08/15/12 Can The Oilers Make The Playoffs? Part Two

Part one of this series established that the Oilers will need to be better at even strength. Now we'll look at the likelihood of that actually happening. Who needs to be better 5x5? Is it realistic to expect improvement?

06/04/12 The Salary Cap Spending Trap

The NHL salary cap has been raised to roughly $70.3 million, which is the number that general managers will work with in the off season. However, that number is only temporary and could trap a team or two in salary cap hell.

04/21/12 Pre-Season Prediction Recap

Before the 2011-12 NHL season began, a group of bloggers from around the 'Sphere made predictions about how the season would go on The Copper and Blue. As a matter of full disclosure, let's see how I did.

Question One:

"Many fans and of course all of the Edmonton mainstream media have called Steve Tambellini's non-draft off-season a success. Do you agree?"

To paraphrase a long answer:

Yes, because:


- Overpaying a player like Erhoff would have been a bad way to fix the defense, and signing aging free agents would take playing time away from young prospects who need time to develop


- The goaltending situation was left alone so that Devan Dubnyk could get more playing time


- The bottom two lines received a much needed overhaul


- Ryan Smyth was brought back


Most of the panelists agreed that the off season was relatively successful, but also that not enough was done to make the Oilers a playoff team. Last June I argued against signing Cam Barker because he brought less to the table offensively than Tom Gilbert and having been bought out made him risky, but I held out hope that Barker could justify his overly large contract once it was signed. Obviously, he did not.

Christian Erhoff dipped to 32 points in 66 games for Buffalo (0.48 p/g), which is closer to his career total (0.46 p/g) than what he had the year before signing his ten year deal (0.63 p/g). The Sabres paid Erhoff $562,500 per point this season and he didn't put them over the top. The fact that the Oilers didn't go after a big fish like Erhoff or a veteran like Hannan meant that Jeff Petry got into 73 games for the Oilers and developed into a key contributor.

Devan Dubnyk did get into more games this year - 12 more, to be exact (11 starts) - and performed exceedingly well given the circumstances, but I was wrong about keeping Khabibulin. Although his overall save percentage rebounded from 0.890 to 0.910, Khabibulin was atrocious after his early hot streak. After winning 7 of his first 9 games, he went on to win just 5 more all year in 31 starts. Count me among the people who didn't think Khabibulin could continue to be as bad as he was in 2010-11, but he proved that crowd wrong and then some. The workload should have been divided 60-22 in favor of Dubnyk and wasn't, which would have made more sense for a goalie who is 39 years old and had played 743 games before 2011-12.

The removal of Stortini, MacIntyre, Jacques and Fraser were no-brainers, as only one (Fraser) is still in the NHL. Andrew Cogliano's production dipped to 26 points from 35 in 2010-11, and he did it with a new $2.39 million cap hit. His replacement, Eric Belanger, picked up just 16 points for $1.75 million, but at least he was able to win a faceoff. Cogliano was 42% in the dot this year, while Belanger won 55.3% of the time and was a key PK contributor. Nobody could have predicted that Belanger, the personification of consistency, would have such a sub-par season, and he should bounce back next year. Hordichuk did what he does but wasn't very useful, and Eager chipped in 8 goals. Ryan Jones also had a good season, setting a new career high with 33 points and adding 17 goals; earning every bit of his $1.5 million.

Finally, even though Ryan Smyth's return fell flat in the latter half of the season, the Oilers still acquired 19 goals and 46 points in exchange for Fraser and a late pick. That the trade happened can't be credited to Tambellini at all, but the parts that went the other way can. In 67 games for the Kings, Fraser scored just twice and added six assists. That's actually one less goal than he scored in his only year as an Oiler.

***

I became a fan of the full tear-down, scorched earth style rebuild on December 12th of 2009. Ironically, the Oilers had just won a franchise record five straight road games. The trouble was that they left for that road trip in 14th place in the West, and returned from it in 11th place. There was no way that the Oilers were going to continue to win like they just had on the road, so it looked like another year of spinning their wheels. The Oilers went on to lose seven straight and nine of their next ten games, which put them out of the hunt for good.

Since then, I haven't been too perplexed that the team was losing, and so the moves Tambellini made in the 2011 off season made sense from the standpoint that they were going to develop a team from within that would be terrible for a while. That meant playing young players rather than paying veterans, and suffering through some growing pains.

What the Oilers do this off season will be much more heavily scrutinized by everyone, and rightfully so. It's time to start winning in Edmonton.

The recap of predictions will continue throughout the week and we'll revisit the following questions next time:

What expectations should fans have for the Oilers?

If the team doesn't meet those expectations, is anyone's job in jeopardy?

Which Oiler will score at least 40 points? Who will get the most?

Which player will less than 30 NHL games will play the most this season?

Which of the PP and PK is most likely to improve?

How many games will Yann Danis start?

Will Khabibulin spend any time in OKC?

Which Western Conference team is most likely to be worse than the Oilers?

Where will the Oilers finish?

Will Ales Hemsky be traded or signed?

04/15/12 From The Outhouse To The Penthouse

The Pittsburgh Penguins may be down 3-0 in their series against the Flyers, but no one can argue with how far they have come. After finishing one point out of 30th in 2005-06 the Pens improved by 25 wins the following year and ended up 5th in the East. And they aren't the only team to make major gains in one season. Below is a brief examination of one of the recent examples of a team that has made the transition, and more importantly: why. Could the Oilers follow suit?

2005-06 and 2006-07 Pittsburgh Penguins


The 2005-06 Penguins are barely recognizable when compared to what we know today. Their leading scorer was Sidney Crosby with 102 points in 81 games, but next was Sergei Gonchar with 58 points in 75 games. Evgeni Malkin had yet to leave Russia, and Jordan Staal was as yet undrafted by Pittsburgh.

The Penguins were unremarkable in scoring in 2005-06, finishing 18th in the NHL. Malkin and Staal added 62 goals and 127 points in 2006-07, and with Crosby's help Pittsburgh rocketed up to 3rd in the NHL in goals per game at 3.26.

Interestingly, the Penguins were 6th on the powerplay in 2005-06, and finished 29th. In 2006-07 they finished 5th with the man advantage and made the playoffs.

After being atrocious defensively in 2005-06, the Penguins improved from 30th to 14th in goals against per game in 2006-07, which is the really interesting area. Major contributors to the defense (Orpik, Scuderi, Gonchar, Whitney, Melichar) were all returnees from the previous season in which the Penguins finished 29th. Letang played just 7 games for them that year. The team went from 27th in shots against with 33.2 per game to 22nd with 30.9. Improvement, certainly, but not leaps and bounds.

The big difference in goals against is the goaltending.

In 2005-06 Pittsburgh used four goalies, and none of them - including Marc-Andre Fleury - had a save percentage on the positive side of .900. Combined, the four goalies faced 2716 shots and stopped 2413 of them (0.888 Sv%). Fleury's 0.898 Sv% was best on the team, and he made 50 appearances that year.

In 2006-07 Pittsburgh used two goalies, and both were above .900 in Sv%. Fleury's was 0.906, and Jocelyn Thibault had a 0.909 Sv%. In all, they faced 2526 shots (190 less than the year before) and stopped 2290 of them (a 0.906 Sv%). Those numbers still might not be good enough on a less offensively gifted team, but in Pittsburgh they were plenty in the regular season.

Pittsburgh's penalty killing went from 29th in 2005-06 (78.8%) to 17th (82.1%), which reduced the overall goals against by a whopping 38 goals. At even strength the Penguins reduced their goals against by 16 - from 155 to 139 season over season.

In total, Pittsburgh improved by 70 goals against in 2006-07 (from 310 to 240), and they scored 24 more goals in total (from 243 to 267).

The Difference

Sidney Crosby, Ryan Whitney and Marc-Andre Fleury were all part of the team that finished in second last, but they were also key reasons that the Penguins turned it around. The defense was not massively overhauled, and the team actually got younger with Malkin and Staal replacing veterans like Palffy, Lemieux and LeClair. Despite their biggest additions coming up front, the real improvements were in the defensive department.

The Oilers


Edmonton finished 20th in goals per game and 23rd in goals against per game, so there's work to be done in both areas. Like Pittsburgh, if the Oilers had even average goaltending over the length of a full season (that is, if they got it from Khabibulin or got rid of Khabibulin), they would be much improved in goals against. The Penguins also prove that it's not unprecedented to have a good powerplay and finish at the bottom of the league, but the Oilers have the advantage of a slighty above-average penalty kill going into next season.

The Oilers don't have three number-one centers like the Penguins (arguably) do, but a player like Yakupov will help tip the scales offensively. More maturity from a player like Jeff Petry and another possible addition on the back end will make the comparison to the Penguins one that's not incredibly far off. Devan Dubnyk is as good or better than what Fleury was in 2006-07, and Fleury's career stats (.909 Sv% and 2.68 GAA) compare well with Dubnyk (0.910 Sv%, 2.85 GAA). Although the sample size is smaller with Dubnyk, he has played on some pretty terrible Oilers teams and the Oilers didn't have to use a first overall pick on him like Pittsburgh did with Fleury.

For the most part, the Penguins showed some signs of life in 2005-06, but still managed to finish at the bottom of the league. The Oilers are in a similar position. Adding Yakupov and [Dear God, please] getting healthy seasons from Hall and Nugent-Hopkins will be extemely impactful, just as Staal and Malkin were for the Pens. There's still no Sergei Gonchar in Edmonton, but if this off season is successful there will be some facsimile. That is one of the most glaring differences at this point.

The Oilers don't have Sidney Crosby either, but neither do 29 other teams; and most teams don't have an assortment of talent up front that can compare to Pittsburgh or Edmonton. The Oilers aren't the Penguins, but the Penguins are proof that things can turn around in a hurry in the NHL.