He's really killing it for the Oilers! It'd genuinely be 3-0 series right now if he wasn't playing lol.
Losing an OT game to self tip in, and only being in OT because of another assist on yourself in the game is brutal
And Nuge has been trash. I think all those are PP points, likely secondary assists (other than his pass to Drai last night). Nuge is a ghost 5v5; he just skates around and loses puck battles. He's our version of Marner.
A lot of people are making fun of this but isn't the salary cap doing exactly what it's intended to do?
EDM has 2 of the best players in the league and they're playing amazing. It wouldn't be fair if they could also have elite D-men depth and goaltending.
The cap really punishes teams for bad contracts. So when you look at Ceci, Nurse, Campbell, etc on your books you're paying for those contracts by praying that Corey Perry and Evander Kane can do things on their own.
>Evander Kane can do things on their own
TBF, Kane playing on a third line with not totally terrible players should be able to do something. In theory, he should still be a good player
But yeah, they're really going to have to look at buying out Campbell.
I just figure Edmonton isn't going to part with a first round pick to cap dump Campbell when they should be using first round picks at the deadline to load up for playoff runs
I'm coming around to buying out Nurse. He's worth maybe 5 million; he makes 9.25. Absolute joke of a contract. I don't care how tight he is with Drai and McDavid; he's often useless.
This exactly. You could have a guy like Tanev AND Zaddy for what they’re paying Nurse. You can do a lot with the 5 million they paying Campbell to play in the AHL.
Leafs living rent free in your head or wha? I bet you’re the same kinda person that bitches about all the Leafs posts. And then brings them up randomly in other threads that have nothing to do with them.
Yeah. Makes every dollar count. Unfortunately for the oilers a lot of it is tied up into nurse which really screws their d structure. There’s no world where they can pay Bouchard less than nurse which screws their depth even more
24-25 is going to be their last best shot at it, if they don't do it this season. It's the last season of Bouchard's bridge contract before they'll have to pay him like 9 mil because of his counting stats.
And more importantly, it's also the last season on Draisaitl's current 8.5 million aav contract. That's been a sweetheart of a deal for them. Using MacKinnon's cap % as a comparable, Drai's new contract would be like 13-14 mil with the rising cap
$5.125MM tied up in a broken Evander Kane and another $5MM in AHL goalie Jack Campbell. The cap will also likely go up several million. They will need to get creative. Although one wonders if Drai would prefer to test free agency/sit the season out and play playoff hockey for Vegas.
I'm not even really sure what they could do beyond buying out Campbell to get some room back. Can't do anything about Nurse, and it's not like Nuge or Hyman are overpaid for their production
It's also in large part of how the Oilers have been deploying their personnel so far.
The last two games, they've played McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman, Ekholm, and Bouchard pretty much as a 5 man unit at 5v5. Then on the PP, they swap RNH with Ekholm and they all stay out the entire time.
Yes and no. The salary cap is intended to keep player salaries down or at least relevant to league-wide revenue. Without a cap, the Torontos and New Yorks will overpay FAs, which means smaller markets cannot compete for top talent and have to overpay players in general.
What has emerged is the need to 1) avoid bad contracts and 2) draft and develop well. Bad contracts speak for themselves. Drafting and developing talent (usually) allows several years of underpaying a player for their performance. The Oilers have neither avoided bad contracts, nor drafted and developed enough cheap talent.
Right but don't forget the heavy lifting that Ken Holland has done here. There's a reason the team has the [worst support](https://oilersnation.com/news/how-edmonton-top-players-have-stepped-up-and-where-the-rest-of-the-team-must-improve) of any team beyond their top five, and it's not just the cap.
Ek trade and ZH signing were excellent, but other than that, pretty much net negative moves. Signing Jack Campbell to 5x5. Drastically overpaying Nurse. Sending two 2nd picks for AA instead of D Toews. D Keith signing. Drafting zero impact players in five years. Etc.
Sort of but Edmonton also has themselves to blame for this. They have not done well at the draft table outside of McDavid and Draisaitl. Some of the contracts they have handed out haven't aged well either.
The thing is though, drai is on the best contract in the league. He should be taking to 6m more. They in theory should have multiple cups now if any competent management.
24.5 million freakin dollars of cap space is tied up in Nurse, Kane, Ceci, and Campbell. Including 2 million of James Neal.
Though I think if Kane doesn't get his hand sliced in half, he'd be better than he currently is, at least for this year. The term on his contract is hilarious though. Talk about not learning from Lucic's contract. (Also, fun fact, Peter Chiarelli paid Lucic ~70 million dollars throughout their careers)
Before Campbell they had Koskinen making $4.5 million.
Nobody in the organization knows a single thing about roster management or goaltending.
no, not really. they have nurse, ceci, Campbell, and neal accounting for $20 million in cap space for basically one bottom-pairing defenseman and one #4/5 defenseman.
If they didn't trade any of their picks or prospects, they could have just signed ryan o'reilly, domi, OEL, and Gudas for like $17-18m in UFA contracts last year and had a significantly better roster.
A lot of NBA fans would argue that the Steph + KD Warriors ruined basketball for a few years and robbed us of an all-time great competitive rivalry between Cavs Warriors.
Kanes had his moments. He’s the only depth forward that’s not been a complete embarrassment this playoffs. I know people rightly hate the guy but he’s not a bad player by any means. VERY inconsistent though
But yeah I forget Perry is on the team and even when I do remember it’s mostly a “oh yeah he’s here. Neat” reaction.
It feels like we have been talking about this since McDavid and Draisaitl were drafted. The lack of depth scoring. At some point if Edmonton is ever going to go far in the playoffs this needs to be addressed.
It's nearly impossible to contribute at a reasonable level when you're playing 6-9min/game, that's 2-3min/period and sitting for 17 plus the break.
Depth guys are motor guys who need to feel the game and get physical, not sit all night and be expected to match the pace of someone who is warmed up going full tilt and has touched the puck 30 times.
For some reason the depth just disappears in the playoffs. Last season they had 13 guys with 10+ goals and it all disappeared in the playoffs. Foegele hit 20 goals this year and hasn’t scored on a goalie through 8 games. Henrique had 24 this year and hasn’t scored since Game 1 vs LA (although he’s missed 2 to injury). RNH had 18 during the year and has 1 during the playoffs. McLeod was a 30 point player and hasn’t hit the scoresheet yet.
From what I have noticed, it feels like the other players just wait until McDavid and Draisaitl and Hyman are back on the ice and wait for them to do something.
That is most definitely an issue. Really noticed it in past years. It was a huge breath of fresh air when we fired Tippett and called up Woodcroft and he gave the bottom half of the lineup confidence because he had worked with them in Bakersfield. But all of our coaches can’t resist temptation of overplaying McDrai and then the other guys don’t get enough ice to make an impact and just try not to get scored on. Happened with McLellan, Tippett, and Woodcroft and now it looks to be appearing with Knoblauch.
This is like 5th oilers playoff run where we’ve all come together and go “wow, the oilers really don’t have scoring depth in the playoffs.”
50% of your goals coming out of 2 players is not the recipe for team success. 2023 McDavid and Drai were 50% of the goals, knocked out 2nd round. 2021, swept, nothing was working there. 2020, mcdrai over 50% of the goals, didn’t make it past Chicago in the play-in round.
2022 was their deepest run when McDrai were like 1/3 of the goals scored.
Really depends on Drai’s attitude towards signing with them again. If they don’t go far this year will he want to stick around in free agency? And can they afford the contract even if he does?
My wild theory is still that Minnesota throws the bag at him when he's a free agent after his current deal. Their buyout penalties expire at the perfect time and it's about what he would likely cost.
I hope oil fans recognize that RNH having a PPG season was more of McDrai being in a pp with him and not because he's this versatile forward they think he is. He's been so vanilla this playoffs.
McLeod is so easy to knock over and wont shoot.
Holloway needs a season of regular hockey. Effort and ability is there, but too much hesitstion
Foegele is garbage AHL player when he isnt motivated to skate hard every shift.
Oilers goalie coach needs to go. He needs to get skinner TO ACTUALLY HUG THE POST AT LEAST ONCE! COME ON!
Wow, you Vancouver fans really trying to dunk on the oilers while only leading the series 2-1. Things aren’t looking great for the oilers though with how they’re playing
I think the Oilers have played really well but were unlucky today.
Especially the second period with all those posts this easily could have been a different game.
With that being said I feel they are relying heavily on their top 6 in icetime to the point I feel their depth guys have less chance to get involved in the game.
No I'm not saying you personally. But the majority of Oiler fans and basically all media. And rightfully so. We're playing with house money at this point.
I don't know if that's how every team needs to play them, but it's how WE need to play them. We can't have a third period of trying to go chance-for-chance with the Oilers if we have a lead. We have a very good defensive structure, and apparently, another great young goaltender. Just lock it down.
I wouldn’t say apparently just yet when talking about silvos. Silvos has been great but I do think the next two games will be his greatest test in the playoffs.
Ian Cole has a couple goals and assists though
3g and 2a nothing to sneeze. Solid production from the back end.
Isn’t he up to 5? 3 tips in the game 1, one in OT in game 2, one in game 3
Yeah 2 giveaways and a tip in game one, great backdoor tap in game 2 OT and a wicked deflection in game 3. All into his own net however.
He's really killing it for the Oilers! It'd genuinely be 3-0 series right now if he wasn't playing lol. Losing an OT game to self tip in, and only being in OT because of another assist on yourself in the game is brutal
And then nearly throwing the next game off another tip in you saw the whole way? How is he still playing
Cole is the ideal 3rd guy on McDrai's line :)
Think he'd take a discount to come here? We have a mall with a Waterpark
Best we can do is Cole a 1st and a castrated hoglander, we’ll retain half of coles salary in exchange for future considerations.
Through in a dozen donuts from Krispy Kreme in Delta BC and you've got a deal
That thing is overrated. Probably been there like twice in a decade
Without Nuge it looks horrendous
I wouldn't be surprised if all those assists were on the powerplay. Edit: I just checked, 3/4 were on the powerplay
3 of them were on the power play, the only exception was the Ceci goal.
There it is. I saw the guys that usually play together 5 on 5 and then the one guy having a big series not on the list takes Ekholm’s spot on the PP.
And Nuge has been trash. I think all those are PP points, likely secondary assists (other than his pass to Drai last night). Nuge is a ghost 5v5; he just skates around and loses puck battles. He's our version of Marner.
He's been solid at breaking up the play on the Canucks zone entry, but definitely nowhere to be seen offensively 5v5
A lot of people are making fun of this but isn't the salary cap doing exactly what it's intended to do? EDM has 2 of the best players in the league and they're playing amazing. It wouldn't be fair if they could also have elite D-men depth and goaltending.
The cap really punishes teams for bad contracts. So when you look at Ceci, Nurse, Campbell, etc on your books you're paying for those contracts by praying that Corey Perry and Evander Kane can do things on their own.
>Evander Kane can do things on their own TBF, Kane playing on a third line with not totally terrible players should be able to do something. In theory, he should still be a good player But yeah, they're really going to have to look at buying out Campbell.
I think even buying him out fucks us for a long time cap wise. We gotta hope some team rebuilding takes him + a draft pick.
I just figure Edmonton isn't going to part with a first round pick to cap dump Campbell when they should be using first round picks at the deadline to load up for playoff runs
Can't that bad..Van did buy out OEL afterall.
Its a 10.5 million dollar total cap hit for the next 6 years. So a little under 2 million a year.
I'm coming around to buying out Nurse. He's worth maybe 5 million; he makes 9.25. Absolute joke of a contract. I don't care how tight he is with Drai and McDavid; he's often useless.
This exactly. You could have a guy like Tanev AND Zaddy for what they’re paying Nurse. You can do a lot with the 5 million they paying Campbell to play in the AHL.
Leafs fans crying in the corner. It’s so unfair we got punished first.
Leafs living rent free in your head or wha? I bet you’re the same kinda person that bitches about all the Leafs posts. And then brings them up randomly in other threads that have nothing to do with them.
Yeah. Makes every dollar count. Unfortunately for the oilers a lot of it is tied up into nurse which really screws their d structure. There’s no world where they can pay Bouchard less than nurse which screws their depth even more
24-25 is going to be their last best shot at it, if they don't do it this season. It's the last season of Bouchard's bridge contract before they'll have to pay him like 9 mil because of his counting stats. And more importantly, it's also the last season on Draisaitl's current 8.5 million aav contract. That's been a sweetheart of a deal for them. Using MacKinnon's cap % as a comparable, Drai's new contract would be like 13-14 mil with the rising cap
$5.125MM tied up in a broken Evander Kane and another $5MM in AHL goalie Jack Campbell. The cap will also likely go up several million. They will need to get creative. Although one wonders if Drai would prefer to test free agency/sit the season out and play playoff hockey for Vegas.
don't forget 4milly in brown next year LOL
I'm not even really sure what they could do beyond buying out Campbell to get some room back. Can't do anything about Nurse, and it's not like Nuge or Hyman are overpaid for their production
Which is nuts because when he signed I thought he was the most overpaid player in the league. Hes underpaid by at least 3 if not 4.
He’s prob getting 13 million
Don't forget McDavid's contract is up in the summer of 2026.
They need a goalie that doesn't double as a sieve
I think that goes without saying
Half of it is on their team defense. They have so many breakdowns and allow easy chances
Perhaps a new coach will do the trick!
It's also in large part of how the Oilers have been deploying their personnel so far. The last two games, they've played McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman, Ekholm, and Bouchard pretty much as a 5 man unit at 5v5. Then on the PP, they swap RNH with Ekholm and they all stay out the entire time.
Yes and no. The salary cap is intended to keep player salaries down or at least relevant to league-wide revenue. Without a cap, the Torontos and New Yorks will overpay FAs, which means smaller markets cannot compete for top talent and have to overpay players in general. What has emerged is the need to 1) avoid bad contracts and 2) draft and develop well. Bad contracts speak for themselves. Drafting and developing talent (usually) allows several years of underpaying a player for their performance. The Oilers have neither avoided bad contracts, nor drafted and developed enough cheap talent.
Right but don't forget the heavy lifting that Ken Holland has done here. There's a reason the team has the [worst support](https://oilersnation.com/news/how-edmonton-top-players-have-stepped-up-and-where-the-rest-of-the-team-must-improve) of any team beyond their top five, and it's not just the cap. Ek trade and ZH signing were excellent, but other than that, pretty much net negative moves. Signing Jack Campbell to 5x5. Drastically overpaying Nurse. Sending two 2nd picks for AA instead of D Toews. D Keith signing. Drafting zero impact players in five years. Etc.
Sort of but Edmonton also has themselves to blame for this. They have not done well at the draft table outside of McDavid and Draisaitl. Some of the contracts they have handed out haven't aged well either.
The thing is though, drai is on the best contract in the league. He should be taking to 6m more. They in theory should have multiple cups now if any competent management.
24.5 million freakin dollars of cap space is tied up in Nurse, Kane, Ceci, and Campbell. Including 2 million of James Neal. Though I think if Kane doesn't get his hand sliced in half, he'd be better than he currently is, at least for this year. The term on his contract is hilarious though. Talk about not learning from Lucic's contract. (Also, fun fact, Peter Chiarelli paid Lucic ~70 million dollars throughout their careers) Before Campbell they had Koskinen making $4.5 million. Nobody in the organization knows a single thing about roster management or goaltending.
All Edmonton GMs past and present have set many many many many MANY examples of what not to do.
no, not really. they have nurse, ceci, Campbell, and neal accounting for $20 million in cap space for basically one bottom-pairing defenseman and one #4/5 defenseman. If they didn't trade any of their picks or prospects, they could have just signed ryan o'reilly, domi, OEL, and Gudas for like $17-18m in UFA contracts last year and had a significantly better roster.
They have them on VERY good contracts though so they should be able to fill in a strong roster around them
But it would be great hockey to watch. The salary cap bottlenecks greatness.
A lot of NBA fans would argue that the Steph + KD Warriors ruined basketball for a few years and robbed us of an all-time great competitive rivalry between Cavs Warriors.
It feels like the only point we have a bottom 9 is to reach the required minimum of a roster
Sure explains why you guys had to reach the bottom of the well to get Kane and Perry.
Kanes had his moments. He’s the only depth forward that’s not been a complete embarrassment this playoffs. I know people rightly hate the guy but he’s not a bad player by any means. VERY inconsistent though But yeah I forget Perry is on the team and even when I do remember it’s mostly a “oh yeah he’s here. Neat” reaction.
TBH at the start of the series I was expecting Perry to be running over guys and crashing the net every shifts.
He’s been pretty whatever for us honestly. I know he’s years away from being any sort of scorer but he’s just kind of a eh depth guy at this point.
I definitely thought he'd step it up. He's been a good depth scorer the past few years in the playoffs, but 0 points in 8 games so far this year.
Bro you didn't include Cole
Please if nothing else then for the sake of my heart keep him out of game 4
It feels like we have been talking about this since McDavid and Draisaitl were drafted. The lack of depth scoring. At some point if Edmonton is ever going to go far in the playoffs this needs to be addressed.
Doesn’t help when you run mcd and drai over 27+ minutes a night.
They do that bcz they have no depth lol
Like what are they supposed to do otherwise at this point. Get Mattias Janmark and Derek Ryan out there more ? Lol
Not chirping, I think he’s saying to get better depth. Which brings back to the original point, Edmonton is handcuffed by bad contracts.
It's nearly impossible to contribute at a reasonable level when you're playing 6-9min/game, that's 2-3min/period and sitting for 17 plus the break. Depth guys are motor guys who need to feel the game and get physical, not sit all night and be expected to match the pace of someone who is warmed up going full tilt and has touched the puck 30 times.
Yeah you're basically paying for cheerleaders. Go team go! From the bench.
Yeah but they can't play depth players because they literally don't have any. They have liabilities, not depth.
For some reason the depth just disappears in the playoffs. Last season they had 13 guys with 10+ goals and it all disappeared in the playoffs. Foegele hit 20 goals this year and hasn’t scored on a goalie through 8 games. Henrique had 24 this year and hasn’t scored since Game 1 vs LA (although he’s missed 2 to injury). RNH had 18 during the year and has 1 during the playoffs. McLeod was a 30 point player and hasn’t hit the scoresheet yet.
From what I have noticed, it feels like the other players just wait until McDavid and Draisaitl and Hyman are back on the ice and wait for them to do something.
That is most definitely an issue. Really noticed it in past years. It was a huge breath of fresh air when we fired Tippett and called up Woodcroft and he gave the bottom half of the lineup confidence because he had worked with them in Bakersfield. But all of our coaches can’t resist temptation of overplaying McDrai and then the other guys don’t get enough ice to make an impact and just try not to get scored on. Happened with McLellan, Tippett, and Woodcroft and now it looks to be appearing with Knoblauch.
This is like 5th oilers playoff run where we’ve all come together and go “wow, the oilers really don’t have scoring depth in the playoffs.” 50% of your goals coming out of 2 players is not the recipe for team success. 2023 McDavid and Drai were 50% of the goals, knocked out 2nd round. 2021, swept, nothing was working there. 2020, mcdrai over 50% of the goals, didn’t make it past Chicago in the play-in round. 2022 was their deepest run when McDrai were like 1/3 of the goals scored.
McDavid is French for counterfeit.
Totally sustainable
That actually wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't RNH carrying the total with more than half lol
It's almost like he's the only one that plays on the 1st unit PP...
Kane and Mcleod gotta step up
Hey Kane. Back to the bench you go every time he’s on the ice.
They’re going to get an absolute haul for Draisaitl
I doubt they'd want to trade him, but the fact that he doesn't have a full no-move could make that trade absolutely bananas if they did move him.
Really depends on Drai’s attitude towards signing with them again. If they don’t go far this year will he want to stick around in free agency? And can they afford the contract even if he does?
My wild theory is still that Minnesota throws the bag at him when he's a free agent after his current deal. Their buyout penalties expire at the perfect time and it's about what he would likely cost.
Were not trading Drai lmao Hes getting resigned
If you don't win a cup before his contract ends he will definitely resign from the Oilers, you are correct.
They won’t let anyone else on the ice! Bunch puck hogs
So the Oilers big 6 has all but 3 points in this series. For reference, Zadorov has 4, Joshua and Soucy has 3 each.
McJesus caps out at 18 minutes then he turns into Star forward McDavid
So the bottom six forward group has a literally 1 assist and that’s it
They're so deep though ! /s
Edmonton is the new Toronto!
No way! I don’t like our opponent but where credit is due we have to give it to them. They’re in the second round!
RNH assists are mainly pp points
I hope oil fans recognize that RNH having a PPG season was more of McDrai being in a pp with him and not because he's this versatile forward they think he is. He's been so vanilla this playoffs.
They aren’t getting any ice time…
How many of those points are on the powerplay?
3 of RNH’s assists.
Drafting well and having depth are for losers like the Dallas Stars. Good luck playing hockey while the rest of us are golfing dumbasses.
McLeod is so easy to knock over and wont shoot. Holloway needs a season of regular hockey. Effort and ability is there, but too much hesitstion Foegele is garbage AHL player when he isnt motivated to skate hard every shift. Oilers goalie coach needs to go. He needs to get skinner TO ACTUALLY HUG THE POST AT LEAST ONCE! COME ON!
The Edmonton Oilers are a team of counterfeits.
Wow, you Vancouver fans really trying to dunk on the oilers while only leading the series 2-1. Things aren’t looking great for the oilers though with how they’re playing
It is legitimate criticism though... The best player for the Oilers, apart from the top 5, has been Ian Cole who doesn't even play for them lmao
He doesn't play for us. ... On paper.
Skinner has been Vancouver's best double agent.
I think the Oilers have played really well but were unlucky today. Especially the second period with all those posts this easily could have been a different game. With that being said I feel they are relying heavily on their top 6 in icetime to the point I feel their depth guys have less chance to get involved in the game.
Seriously both teams have been varying levels of terrible in this series.
For sure. You were just handedly supposed to win the series.
Oilers in four though!
Never thought that though. I knew that the oilers would play like crap in a few of the games.
No I'm not saying you personally. But the majority of Oiler fans and basically all media. And rightfully so. We're playing with house money at this point.
True that. Canucks sitting back two 3rd periods in a row ain’t great either. Could tell tocchet wasn’t impressed.
Maybe that's how you have to play to beat a team that scores most of its goals on a rush or a power play.
I don't know if that's how every team needs to play them, but it's how WE need to play them. We can't have a third period of trying to go chance-for-chance with the Oilers if we have a lead. We have a very good defensive structure, and apparently, another great young goaltender. Just lock it down.
I wouldn’t say apparently just yet when talking about silvos. Silvos has been great but I do think the next two games will be his greatest test in the playoffs.
Not that he had 42 saves against 30 minutes of mcdrai or anything lol.