Confirmed Signing with Link: [EDM] Dominik Kahun signs with the Oilers (1 year, $975K)

[Lacaar]

I think he has one of the strangest trade patterns over the last few years

Hawks trade him to the Pens for Olli Matta--make sense--Hawks needed a PMD
Pens then flip him to the sabres to get Conor Sheary back--okay makes sense but then the Sabres let him walk for nothing

that last part confuses me--can sabres fans explain it to me?

It has something to do with Arbitration risk I think. Basically if Buffalo qualified him. I think Kahun could have then taken them to arbitration. From there who knows what would happen. 2-4 million?

 

[majormajor]

They have the same problem as the Oilers did when they always kept mcdrai together. Maybe even worse because the Oilers put hopkins on second if they do that , they keep trying to move pasta down but the line only works the way it does with their top three forwards on the same line.

Same problem in that nobody on the bottom three lines would score - very different problem in that Boston's #2-#4 lines would not get scored on either. Many times Boston goes into the third period 0-0 and a late goal from Pastrnak or Marchand wins it. The Oilers made two "shutdown lines" last year with players who were not shutdown caliber, and were especially hurt that Sheahan and Khaira are not shutdown capable centers.

 

[poolparty98]

EDM maybe smartest team this offseason in taking advantage of depth forwards that are dirt cheap. Oilers fan after seeing moves I hope would agree letting AA go and using cap the depth was the way to go.

Hall of Fame General Manager, thats what they do

 

[Draiskull]

Tobias Rieder...

Yeh, him too.
With Hall signed for offense, Rieder and his skillset is a better fit in BUF than Kahun.

 

[TheOrangeDesk]

has anyone done an xGA/60 vs average TOI graph? I'd love to know the R value

 

[McTonyBrar]

Look out for what? Edmonton still is only a 2 player team. Poolparty is a another draft pick that Edmonton screwed up. He isn’t a difference maker. Either is Kahun.

The team is still a 2 player team if JP breaks out and becomes a top six forward along with RNH, Kahun and Yamamoto? Okay.

 

[McTonyBrar]

Yes because 27 games means Yamahead will do it again next year. JP is a helmet filler. Kahun doesn’t have the IQ to play in the top 6. Edmonton is still a 2 player team. No defence and no goalie. Just wasting their two good players years.

LOL except Leon and all media heads have praised how great Kahun's hockey sense is

 

[McTonyBrar]

Play Kahun on the third line with Turris as center and Puljujarvi or Neal on the other wing. Still a RFA after next season. This more than makes up for the Athanasiou fiasco.

We pretty much got Turris and Kahun for AA

 

[ChaoticOrange]

EDM maybe smartest team this offseason in taking advantage of depth forwards that are dirt cheap. Oilers fan after seeing moves I hope would agree letting AA go and using cap the depth was the way to go.

Out:

Athanasiou
Benning
Sheahan
Currie
Kuffner
Starrett

In

Turris
Ennis
Kahun
Puljujarvi
Barrie
Lennstrom
Quine
Griffith
Cracknell
Forsberg

Pretty difficult to argue that the Oilers aren't much better on paper. Klefbom being injured sucks but we're hopeful Jones can step up. As a huge Klefbom fan, he really wasn't that good last year anyway.

 

[Regal]

Same problem in that nobody on the bottom three lines would score - very different problem in that Boston's #2-#4 lines would not get scored on either. Many times Boston goes into the third period 0-0 and a late goal from Pastrnak or Marchand wins it. The Oilers made two "shutdown lines" last year with players who were not shutdown caliber, and were especially hurt that Sheahan and Khaira are not shutdown capable centers.

Not to mention McDrai weren't outscoring the opposition by much 5v5 anyway, while the Boston trio does. Interestingly, the DRY line had far more success than McDrai has the past two years

 

[Double Dion]

Out:

Athanasiou
Benning
Sheahan
Currie
Kuffner
Starrett

In

Turris
Ennis
Kahun
Puljujarvi
Barrie
Lennstrom
Quine
Griffith
Cracknell
Forsberg

Pretty difficult to argue that the Oilers aren't much better on paper. Klefbom being injured sucks but we're hopeful Jones can step up. As a huge Klefbom fan, he really wasn't that good last year anyway.

The forward group is a lot better. I think you're better in the aggregate, but I'm much higher on Klefbom than most. I think he's really underrated. The ability of another defender to play those shutdown minutes and whether or not McDavid and Draisaitl play a stronger 200 foot game will determine whether the Oilers are better. If those 2 things happen I think you could be as good as 3rd best in the West. If neither of them do I could see this team being somewhere between 6-10.

 

[Soundwave]

The forward group is a lot better. I think you're better in the aggregate, but I'm much higher on Klefbom than most. I think he's really underrated. The ability of another defender to play those shutdown minutes and whether or not McDavid and Draisaitl play a stronger 200 foot game will determine whether the Oilers are better. If those 2 things happen I think you could be as good as 3rd best in the West. If neither of them do I could see this team being somewhere between 6-10.

Klefbom was great 3 years ago, but since then he's been up/down. -17 last year was by the worst on the Oilers D last year, and no he's doesn't play the top defensive minutes. He's third on the D for 5-on-5 minutes behind Nurse and Bear, the reason his ice time is sky high is because the Oilers employ basically just 1 unit on the PP and he gets all the d-man time on the PP.

Barrie is honestly probably the better player, more talented certainly. Other teams fans take for granted things like the offence Giordano, Hughes, Reilly bring to a team, but when you don't have a dynamic offensive D in the modern NHL it is a massive bottleneck in your team's ability.

Nurse basically plays the same role as Klefbom as the "all-around" jack of all trades, master of none type player that Klefbom is, but the Oilers haven't had a top end offensive D that can actually make a play with the puck for ages. All our current D either freeze up when McDavid or Draisiatl give them a glorious chance with time and space, or are too raw (Bear, Jones) to really properly capitalize.

The other thing that I think benefits the Oilers is their young D aren't that young. Bear and Jones are not like 19/20 year olds being rushed into the NHL, they're both 23 turning 24 next year. That's a fairly large difference.

 

[Double Dion]

Klefbom was great 3 years ago, but since then he's been up/down. -17 last year was by the worst on the Oilers D last year, and no he's doesn't play the top defensive minutes. He's third on the D for 5-on-5 minutes behind Nurse and Bear, the reason his ice time is sky high is because the Oilers employ basically just 1 unit on the PP and he gets all the d-man time on the PP.

Barrie is honestly probably the better player, more talented certainly. Other teams fans take for granted things like the offence Giordano, Hughes, Reilly bring to a team, but when you don't have a dynamic offensive D in the modern NHL it is a massive bottleneck in your team's ability.

Nurse basically plays the same role as Klefbom as the "all-around" jack of all trades, master of none type player that Klefbom is, but the Oilers haven't had a top end offensive D that can actually make a play with the puck for ages. All our current D either freeze up when McDavid or Draisiatl give them a glorious chance with time and space, or are too raw (Bear, Jones) to really properly capitalize.

The other thing that I think benefits the Oilers is their young D aren't that young. Bear and Jones are not like 19/20 year olds being rushed into the NHL, they're both 23 turning 24 next year. That's a fairly large difference.

I strongly disagree with the bolded. I've always felt Oiler fans underrate RNH and Klefbom. He plays against top competition, that's a hard thing to do. It's the same reason some Flames fans underrated Brodie and Backlund for years. I think both franchises will feel the lack of those players.

 

[McDNicks17]

I strongly disagree with the bolded. I've always felt Oiler fans underrate RNH and Klefbom. He plays against top competition, that's a hard thing to do. It's the same reason some Flames fans underrated Brodie and Backlund for years. I think both franchises will feel the lack of those players.

Klefbom does play tough competition because the Oilers basically don't play their third pairing, but Nurse has been playing the top competition over the past three seasons.

 

[Soundwave]

I strongly disagree with the bolded. I've always felt Oiler fans underrate RNH and Klefbom. He plays against top competition, that's a hard thing to do. It's the same reason some Flames fans underrated Brodie and Backlund for years. I think both franchises will feel the lack of those players.

Klefbom was third in the team for 5-on-5 minutes for d-men though, lets just get that straight, because people look at his overall ice time and think he plays a ton, which he does, but it's a bit misleading because a huge chunk of that is because the Oilers employ a relatively unorthodox PP -- basically just one PP unit with Klef as the only D, so he will get all the PP time.

If its 3-on-3 OT, he usually also gets most of the 3-on-3 time too with McDavid-Draisaitl.

How many years was Brodie the team worst +/- player on the blue line too? Klefbom was quite good 3 years ago, since a shoulder surgery in 2018, he hasn't been the same player.

He gets a lot of McGravy points on the PP from just passing the puck to McDavid or Draisaitl and letting them do the rest at this point. His shot which used to be a pretty good weapon 3 years ago basically has gone to crap.

It's also not even a given Klefbom won't play next season. He has a weird shoulder issue that simply flares up and down and there's no given that surgery will help it (it may actually make it worse). Given the season is probably not starting until January, it's possible that a long period of rest will allow him to play later in the year.

 

[snipes]

EDM maybe smartest team this offseason in taking advantage of depth forwards that are dirt cheap. Oilers fan after seeing moves I hope would agree letting AA go and using cap the depth was the way to go.

Absolute no brainer. Chia would have panicked and doubled down on AA.

Holland did a fantastic job building a strong top 9.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Absolute no brainer. Chia would have panicked and doubled down on AA.

Holland did a fantastic job building a strong top 9.

I mean, Holland is why AA had that contract and even ended up following him to Detroit as he traded for him again. Weird to mock a bloke your own GM drafted, signed, then when he left, traded for.

 

[Snipes45]

Out:

Athanasiou
Benning
Sheahan
Currie
Kuffner
Starrett

In

Turris
Ennis
Kahun
Puljujarvi
Barrie
Lennstrom
Quine
Griffith
Cracknell
Forsberg

Pretty difficult to argue that the Oilers aren't much better on paper. Klefbom being injured sucks but we're hopeful Jones can step up. As a huge Klefbom fan, he really wasn't that good last year anyway.

We literally kept all of our best players and replaced the rest with a bunch of productive ones. Can't argue with that.

 

[Soundwave]

Tyson Barrie's numbers once Babcock was fired are honestly quite strong ...

+4 rating in 47 games, 56 point pace (32 points in 47 games).

Klefbom is a solid player, but he's never been as good as Barrie was even last year under Keefe. Klefbom's career best season is 38 points and a +7 rating three years ago before his shoulder surgery.

Babcock maybe did the Oilers a solid here, because if Barrie had finished the season with 56 points ... odds are he's priced too far out of what the Oilers could offer.

 

[Jerkbait]

37 points in his rookie season
Had a 50 point pace last season.

60-70 point season incoming???

50 points may be a stretch. Useless player who if he finds some NHL level chemistry with a top guy could get 50 but let's not forget he didjt find thay chemistry in Pittsburgh with malkin or sid. I watched him play alot in Pittsburgh and he was decent. Either way for the price tag this is a good signing

 

[Bevans]

Kahun's thrown 18 career hits in 138 NHL games. He may have too short a leash to really rack up the points. If he's not producing he'll drive Tippett nuts. If he is, then it's easy to forgive the lack of physicality.

Any time he slumps it'll be too tempting to slide him down for Ennis' responsible game that every coach loves.

 

[Llamamoto]

Kahun's thrown 18 career hits in 138 NHL games. He may have too short a leash to really rack up the points. If he's not producing he'll drive Tippett nuts. If he is, then it's easy to forgive the lack of physicality.

Any time he slumps it'll be too tempting to slide him down for Ennis' responsible game that every coach loves.

Physicality and defensive play are too very different things. Ennis has more energy and bite to his game, but I'd argue that Kahun is the better defensive player.

 

[Bevans]

Physicality and defensive play are too very different things. Ennis has more energy and bite to his game, but I'd argue that Kahun is the better defensive player.

I'm not calling him terrible defensively or anything. Just saying when a non-physical, low event player isn't producing it's easy to slide them down.

Probably played a factor in why he wasn't drafted despite great international numbers.

 

[TheUltimateOiler]

If Kahun doesn't have that hitting bone in his body, it isn't a big deal.
If he has the puck and loses it because of physicality or doesn't go after pucks because of physicality, it is a big deal.

 

[McDNicks17]

50 points may be a stretch. Useless player who if he finds some NHL level chemistry with a top guy could get 50 but let's not forget he didjt find thay chemistry in Pittsburgh with malkin or sid. I watched him play alot in Pittsburgh and he was decent. Either way for the price tag this is a good signing

He was on pace for 44 points in Pittsburgh. I wouldn't really call that useless especially if he wasn't getting the Sid/Malkin bump.