Rumor: Rumors and Proposals Thread | Reseason Training Camp Opens July 13th?

[Fourier]

For next season you have to try AA + Draisaitl together. Otherwise you carelessly spend 2nd round picks on nothing.

RNH and Yamamoto didn't make Leon, I don't buy this narrative at all. Yes they work together, but guess what ... Leon plays well with just about anyone that isn't a f***ing garbage can. He's produced well with almost every offensively talented player he's been paired with.

The only time Draisaitl has struggled here is when he was given 3rd/4th line tier garbage players who can't score 15 goals consistently.

Worshipping one line like the McDavid + Draisaitl pairing, we can see now pretty clearly was a mistake. You're actually doing a disservice to Draisaitl because really what you are saying is this -- you don't trust this player is good enough to get good results in any other situation.

If Matthews, Marner, MacKinnon, Pastranak, etc. etc. can produce on a bunch of different line combinations, Leon will too. You can't get married to one line combo and let the rest of the lineup suffer as a result.

At the time playing McDavid and Draisaitl together was the right thing to do. The team had more success than when they were apart given the other options. But things change. And I think Yamamoto has been a lot of the reason why the current combo is so much more successful. He makes that trio so much more dangerous just because of his tenacity. That is not to take anything away from either Nuge or Leon. But the combination of the three was playing at a level that was giving the Oilers an immense advantage. Franky I think it will be hard to sustain that level of performance but even with a modest drop off they would still be one of the best lines in the league.

 

[Soundwave]

It looks like you quoted my post after the edit.

What I added previously is that MacKinnon and Pastrnak have had the same linemates the majority of the last two seasons without a McDavid to anchor their 2nd line and those are top teams so why can't it work for the Oilers? In fact, as I illustrated, it has worked for the Oilers as the Yamamotoilers are the 5th highest scoring team in the league at even strength and the team was humming along at 16-7 even with the injuries to key guys and that little slump headed into the pause.

The biggest problem isn't the top two lines. It's the bottom 6 namely that big hole at #3C. Adding a #3C (would have to move some money out) would make a world of difference. Having Sheahan and Archibald on your 4th line would be one of the best in the league. Add somebody like Haula, Soderberg or hell, even somebody like Cody Eakin and you add much more versatility to your lineup. They can play AA on the 3rd line to pair with somebody who can score a bit or move him up if need be.
With the current configuration, you can always move him to the McDavid line for a test run like I said before.

MacKinnon played with like 20 different linemates this year because of injuries. Still produced.

McDavid and Draisaitl eventually are going to have accept that they can really only have one high end linemate on their line.

For McDavid it probably makes sense that is RNH in the big picture. They've played well together before and if you're paying RNH probably $7.5 million to be a winger, you probably should be playing him with your best center.

For Draisaitl I think he going to have to learn that Yamamoto is his "Robin" on the line.

The third forward on both of these lines will have to be a lower cost option.

That's simply the reality of it, otherwise you are going to have a situation where your 2nd line is massively overpriced and you have no money left to give McDavid adequate winger help.

You have to be able to inegrate Athansiou-tier players as your "third wheel" on your top six lines, players that have some skill/sizzle but aren't superstar tier players, because if they were you'd have to pay them double-triple what they're earning.

 

[Fourier]

One of the two need to work, we're not going anywhere if the two of them can only produce in very strict line combinations that you can't ever change.

Because really how is that supposed to work? RNH is going to need a raise and eventually so will Yamamoto, you don't have money then for anyone to be on McDavid's line.

They have to learn to play and produce with cheaper options like the Athansious of the world.

Sorry, but that's the reality, especially with a cap that is not rising for the next 3 years.

Because we don't have great winger depth or a clear cut option for McDavid, likely RNH has to eventually slide up to play with McDavid.

Yamamoto + Draisaitl need to then learn to maintain their chemistry and integrate another skilled but imperfect player in AA. You can't just throw away AA and think "well we'll just find someone else".

With what? Throwing away more picks? And with exactly what cap space?

The Oilers cap situation is better than it might seem. And I doubt in the current environment that RNH gets much of a raise. 8 years with a properly structured $6.5M deal I think he stays. Yamamoto may well need a bridge deal but the Oilers have contracts that they can buyout, move or see expire that should allow them to manage the cap very well over the next few years even if they added aa fairly substantial player.

 

[Soundwave]

The Oilers cap situation is better than it might seem. And I doubt in the current environment that RNH gets much of a raise. 8 years with a properly structured $6.5M deal I think he stays. Yamamoto may well need a bridge deal but the Oilers have contracts that they can buyout, move or see expire that should allow them to manage the cap very well over the next few years even if they added aa fairly substantial player.

There's still not money to casually go shopping for big money then for McDavid's line. The Oilers still have needs in the bottom 6 and need to pay D-Men and goalies too.

RNH + McDavid
Draisaitl + Yamamoto

Is the most logical bedrock for your top six lines in the long term. You can't just concentrate huge money on just one line and then leave McDavid blowing in the wind to play with two Kassian tier players forever.

And quite frankly this has been the norm for many, many great players, Mario and Wayne quite often got one really good linemate, but then had to make due with one quite frankly kinda iffy linemate or far lesser than a superstar linemate.

If you're a great player you can make that work.

 

[CycloneSweep]

MacKinnon played with like 20 different linemates this year because of injuries. Still produced.

McDavid and Draisaitl eventually are going to have accept that they can really only have one high end linemate on their line.

For McDavid it probably makes sense that is RNH in the big picture. They've played well together before and if you're paying RNH probably $7.5 million to be a winger, you probably should be playing him with your best center.

For Draisaitl I think he going to have to learn that Yamamoto is his "Robin" on the line.

The third forward on both of these lines will have to be a lower cost option.

That's simply the reality of it, otherwise you are going to have a situation where your 2nd line is massively overpriced and you have no money left to give McDavid adequate winger help.

But why so you have to split up that line and just deal with a "lower cost" on both. Why not have one like be one of the best in the league and one line be good. Breaking that up gives you 2 good lines.

Boston has 1 great line and their second line is good

Pittsburgh has 1 great line and Malkin and friends

Washington has one great line and one good line.

If you have one of the best lines in the league you leave that together until it hurts the team. Let McDavid work with the extra like he has in the past. Let Draisaitls line dominate unless it starts causes issues. Trying to balance your top 6 lines is fine, but you don't break up one of the most dominate lines in hockey when you STILL have McDavid on a seperate line. It's nonsensical

 

[CupofOil]

MacKinnon played with like 20 different linemates this year because of injuries. Still produced.

McDavid and Draisaitl eventually are going to have accept that they can really only have one high end linemate on their line.

For McDavid it probably makes sense that is RNH in the big picture. They've played well together before and if you're paying RNH probably $7.5 million to be a winger, you probably should be playing him with your best center.

For Draisaitl I think he going to have to learn that Yamamoto is his "Robin" on the line.

The third forward on both of these lines will have to be a lower cost option.

That's simply the reality of it, otherwise you are going to have a situation where your 2nd line is massively overpriced and you have no money left to give McDavid adequate winger help.

You're missing the point. The point is that the Bruins and Avs have had success with one dominant scoring line without the benefit of a McDavid to prop up the leftover wingers.

My other point is that you don't have to have a high end winger on each top 6 line with McDavid on the team. He just needs guys with any semblance of skill to play off of him. Kassian has enough skill to hang with him and you can plug in any halfway decent option on the other wing and that line will still produce enough because McDavid is the best driver in the league.

The reality is that the Oilers top 6 was scoring at a high level at even strength with the Yamamoto inclusion. There's no reason to break up one of the best lines in the league just for the hell of it because of this notion that McDavid has to have a high end player on his line.
The biggest problem, with Yamamoto's emergence, is the 3rd line now. Getting that #3C should be the main objective this offseason, if feasible.
They have options to try on McDavid's wing with Ennis (if re-signed), AA and even Neal for short spurts. Hell, maybe even Benson is ready next season (you never know).

 

[CycloneSweep]

MacKinnon played with like 20 different linemates this year because of injuries. Still produced.

McDavid and Draisaitl eventually are going to have accept that they can really only have one high end linemate on their line.

For McDavid it probably makes sense that is RNH in the big picture. They've played well together before and if you're paying RNH probably $7.5 million to be a winger, you probably should be playing him with your best center.

For Draisaitl I think he going to have to learn that Yamamoto is his "Robin" on the line.

The third forward on both of these lines will have to be a lower cost option.

That's simply the reality of it, otherwise you are going to have a situation where your 2nd line is massively overpriced and you have no money left to give McDavid adequate winger help.

You have to be able to inegrate Athansiou-tier players as your "third wheel" on your top six lines, players that have some skill/sizzle but aren't superstar tier players, because if they were you'd have to pay them double-triple what they're earning.

You do realize that Yamamoto is that Athanasiou type player on the second line right? You are talking like Yamamoto is some heavily proven superstar guy. Yamamoto is the lower cost third wheel on that line until proven he can sustain his level of play

 

[Soundwave]

But why so you have to split up that line and just deal with a "lower cost" on both. Why not have one like be one of the best in the league and one line be good. Breaking that up gives you 2 good lines.

Boston has 1 great line and their second line is good

Pittsburgh has 1 great line and Malkin and friends

Washington has one great line and one good line.

If you have one of the best lines in the league you leave that together until it hurts the team. Let McDavid work with the extra like he has in the past. Let Draisaitls line dominate unless it starts causes issues. Trying to balance your top 6 lines is fine, but you don't break up one of the most dominate lines in hockey when you STILL have McDavid on a seperate line. It's nonsensical

Don't break up a line because it's hot did hurt the team.

We should have tried Strome + McDavid, why didn't we? Because Todd was too scared to let go of the McDavid + Draisaitl security blanket.

Even last year, Tippett came dangerously close to falling into the same trap, he only split McDavid and Draisaitl up in December when it was laughably obvious both were completely ignoring any of his defensive game plan because they had no faith in any of the other lines to ever score.

Leon wasn't even trying to play defence at one point for like a solid month straight. They were tuning out the coach entirely.

The Oilers season probably would have gone into the toilet until he took a risk and split them apart. But it basically took Draisaitl being something incredibly awful like -25 for the Oilers to finally make a change ... that is indicative of incredible stubborness in this organization.

 

[Fourier]

There's still not money to casually go shopping for big money then for McDavid's line. The Oilers still have needs in the bottom 6 and need to pay D-Men and goalies too.

RNH + McDavid
Draisaitl + Yamamoto

Is the most logical bedrock for your top six lines in the long term. You can't just concentrate huge money on just one line and then leave McDavid blowing in the wind to play with two Kassian tier players forever.

And quite frankly this has been the norm for many, many great players, Mario and Wayne quite often got one really good linemate, but then had to make due with one quite frankly kinda iffy linemate or far lesser than a superstar linemate.

If you're a great player you can make that work.

I can find you money for a guy like Hall at $7M for example by simply buying out Neal and trading Russell. Now he may not sign that but it shows the flexibility is there.

 

[CycloneSweep]

Don't break up a line because it's hot did hurt the team.

We should have tried Strome + McDavid, why didn't we? Because Todd was too scared to let go of the McDavid + Draisaitl security blanket.

Even last year, Tippett came dangerously close to falling into the same trap, he only split McDavid and Draisaitl up in December when it was laughably obvious both were completely ignoring any of his defensive game plan because they had no faith in any of the other lines to ever score.

Leon wasn't even trying to play defence at one point for like a solid month straight. They were tuning out the coach entirely.

The Oilers season probably would have gone into the toilet until he took a risk and split them apart.

I've touched on that. Not breaking apart Draisaitl and McDavid hurt the team because we didn't have a guy to drive the second line. If we had a second damn McDavid there would of been no need to breakup the Draisaitl line.

Also McDavid+ whatever was actually generating good points with Draisaitls line together, so your point is moot

Also we weren't breaking them apart when they started not to work. I have no issue with breaking up the Drai line, if it start to no longer work and hurt the team. You don't just break them up and go "you guys can't play together because one day you might not play well together"

 

[Soundwave]

I can find you money for a guy like Hall at $7M for example by simply buying out Neal and trading Russell. Now he may not sign that but it shows the flexibility is there.

Where do you "find" $7 million? Santa Claus is bringing it? We already gave up 2 2nd round picks, how many more are lying around?

 

[Soundwave]

The Oilers have about $10 million in cap space for next year, but you have to give Bear a raise (lets say $2.5-$3 million) and you need a good back up/1B goalie, so probably another $2 million there.

Then you also need a better 3C option, so probably $2 million there. Then you can qualify AA or press your luck and think you can find someone better for 3 million dollars (good luck).

The Oilers are not in cap trouble, but they also don't have tons of money just lying around to go now find wingers for McDavid.

You have to make players like AA work, you need guys who are in that 3-4 million salary range that can provide 20-ish goals and some speed/skill.

 

[Soli]

***

- No more conditional picks based on players re-signing

- 35+ year old players can retire with no cap penalty

- NTC/NMC travel with contract, teams do not have option to void anymore.

- Year-by-year variability: six-year contracts that are front-loaded and worth at least 7.5 per cent of the cap cannot exceed 35 per cent between the highest and lowest salary amounts. Rules for other contracts remain the same

- The minimum salary will rise to $750,000 next season and reach $800,000 by the end of this deal.

***

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

***

- No more conditional picks based on players re-signing

- 35+ year old players can retire with no cap penalty

- NTC/NMC travel with contract, teams do not have option to void anymore.

- Year-by-year variability: six-year contracts that are front-loaded and worth at least 7.5 per cent of the cap cannot exceed 35 per cent between the highest and lowest salary amounts. Rules for other contracts remain the same

- The minimum salary will rise to $750,000 next season and reach $800,000 by the end of this deal.

***

Going to be a lot of back loaded contracts.

 

[CycloneSweep]

***

- No more conditional picks based on players re-signing

- 35+ year old players can retire with no cap penalty

- NTC/NMC travel with contract, teams do not have option to void anymore.

- Year-by-year variability: six-year contracts that are front-loaded and worth at least 7.5 per cent of the cap cannot exceed 35 per cent between the highest and lowest salary amounts. Rules for other contracts remain the same

- The minimum salary will rise to $750,000 next season and reach $800,000 by the end of this deal.

***

The 35+ year olds retiring with no cap penalty will get abused. Sign Marleau to a 5 year deal aav 1 year, he knows he is retiring, you still pay him the 5 mill.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

The 35+ year olds retiring with no cap penalty will get abused. Sign Marleau to a 5 year deal aav 1 year, he knows he is retiring, you still pay him the 5 mill.

I don’t think so. Teams will be so tight to the cap for the foreseeable future.

 

[CycloneSweep]

I don’t think so. Teams will be so tight to the cap for the foreseeable future.

Yeah. But they said there is no cap penalty, it would just be dollar amounts

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Yeah. But they said there is no cap penalty, it would just be dollar amounts

If a team wants to front load a 35 year old contract they still need the cap space to do it.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Yeah. But they said there is no cap penalty, it would just be dollar amounts

Also If a player retires he doesn’t get the remainder of his contract.

 

[ChaoticOrange]

I like the "no conditional picks based on players re-signing" rule. Hopefully that brings around the end of some of the stupid proposals on the trade board.

 

[McShogun99]

I can find you money for a guy like Hall at $7M for example by simply buying out Neal and trading Russell. Now he may not sign that but it shows the flexibility is there.

I'd rather keep Neal for a year then make Seattle a deal to select him. Our best options for clearing some cap would be to trade Russel and Chaisson without taking salary back (Russel will only be owed 1.5 million real dollars), don't qualify Benning. In a perfect world that would give us an extra 8,050,000. Total cap space would be 18.2 million.

Backup goalie-1.5
Bear (bridge)- ??? I'm guessing 2 years, 2.5. He has no leverage and has only played 1 season.
AA- 3.3
Callup Bouchard and Lagesson- 1.65
Callup Benson- 800k
Sign Gagner- 750k
Qualify JP- 1,000,000
Nygard from LTIR- 875k

After that we would have approximately 5.825 in cap space. Not enough for a big name UFA but enough for a quality 3C with some money to spare.

Next years roster;
RNH-Mcdavid-Kassian
AA-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Neal-Haas-JP
Nygard-Khaira-Archibald
Gagner, Benson

Klefbom-Larsson
Nurse-Bear
Jones-Bouchard
Lagesson

Koskinen
???

 

[McTonyBrar]

I'd rather keep Neal for a year then make Seattle a deal to select him. Our best options for clearing some cap would be to trade Russel and Chaisson without taking salary back (Russel will only be owed 1.5 million real dollars), don't qualify Benning. In a perfect world that would give us an extra 8,050,000. Total cap space would be 18.2 million.

Backup goalie-1.5
Bear (bridge)- ??? I'm guessing 2 years, 2.5. He has no leverage and has only played 1 season.
AA- 3.3
Callup Bouchard and Lagesson- 1.65
Callup Benson- 800k
Sign Gagner- 750k
Qualify JP- 1,000,000
Nygard from LTIR- 875k

After that we would have approximately 5.825 in cap space. Not enough for a big name UFA but enough for a quality 3C with some money to spare.

Next years roster;
RNH-Mcdavid-Kassian
AA-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Neal-Haas-JP
Nygard-Khaira-Archibald
Gagner, Benson

Klefbom-Larsson
Nurse-Bear
Jones-Bouchard
Lagesson

Koskinen
???

Sheahan and Smith are returning trust me.

 

[Fourier]

Where do you "find" $7 million? Santa Claus is bringing it? We already gave up 2 2nd round picks, how many more are lying around?

This roster has about $300K in room. It was obtained by buying out Neal and sending Russell and a in 2021 to Ottawa for Mike Reilly with $300K retained. If you need more room you have Green and Chiasson to play with. Bear's deal is a two year bridge.

In 2021-2022 you have Green and Chaisson's deals off the books as well as $2.3M in buyouts. That gives you about $4.5M for Nuge, Larsson and short Yamamoto bridge. My guess is that Calgary buys out Lucic adding another $500K.

Now I am nit saying this is going to happen or even that it should. But it's not the case that the team cannot make any significant moves simply because of the cap.

Hall, Taylor $7,000,000 LW, C UFA	McDavid, Connor $12,500,000 C UFA - 6	Kassian, Zack $3,200,000 RW UFA - 4
Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan $6,000,000 C, LW UFA - 1	Draisaitl, Leon $8,500,000 C, LW, RW UFA - 5	Yamamoto, Kailer $894,166 RW, C RFA - 1
Ennis, Tyler $900,000 C, LW, RW UFA	Athanasiou, Andreas $3,000,000 C, LW, RW RFA	Chiasson, Alex $2,150,000 RW UFA - 1
Nygård, Joakim $875,000 LW UFA - 1	Haas, Gaëtan $915,000 C UFA - 1	Archibald, Josh $1,500,000 RW UFA - 2
Khaira, Jujhar $1,200,000 C, LW RFA - 1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Left Defense	Right Defense	Goaltender
Klefbom, Oscar $4,167,000 LD UFA - 3	Larsson, Adam $4,166,666 RD UFA - 1	Koskinen, Mikko $4,500,000 G M-NTC UFA - 2
Nurse, Darnell $5,600,000 LD UFA - 2	Bear, Ethan $2,200,000 RD RFA	Smith, Mike $1,500,000 G UFA
Jones, Caleb $850,000 LD RFA - 2	Bouchard, Evan $894,167 RD RFA - 2
Green, Mike $1,800,000 RD UFA

[TBODY] [/TBODY]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Soundwave]

I think buying out Neal is a non-starter, that's way too long of a salary penalty (6 years into the future) to put onto the cap.