guymez
The Seldom Seen Kid
- Mar 3, 2004
- 33,618
- 13,572
So with the Larsson acquisition in the books (and the shock of the deal that brought him here hopefully fades away soon) we are left to wonder what the defence will look like to start the season.
Despite the strong rumors that Demers will sign here I personally dont think that Demers (or a similar dman) is the right fit at this point...I think they still need a pure offensive dman although I am not very confident that deal is realistic. So a group like this is probably what we will end up settling for come October.
So just to pick a direction (assuming the rumors about Demers are true) then the depth chart on defence for the Oilers looks like this:
Sekera
Klefbom
Larsson
Demers
Davidson
Fayne
Nurse
This defence has 4 legit top 4 defenders and a 4/5 defender in Davidson so in terms of overall depth it is much better than it has been in previous years. I would venture to say that this defence will be a major upgrade in terms of increasing offensive zone time.
The problem as I see it is that this group doesn't have a pure offensive dman among them.
The question I have is....does this defence have enough of an offensive component to it as a group to compensate for that problem?
Granted I haven't dug up any advanced offensive stats on any of these players but in terms of PPG there are 4 players that could possibly reach 0.35 to 0.4 PPG next season. Sekera, Klefbom, Demers and Larsson. If that were to happen then in terms of offensive balance that has to be considered pretty decent. Of course much of that will also be driven by PP time but each player will likely get some time on the PP.
So...strictly in terms of offence is this defensive group as a whole enough to compensate for the lack of a pure offensive dman?
Can a defence by committee approach work here in terms of adding enough offence?
What are your thoughts?
Despite the strong rumors that Demers will sign here I personally dont think that Demers (or a similar dman) is the right fit at this point...I think they still need a pure offensive dman although I am not very confident that deal is realistic. So a group like this is probably what we will end up settling for come October.
So just to pick a direction (assuming the rumors about Demers are true) then the depth chart on defence for the Oilers looks like this:
Sekera
Klefbom
Larsson
Demers
Davidson
Fayne
Nurse
This defence has 4 legit top 4 defenders and a 4/5 defender in Davidson so in terms of overall depth it is much better than it has been in previous years. I would venture to say that this defence will be a major upgrade in terms of increasing offensive zone time.
The problem as I see it is that this group doesn't have a pure offensive dman among them.
The question I have is....does this defence have enough of an offensive component to it as a group to compensate for that problem?
Granted I haven't dug up any advanced offensive stats on any of these players but in terms of PPG there are 4 players that could possibly reach 0.35 to 0.4 PPG next season. Sekera, Klefbom, Demers and Larsson. If that were to happen then in terms of offensive balance that has to be considered pretty decent. Of course much of that will also be driven by PP time but each player will likely get some time on the PP.
So...strictly in terms of offence is this defensive group as a whole enough to compensate for the lack of a pure offensive dman?
Can a defence by committee approach work here in terms of adding enough offence?
What are your thoughts?