There's a thread in the Polls section where I said even without McDavid, I wouldn't trade the Oilers' prospects for the Jets'.
Found out pretty quickly how defensive/passionate the Jets fans are here.
Although they're doing a piss-poor job of trying to convince me I'm out of my mind.
1) The Oilers clearly have more/better defense prospects, which will be more important for this team down the road. Jets fans keep telling me they have so many decent forward prospects, but ignore the defense, which is silly.That's the craziest thing I've read on this site in a while. I'm an Oilers fan first and foremost but I also closely follow the Jets so I'm more familiar with both prospect pools than just about anyone on this site.
The Jets have five first-rounders in the system, and they all have first line / top pairing potential (except maybe Armia). Not to mention Petan and Hellebuyck, who are two later-round picks with star potential.
They also have a ton of quality depth pieces in Harkins, Copp, Comrie, Kostalek, Lemieux, De Leo, Spacek, etc..
The Oilers have Draisaitl and Nurse, then a bunch of depth pieces, none of whom are looking like potential top-six forwards or top-pairing D-men.
There's a thread in the Polls section where I said even without McDavid, I wouldn't trade the Oilers' prospects for the Jets'.
Found out pretty quickly how defensive/passionate the Jets fans are here.
Although they're doing a piss-poor job of trying to convince me I'm out of my mind.
Caleb Jones with a goal and assist at the US World Junior Evaluation Camp scrimmage. A couple positive mentions from Pronman too. He'll be playing Lagesson and the Swedes tomorrow.
Jones got boarded late in a 10-3 blowout for Finland. He got up and skated off on his own power.
Cuts are suppose to come tonight. I think Caleb has a decent shot at making the team. Hanifin and Werenski are locks, and assuming they want to take an equal amount of righties & lefties, Jones is duking it out with Chad Krys and Jake Walman IMO.
Jones got boarded late in a 10-3 blowout for Finland. He got up and skated off on his own power.
Cuts are suppose to come tonight. I think Caleb has a decent shot at making the team. Hanifin and Werenski are locks, and assuming they want to take an equal amount of righties & lefties, Jones is duking it out with Chad Krys and Jake Walman IMO.
Hanifin left school so I expect he believes he will make the NHL. The question would be, do they him go?
John Marino's USHL rights have been traded from Chicago to Tri-City.
Is there a reason why he's skipping out on Harvard?
The Tri-City he's going to is a USHL team, not the WHL team, which means he keeps his NCAA eligibility and will go there after his season for Tri-City.
No, I know that. Just wondering why he's going to the USHL next season instead of going to Harvard.
John Marino's USHL rights have been traded from Chicago to Tri-City.
I think that's solid. Let's us not have to sign him till 1 more year (5 years max now). We got plenty of LHD prospects we need to find ice time for, even 3 years down the road
So according to Darnell Nurse today, he's up to 218 pounds and feels stronger and faster than he's ever been.
With that combination of size, skating ability and his hyper-competitive nature, I'm betting that he's going to make things very interesting at camp.
I know the reasonable, long term view would be to send him to the AHL for at least part of the year...but at the same time the Oilers probably feel an obligation to their fans to ice the best team they possibly can to start the season. If Nurse comes into camp and is CLEARLY better than veterans like Nikitin and Ference, can they afford to keep that superior asset off the opening night roster?
Personally I'm fine if he makes the team out of camp, but he has to be one of the top 4-5 guys in camp to justify it.
I fully expect him to force his way onto the team. If Reinhart and Nurse badly outplay Ference and Nikitin is there a reason that we shouldn't waive Nikitin and keep Ference as the #7D?
Klefbom-Sekera
Nurse-Schultz
Reinhart-Gryba
Ference
Yes, if you mean outplay at training camp/exhibition games. If they badly outplay vets getting up to speed while going against exhibition competition it isn't anything more than a good sign of things to come. They could easily fall flat once the regular season gets going and then you have the drama of having sat your captain for the first eight games or so.
I think we're stuck with Ference being in the lineup as long as he's on the team... it's just a strange, strange dynamic to have your captain there but not in the lineup. Ideally we find a way to cut him loose and worst-case scenario waive him, but having him around the team but unable to play his way into the lineup seems like trouble.
Now when it comes to Nikitin, he's not a sure thing at all (remember, Fayne's on the team too!), so you've got Nurse, Gryba, Nikitin and Reinhart all playing for one spot. Really makes me wish that Ference's contract ended at the end of this year
Then waive him. I'm all for his spot being taken by a guy like Nurse who looks pretty ready or any of our other D prospects that can step in, but Ference is in terrific shape for his age and just isn't very good. Sitting him isn't going to motivate him to play harder.That's a loser mentality that this org needs to shake. If the captain isn't capable of playing anymore then he needs to sit. Earn your keep or sit on the bench. He is not a Chia guy (Chia let him walk) and McLellan didn't name him captain so there really are less ties than if MacT and Eakins were calling the shots.