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The Edmonton Oilers are on the other side of the NHL trading deadline.
The club is certainly better than prior to, even though the two games they have played since have not been indicative of that.
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Ken Holland deserves more credit for his deadline moves than he is getting in some circles.
Big and splashy? No.
But the formula for winning does not just show up on a spreadsheet.
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That and more in this edition of…
9 Things
9. It will take a while to convince me that Connor Brown is a better NHL player than Sam Gagner at this point.
8. Another day game for the Oilers Sunday, in Pittsburgh. Edmonton has an all-time regular season record of 44-36-4-1 versus the Penguins. And the Oilers have won their last 5 in a row, head-to-head. Despite the proud Stanley Cup history for both franchises, they have never met in a post-season game.
7. Ryan McLeod’s early goal on Saturday shot the speedy Oilers F into the history books. He is only the 6th player in NHL history to score 3 goals in the first :30 in a single season. The last guy who accomplished the same thing was also an Oiler at the time, Jordan Eberle in 2011-12. Eberle re-signed with Seattle this week.
6. Saturday morning made 700 career NHL games for Leon Draisaitl. That is 10th in Oilers history. On Sunday he will tie for 9th Craig MacTavish, the man who drafted Draisaitl, at 701. Good call, MacT. Leon has 826 career points, four 100+ point seasons, three 50+ goal years and a Hart Trophy. I agree with Warren Foegele that #29 is underappreciated.
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5. Dylan Holloway scored Friday in his return to Bakersfield and set up another goal early Saturday. Given that the club decided he was not going to be a Top-9 player on this team down the stretch I did not disagree with meaningful minutes for him in the AHL. But Holloway left Saturday’s game with an injury (reported to be bruise & not thought to be serious). Two things Holloway has lacked in his career to date: A real chance, and clean bill of health.
4. Edmonton Radio ratings time again as Numeris releases R1/24, more commonly known in the industry as the “Winter Book”. Oilers Now with Bob Stauffer grew its total audience in its new M-F 5-7pm time slot by about 6%, to an average daily audience of 32,900. Inside Sports with Reid Wilkins had a slight increase during his 1-hour M-F 7-8pm show, to 17,831. These are the only two sports talk radio shows in Edmonton still rated. Congrats to both men.
3. Three years in a row. Three! Troy Stecher has been dealt at the deadline in three consecutive seasons. As a depth acquisition by the Oilers, he ticks a few boxes: An excellent skater, passes and shoots well. Known as a good teammate. Competitive in the D-zone but not big. He also has 21 career Stanley Cup Playoff games under his belt. He is clearly the next best right-shot D-man in the organization if any of the starting three get hurt. And I do not think the club had any plans past Chris Tanev to upgrade their starting six.
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2. Darnell Nurse is not playing his best hockey. And I am trying to figure out why. If you read my columns at The Cult of Hockey regularly you will know I am a Nurse fan. This team is damn lucky to have him. Nurse is a big, long D-man, an elite-level skater with a particular gift for transporting the puck. Alas, he is not perfect. Less is more with Darnell. I agree he is at his best while taking a simple, hard, direct approach to his game. With the arrival of Mattias Ekholm and Brett Kulak, Nurse’s minutes have dropped to his lowest (22:13) TOI in 7 years. I expected that to make him even better. But on too many nights he is struggling. Nurse’s +/- has fallen from +26 last year to +1 today. Now, in fairness, the +/- change corresponds with Ekholm and Evan Bouchard playing with Connor McDavid more. But a swing of 25 on what is basically still the same team is significant. Nurse also used to be harder to play against. He is on pace for 40 fewer hits than what he peaked at in 2021-22. He needs to find his way back to that level, to be the best version of himself…and the version the Oilers desperately need.
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1.Sometimes, when you are building a team, the moves you do not make matter almost as much as the ones that you do. I believe a lot of people watch the Las Vegas Golden Knights and have strong feelings either one way or the other. They either think Kelly McCrimmon is cheating and they hate it. Or maybe they think McCrimmon is cheating, and they love it…and wish Ken Holland would get his hands dirtier, too. But there is far more to building any team, especially a winning team, than just piling one great player on top of the other. Clearly Ken Holland has taken the temperature of the room and decided a few key ingredients is what was required, rather than baking a whole new cake. It would be both easy and dangerous to miss the subtleties of Holland’s deadline dealings. Remember: The Oilers were already a good team. Filling some obvious holes is one thing. But there is a risk in disturbing what has gotten you this far. And if his coaches and leadership group were all confirming that “the room” was already solid, you owe it to them to be mindful of that. Perhaps as a result, the two deadline arrivals from Anaheim were Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick. Both good additions on the ice, yes. But also known quantities as quality teammates.
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One of the best examples of this ever was the New York Yankees of the 1980’s. George Steinbrenner famously added Dave Winfield to the Reggie Jackson-led roster in 1980. That was the first of many consecutive Yankees teams that had great players, sure, maybe the best in the league. But they had less-than-zero chemistry. Winfield was a flat-out terrific player. But from his miserable post-season debut in October of ’81 until he was finally sent away from The Big Apple a decade later, that team never really clicked and never made the grade. I did blamed Winfield for that. I blamed Steinbrenner.
And look: Kelly McCrimmon is no George Steinbrenner. In fact, you will not get me to say a bad thing about him. My family has known his family for decades. I played against him way, way back. His late brother Brad coached me. When I suggested Kelly McCrimmon would be a great choice to replace Peter Chiarelli in Edmonton I was derided by many. Heh. I often wonder where are those critics now and what they think of Kelly’s Stanley Cup ring?
Kelly McCrimmon’s style as a builder is (to me, at least) both admirable and fun. But his is not the only way to build a winner. If it were, more would do it. But is also does not come without its risks, either. We will see if that method works as well in 2024 as it did in 2023.
Ken Holland has been around more than long enough to know that there is more to baking a cake than just the icing. There is more to a winner than just big names.
All you need is one ingredient out of place, and the whole thing can collapse.
Now on Threads @kleavins. Also, find me on Twitter @KurtLeavins, Instagram at LeavinsOnHockey, and Mastodon at KurtLeavins@mstdn.social
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