Evan Bouchard will finish the season with a .ppg and 82 points, +34

[phrenssoa]

Bouchard had rough start to the year defensively but he’s been amazing since Knoblauch took over. He and Ekholm are the best defensive pairing I have seen by far as an Oilers fan.

 

[Madap]

This is a hot take honestly. Barrie is nowhere close to Bouchard. The Oilers would not have been close to as good if you swapped them.

Makar has always played with MacKinnon & Rantanen. He’s good but suggesting he doesn’t greatly benefit from high end talent is asinine.

Fox plays with Panarin. Winnipeg has some solid forwards too.

Discrediting Oilers is what people love to do on here. We’re not saying he’s the best player in the NHL. He is very good though and will get better

Sorry, definitely not this season Barrie. I meant Barrie when he was on the Oilers. That short season was really solid for Barrie offensively which he wasn’t able to repeat on the oilers or anywhere else. Stuff just goes well for you sometimes when you play with elite players.

Makar 100% benefits from them, but he’s elite every single year. I want to see another season from Bouchard like this, but I don’t think anyone would be surprised if he has a RNH like season next year. Or Nurse after the big contract. Hyman will be the same. Again not saying this isn’t a good season, but when you play with generational players it takes a lot longer to gain credibility in this league. People will attribute your success to your teams mates until you can repeat. I’ll eat my words next year if needed, I’ve got nothing against Bouchard.

People discredit Oilers because the fans always overhype them too soon and they always disappoint without fail, other than McDavid of course.

 

[Steven Toast]

What sort of context? Here is the NHL defensive leaders in goals for & against.

Obviously a GF/60 of 3.95 is astronomically good. But a GA of 2.28 is also elite. And that's against mostly elite competition.

Anyone saying Bouchard isn't at least good defensively is allowing bias to cloud judgement.

 

[Czechboy]

My 2 cents, similar to the Canucks PDO convo (they were legit getting lucky relative to what they were, but what they were was genuinely better than the previous year), I think there’s people on both sides who could meet in the middle. He’s not Tyson Barrie, but realistically he does seem to benefit from teammates


Even Oilers fans (I lurk a few teams boards) were dumping on him a ton before Ekholm got his game back. If I remember correct his analytics saw a sizable jump last year pre and post Ekholm trade as well


He’s really good and I’m not saying I dont notice him, but Q Hughes and healthy Makar, Josi always stood out to me a lot more obviously individually

100%.. all 3 of those guys are better than him. Zero argument. Those are also 3 of the absolute best Dman in the leauge... about 10 more guys and than Bouch enters the conversation around 15. But with each passing guy the argument becomes less and less compelling.
eg. no one is going to argue better than Makar. No one is going to argue better than Josi. No one is arguing better than Hughes. But keep going... those arguments start getting more heated the further down the line you go. I'd also argue Oiler fans are a bit split on who our own best D is. I think if you took a poll of Ek vs Bouch (amongst Oil fans) that it'd be around 50-50. On the mains it'd be 80-20 for Ek but that is because so many casual fans hate Bouch.lol

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Obviously a GF/60 of 3.95 is astronomically good. But a GA of 2.28 is also elite. And that's against mostly elite competition.

Anyone saying Bouchard isn't at least good defensively is allowing bias to cloud judgement.

Not sure just focusing on GA/60 to determine good/bad defensively is a good thing. Mike Green also regularly put up "good" GA/60 during his prime years when he was scoring a point per game for Washington, but no one ever accused him of being good defensively. In fact, he had the same criticisms that Bouchard does.

 

[Czechboy]

Not sure just focusing on GA/60 to determine good/bad defensively is a good thing. Mike Green also regularly put up "good" GA/60 during his prime years when he was scoring a point per game for Washington, but no one ever accused him of being good defensively. In fact, he had the same criticisms that Bouchard does.

Green is a comparable. Nominated twice for the Norris. 880GP. First round pick as well. Big shot. Had back to back .ppg seasons for Caps.

I think he would've hit 1000 GP easy but he had a lot of injuries after those back to back .ppg seasons. Injuries derailed him as he was very good!

It went to hell for him after 2009-10. Hope this doesn't happen to Bouch!

 

[Joseppi]

Evan Bouchard is world class at the things he's good at (passing, getting shots through from the point, one of the hardest and most accurate shots in the league), but he's an albatross at other things.

He's someone who will always need good players to augment his strengths and fill-in his weaknesses and by that metric he's in one of the best possible situations. In McDavid and Draisaitl he's playing with the core of one of the best powerplays ever. In Ekholm he has a mature and smart partner who makes up for a lot of his mistakes and adds a lot of toughness and intelligence in his own zone and in transition.

Bouchard is the type of guy who, if he got traded/signed to be a top pairing D in a less favorable situation he would get ventilated and the narrative here would flip 180 degrees. Both would be too extreme.

He's a luxury item with some seriously high end tools, but he's not well rounded and is very exploitable when it matters.

Personally, I'm not much of a fan.

There's a few points here that hit the nail on the head, but I'd argue that the things he fumbles are things that can be worked on, and the things he's good at can't be taught. It's the very definition of all the tools but still building the toolbox. Remember that he's the ripe old age of 24.

The one thing that sticks out watching him is you almost never see him rushing to make a play, and that lends itself to the narrative of him being lazy and lacking intensity. The lowlight clips of him look terrible because it looks like lazy plays, but that's just his style of play. It's also the kind of style that leads to a really long shelf life in the league.

 

[Steven Toast]

Not sure just focusing on GA/60 to determine good/bad defensively is a good thing. Mike Green also regularly put up "good" GA/60 during his prime years when he was scoring a point per game for Washington, but no one ever accused him of being good defensively. In fact, he had the same criticisms that Bouchard does.

Ok, please provide tangible stats that show he is poor defensively. All the models, and advanced stats, etc. show that he is at minimum average and more likely good defensively. Don't provide single highlights or eye test level analysis.

 

[ManofSteel55]

This shows how little your “eye test” means.

Unless you enjoy nurse going starfish and bleeding goals against.

The only thing nurse does better is skate and fight, and usually all his skating does is get him out of position because he’s too dumb to read the play

So your eye test is the right one?

 

[Tobias Kahun]

So your eye test is the right one?

I have stats and stuff to back up my eye test.

There’s a reason the coach is deploying Ek and Bouchard against the other teams best

 

[ManofSteel55]

I'd LOVE to see Bouchard do this.

That's an awful play by Kovalev. Not sure what your point is, but a lot of modern defensemen could do that.

 

[Oleksiak]

Ok, please provide tangible stats that show he is poor defensively. All the models, and advanced stats, etc. show that he is at minimum average and more likely good defensively. Don't provide single highlights or eye test level analysis.

The game is played on the ice, not on a spreadsheet. I don't care what excuses some analytics dweeb with zero hockey knowledge is making for him when he is obviously a complete liability in his own zone. The eye test is the only reliable way to evaluate defensive play.

 

[Steven Toast]

The game is played on the ice, not on a spreadsheet. I don't care what excuses some analytics dweeb with zero hockey knowledge is making for him when he is obviously a complete liability in his own zone. The eye test is the only reliable way to evaluate defensive play.

Please provide tangible evidence that he is bad defensively. Your say so isn't enough.

 

[Oleksiak]

Please provide tangible evidence that he is bad defensively. Your say so isn't enough.

If you watch him play and you think that kind of defence is actually acceptable, there's nothing I can say that will change your mind.

 

[Steven Toast]

If you watch him play and you think that kind of defence is actually acceptable, there's nothing I can say that will change your mind.

*There is no evidence I can provide.

 

[Breakers]

Good for him

Gonna get paid

 

[a mangy Meowth]

I sure hope the oilers are the ones to give him the contract they think he deserves lol

 

[Czechboy]

I sure hope the oilers are the ones to give him the contract they think he deserves lol

Not many Oiler fan has said anything about his value on a new contract. Just celebrating an amazing 24 year old regular season from him.

Lot of Leaf fans posting shit like 'sign him for 12 million' though.lol

 

[DJJones]

So do Ekholm and Bouchard take market value contracts? Or do they look at Nurse and say I want more than that.

 

[Czechboy]

So do Ekholm and Bouchard take market value contracts? Or do they look at Nurse and say I want more than that.

Bouch will be making 3.9 next season unless they bridge.
Ek will be making 6 mill for the next 2 seasons and then be UFA

 

[Oleksiak]

*There is no evidence I can provide.

Well I'm clearly not going to go with any of the analytics trash you seem to subscribe to because I think it's useless. There are numerous videos out there highlighting the fact that Bouchard has zero understanding of defensive positioning.

 

[Steven Toast]

Well I'm clearly not going to go with any of the analytics trash you seem to subscribe to because I think it's useless. There are numerous videos out there highlighting the fact that Bouchard has zero understanding of defensive positioning.

"I saw a couple highlights of this player and developed my opinion"

Looking at a select few clips of a player is probably the worst way to do an "evaluation". But you never post anything more than troll posts so I shouldn't expect anything else. Since you hold 10 second youtube videos as the ultimate player evaluator here is an article featuring Bouchard doing all the small defensively things correctly (and some mistakes too). Ignore those big scary numbers that are also present in the piece, just focus on the short videos that don't overwhelm your attention span.

An in-depth analysis of Evan Bouchard’s game using stats and video

 

[Oleksiak]

"I saw a couple highlights of this player and developed my opinion"

Looking at a select few clips of a player is probably the worst way to do an "evaluation". But you never post anything more than troll posts so I shouldn't expect anything else. Since you hold 10 second youtube videos as the ultimate player evaluator here is an article featuring Bouchard doing all the small defensively things correctly (and some mistakes too). Ignore those big scary numbers that are also present in the piece, just focus on the short videos that don't overwhelm your attention span.

An in-depth analysis of Evan Bouchard’s game using stats and video

I've seen multiple games of him playing at every level; at no point did he even approach an acceptable standard of defence. Watching games is obviously the best way to evaluate players, which is why teams pay scouts to do it. Bouchard has never shown an inclination to even attempt to learn how to play his position properly.

 

[Steven Toast]

I've seen multiple games of him playing at every level; at no point did he even approach an acceptable standard of defence. Watching games is obviously the best way to evaluate players, which is why teams pay scouts to do it. Bouchard has never shown an inclination to even attempt to learn how to play his position properly.

More toll level hyperbole. Please don't respond unless you have something more to provide.

 

[Cup or Bust]

Bouchard is better defensively and offensively than nurse

Whether he is better then Nurse defensively or not is neither here nor there but anyone that thinks Bouchard is actually good defensively even after watching every game is out to lunch. He is the definition of a one dimensional player, although thankfully he is great at the dimension he is good at.