestu’s contract expires at the end of this season, but THN has him back for at least another two seasons. I could see it if the veteran pivot has another year like he did in 2016-17.
- Andrej Sekera and Matt Benning are gone. Sekera is signed until the end of the 2020-21 season, so I’m not sure where he’s going, and Benning enjoyed a breakout rookie year, so it’s odd that he isn’t in this long-term plan. They have a lot of faith in Ethan Bear and Caleb Jones, it seems.
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