Oilers young forwards not talented?

[draftlottery]

Craig Simpson mentioned - yet again if you've heard him on Oilers Now - during tonight's broadcast that the Oilers are always mentioned as a team with a lot of high end offensive talent yet the offensive numbers don't back it up. They used the Oilers team GF ranked at 26th in the league as evidence to support the argument. This point of view seems to be popping up more frequently in the media as the stench of losing stains the Oilers young forwards.

Of course team GF completely ignores the contributions of the defence to goal scoring but I thought I would do some research and compare the Oilers offensive production from it's top 10 forwards to that of the top two GF teams in the league, Dallas and Washington.

Dallas has 204 GF from it's top 10 goal scoring forwards.
Washington has 207 GF from it's top 10 goal scoring forwards.
Edmonton has 150 GF from it's top 10 goal scoring forwards.

Big difference. Until you look at games played.

Dallas' top 10 goal scoring forwards played 781 games or on average 78.1 games per player.
Washington's top 10 goal scoring forwards played 740 games or on average 74 games per player.
Edmonton's top 10 goal scoring forwards played only 651 games or on average 65.1 games per player.

So I decided, what if you pro-rate the Oilers' top goal scoring forwards whom missed the most games to 78 GP? Here are the pro-rated goal scoring numbers:

Draisaitl = 21
McDavid = 28
Eberle = 28
Pouliot = 20
RNH = 20
Yak = 10

That's an increase of 29 GF over their actual goal totals. Add those 29 goals to the Oilers 196 and you hit 225 GF, good enough for 11th in the league.

That's 11th with the fewest goals scored from the defence in the league. In fact both Dallas and Washington had roughly 10 more goals from their D than the Oilers. Add 10 more GF to the 225 and the Oilers are 6th in the league.

Indeed Craig Simpson, the Oilers forward group lacks offensive skill.

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[Jumptheshark]

i hate the "pro-rated" stat.....theory vs reality

 

[Mr Positive]

Craig Simpson doesn't have time to watch the games. The newspaper will have to do

But I kind of support his super-critical approach just so long as other GMs we trade with don't agree with him

 

[Bryanbryoil]

No offense from the D, we need a healthy Klef and a player even better than him offensively. After that we need guys to be dialed in and healthy all season.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

I mean they don't really work that hard.

Will always beats skill.

 

[Tarus]

Heard that argument from Simpson as well. He's clearly oblivious to the void that is the oilers defensive corps when it comes to offense, which is no surprise considering he was probably watching his second Oiler game of the season.

Dallas and Washington forwards get significantly more support. Talent forwards without support are easy to isolate and shut down, which we've seen all season.

 

[Aceboogie]

Im starting to really get sick of commentors on any program. There is just such a lack of research/ insight. Ok, blanket statement about offense, cool. But dig into it more. Dp research about the PP, injuries, even strength scoring

I think new wave of commentors coming in have this insight, but a majority of the older guys dont do it for me

 

[hallhopkinseberle]

We need another 40 point dman, and a another 20-30 point dman to this roster.

Klefbom I think could get 40 next season though.

 

[Mc5RingsAndABeer]

Defensemen matter for offensive production. Fourier had a great post that I'll put here once I'm on a computer.

 

[Mr Positive]

I mean they don't really work that hard.

Will always beats skill.

That does seem to be an issue at times, but I imagine that those problems will evaporate if we fix the team on paper. Players have more willpower and confidence when the team is functioning better. On a bad team your screw ups are all under a magnifying glass because the rest of the team can't bail you out. Then you are gripping your stick tighter and questioning yourself all the time. There are many examples of this. One I recall recently was Minnesota before getting Dubnyk. Their D was great on paper but their goalies were not cutting it. It didn't take long for the quality of play to deteriorate, and part of that even was perceived laziness and a lot of bad habits creeping in. They got a competent goalie and within a few games they started a long stretch of winning.

Nothing breeds success like success. We just have to get the ball rolling and this issue and many other issues will diminish greatly.

 

[Hynh]

The gap between the average of the top 10 forwards and the average of the top 10 defencemen was 50 points in 1995-96, when the goals per game per team were 3.14. Now it is only 20 points with 2.71 goals per game per team with the decline of the forwards far outstripping the decline of the defencemen.

The playoff team with the lowest leader on the blue line was Detroit (Mike Green's 35). To compare their top 6 scorers to the Oilers top 6 scorers

35 vs 30
26 vs 12
20 vs 11
15 vs 10 (Schultz)
15 vs 10
11 vs 7

126 total vs 80 total, more than 1.5 times as many points.

 

[The Perfect Human*]

Baiscally it's a combination of the young fwds being A) overrated B) not ever having good top 6 veteran fwd to mentor them along to develop properly and C) the mediocre to poor offensive talent on defence.

but ya as of now they are not as talented as their namesake and "pedigree" would suggest. things have to change. we do not want mcdavid (and even drai) to walk down a similar path where he does not reach his full potential. that would be embarrassing for the org.