BLUE ON BLUE
By Lowetide
10 years ago
The Edmonton Oilers have Jeff Petry just past 200 NHL games, Justin Schultz in the 90s and Martin Marincin just past a baker’s dozen. The club also has Darnell Nurse ripping up junior, and a large number of prospects posting improving arrows in the AHL. How many of these kids can they develop in the next two seasons?
BUBBLING UNDER!
Corey Pronman’s Top 50 Prospects (paywall)
- 8. Darnell Nurse, D, Edmonton Oilers: He wasn’t chosen to be on Canada’s team for the WJC, but I don’t think that is indicative of where Nurse is as an NHL prospect — he brings a ton to the table. He’s big, mean, a great skater and is pretty effective in both ends of the rink. His decisions aren’t always perfect and his shot could be a little better, but he’s a top-end prospect.
- Willis: Klefbom has had struggles this year, but it does seem like he’s turned a corner. No other player on the blue line, or even on the team for that matter, has a wider gap between where he was at the start of the year and how he’s played the last few games. Taylor Fedun has been excellent throughout, Martin Marincin has made progress and Martin Gernat and David Musil have both evolved, but only with Klefbom have the strides been so large.
- Dallas Eakins on Martin Marincin: " he’s a young kid trying to get his feet wet, he has played excellent for us, he’s had a great number of games in a row where on some nights he’s maybe been our most consistent and solid D."
- Todd Nelson on Martin Gernat: “We’re starting to see the offensive side to him. With these young guys it’s always a work in progress. They have to learn all the things about going through their first pro season and try to develop some consistency.”
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
These are good young prospects, but they won’t all turn out, and even the ones who do won’t end up playing the heart of their careers as Oilers. Some 40+ years ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs had an enormous number of young and talented defensemen who all arrived at basically the same time.
1970-71 Toronto Maple Leafs
That’s an insane group of young players, six of those guys were considered to be good to outstanding prospects at the time. The Leafs should have employed most of these men through the 1970s, but the WHA came along and raided most of them. By 1973-74 though, Toronto had recovered.
1973-74 Toronto Maple Leafs
I think there’s a lesson here, even without the Godless WHA raids. Defensemen, like objects in your rear view mirror, may be closer than they appear (Marincin being an example) and may also be a mirage.
The odds of Edmonton ever employing a top 7D of Ekblad, Nurse, Petry, Schultz, Marincin, Klefbom and Gernat are zero. Some will flush out because of injury and some will be sent away for other needs.This extreme cluster development in a short time also clouds Dillon Simpson’s future—the Oilers have an outstanding NCAA prospect who may get blocked in the pro organization. Or he may, as I’m suggesting is possible, be one of the young men who ends up staying while others depart the scene.
It is an impressive group, and this season has some very good arrows.
(All Barons photos by Rob Ferguson. All rights reserved)
Recent articles from Lowetide
