Archive for the ‘Edmonton Oilers’ Category

HNIC Live Thread: Leafs/Habs, Flames/Oilers

Posted by Kyle Smith under Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Game Thread, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs on Apr 13, 2013

Edmonton Oilers v Calgary Flames

At the beginning of this shortened NHL season, if I had told you that the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs would be playing a game against each other in the middle of April with serious playoff implications, you would have called me a brain dead moron and then asked me why I was rooting around in your bushes (I was using binoculars to look away from your windows, not into them, I swear).

But here we are, two weeks left in the season and The Canadiens are in first place in the Northeast division (2nd seed in the Eastern Conference) while the Leafs find themselves sitting 5th in the East.

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HNIC: Leafs, Blues win

Posted by Kyle Smith under Boston Bruins, Edmonton Oilers, St. Louis Blues, Toronto Maple Leafs on Mar 23, 2013

St. Louis Blues v Edmonton Oilers

It’s Saturday!

You know what that means (I really hope you know what that means, or else this entire thread is a waste of time. Don’t make my life a waste of time).

It means that it’s time that we get a little too serious about a sport where grown men wearing boots with knives on them chase a piece of rubber around a sheet of frozen water for our amusement.

Tonight, we have an original six match-up between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins. And if you want to stay up a little later with me, the late game will feature the Edmonton Oilers taking on the St. Louis Blues.

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The Quiet Room Dirtbag Edition: Ken Linseman

Posted by Jo Innes under Boston Bruins, Dirtbags, Edmonton Oilers, General Ouchiness, NHL Injuries, Philadelphia Flyers, The Quiet Room, Toronto Maple Leafs on Mar 20, 2013

Ken Linseman: The rattiest of the rats.

Ken Linseman: The rattiest of the rats.

 

The NHL has a long storied history of dirtbags, and Down Goes Brown wrote a delightful post for Grantland outlining the dirtbaggiest dirtbags, and their many transgressions. What a rich treasure trove of bad behaviour and ugly injuries! Thus was born a series of Quiet Room posts exploring the worst of the injuries handed out by the worst of the dirtbags in their most inglourious moments.

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LOLKatz

Posted by Daniel Wagner under Daryl Katz, Editorial, Edmonton Oilers on Sep 25, 2012

On Monday, Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz was in Seattle for one reason, and one reason only: to attend the Seattle Seahawks game against the Green Bay Packers. He got a chance to see one of the most exciting finishes to a game this season, as well as one of the most blatantly botched calls by the NFL replacement referees. I’m sure the story of him being there for that game will be a highlight of all his interviews in the near future.

Okay, he may have had an ulterior motive for visiting Seattle.

A couple weeks ago, Katz approached Edmonton city council and asked for more public funds to help pay for the construction and operating costs of a new arena. City council said no. Cue the veiled threats to relocate the franchise, the articles from the Edmonton media that freak out about the possibility of relocation, and the official Oilers twitter account retweeting one of those articles as a tacit endorsement of the threat.

It’s a bit of a gong show.

Katz’s visit conveniently comes right on the heels of Seattle city council voting to approve the building of a new NHL-suitable arena in the Sodo district. The implication is clear: heed my demands or I’ll move the Oilers to Seattle.

The problem for Katz is that it’s a completely empty threat.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Blinded by a number: Why Jordan Eberle’s numbers won’t go into free-fall

Posted by Justin Bourne under Edmonton Oilers, Jordan Eberle, One Man's Opinion on Aug 31, 2012

Even prior to Jordan Eberle signing his six-year, 36 million dollar deal with the Edmonton Oilers yesterday, the blogosphere was abuzz discussing his value. He put up mammoth numbers last season, made the all-star team, and the team’s other young star (well, one of them – Taylor Hall) had already signed his long-term deal.

The reason for the buzz was this: Oilers fans blindly love their electric young talent (sign him!), but the advanced stat crowd was pushing back (it’s a bad time after a lucky season!), citing his shooting percentage.

And oh man did that crowd cite his shooting percentage.

Tyler Dellow wrote about it (multiple times, predicting 54-60 points over 82 games, down from 76). Jonathan Willis wrote about it (predicting 26 goals in 82 games, down from 34). Scott Reynolds wrote about it. David Staples wrote about it. Our own Cam Charron wrote about it this morning. Even the Edmonton Journal mentioned it. You get the point. Read the rest of this entry »

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Betting against the market: The Oilers and Jordan Eberle

Posted by Cam Charron under Analysis, Edmonton Oilers, Jordan Eberle on Aug 31, 2012

Perennial All-Star and 30-goal scorer, or a more common first-second line platoon player: Which is more likely?

The Edmonton Oilers are betting against the market when it comes to Jordan Eberle.

It’s not that Eberle is a one-hit wonder or he’s going to bust out of Edmonton, it’s that no player is as good as an outlier season early in their hockey career.

His new contract isn’t horrible. It’s a decent-enough term and you’ll guarantee that Eberle’s costs won’t raise as he goes through his prime years. It’s manageable, and the Oilers don’t already have any anchor contracts. Once 2015 rolls around, they’ve commit just $12M. Half of that to Taylor Hall, half of that to Eberle.

But they team will need to find some creative ways to use their resources. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, Sam Gagner, Justin Schultz and Jeff Petry, all presumable key players on an Oilers club going forward, need to get paid between then. The NHL will have a lower salary cap next season, but that won’t be the test for the Oilers. It will be the years ahead when the Oilers have to fit those guys under a figure that will be lower than the $70.3M salary cap they face today.

This requires making the right bets.

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How risky is the Taylor Hall contract?

Posted by Cam Charron under Analysis, Edmonton Oilers, Taylor Hall on Aug 27, 2012

There are probably some perfectly legitimate reasons to be fearful of Taylor Hall’s development, and they’ll probably be discussed in certain detail (hey, here we are now).

The thing that particularly worries me about Hall is that he’s already missed 37 games due to various injuries in his young career; his ankle, shoulder and head have all suffered at one point or another. Does that make his contract extension all the more risky?

It probably won’t take much to convince readers that Hall is the superior player on the Edmonton Oilers. Hall scores at a higher rate and generates more pucks towards the net than Jordan Eberle, the other star forward in Edmonton up for contract renegotiation. These are their base statistics pro-rated over 82 games assuming 16:30 of ice time per game:

 

Goals Shots Sh%
Taylor Hall 28.9 2.83 12.5%
Jordan Eberle 27.1 2.15 15.4%

Hall scores a little bit more, doesn’t need an absurd shooting percentage to do it, (forwards who have shot between 15-16% in their first two years tend to lose a couple of percentage points) and generates nearly a full shot more. The Oilers also do much better at even strength in generating and preventing scoring chances when Hall is on the ice.

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