Rumor: Sam Gagner returning?

[BudBundy]

As a person, Gagner seems like a great person. I wish him nothing but the best. As a player, I think he is a waste of a spot on the 50-man contract list, a waste of cap space, and he would take time away from someone who could maybe develop into an asset. Honestly I don’t think he belongs on an NHL team in contention for anything without being a detriment. His skill set is already duplicated on the club by Derek Ryan, who also happens to have many of the same weakness as Sam and we simply don’t need two of them. I love Sam, but he can carry on his career elsewhere.

 

[RandomGuy79]

Fans I swear want to bring back just about every ex-Oiler. It's not even like these guys are from the glory years when we were dominant and won cups.

I wonder where Comrie, Yakupov, Arcobello, Marincin, and Korpikoski are at nowadays, maybe we can bring them back too.

 

[La Bamba]

The team obviously loves him. He's been hanging around with the players even though he hasn't even played a full season with the core outside of RNH

Gagner @ 750k as the 13/14th forward. He'd be a good guy to plug in if a middle 6 winger aka Yamo gets injured

Team camaraderie is important and it looks like Gagner adds that element

 

[TheNumber4]

Oilers Organization has always maintained that Gagner>Cogliano. Time for Gagner to prove it if he joins us on a Cup run. We know what Cogs brought to the Avs, time for Sam to prove our belief in him this whole time was right.

 

[harpoon]

wonder where Comrie, Yakupov, Arcobello, Marincin, and Korpikoski are at nowadays, maybe we can bring them back too.

Don’t see a lot of guys on your list with 1000 NHL games and 500 points. Kind of a weak point you are failing to make here.

As a person, Gagner seems like a great person. I wish him nothing but the best. As a player, I think he is a waste of a spot on the 50-man contract list, a waste of cap space, and he would take time away from someone who could maybe develop into an asset. Honestly I don’t think he belongs on an NHL team in contention for anything without being a detriment. His skill set is already duplicated on the club by Derek Ryan, who also happens to have many of the same weakness as Sam and we simply don’t need two of them. I love Sam, but he can carry on his career elsewhere.

This post is a lot more reasonable. However, 1) not a waste of cap space since he would be on a deal that could be completely buried in the AHL. 2) Take time away from someone else? Maybe. But it’s yet to be seen for sure if any of the prospect wingers are definitely NHL ready. 3) Skill set duplicated by Ryan? Probably, it’s a reasonable point.

Imo the team could do a lot worse than having Gagner on the roster for 800K if there’s a spot open. I watched the Wings a fair bit last season. Gagner had barely any PP time and a boatload of PK time. He was surprisingly pretty good on the PK imo. Skated his bag off. 13 goals with none on the PP would have been good enough for seventh on the Oilers. Ahead of Foegele, Ryan etc. He was also only -4 on a team that gave up 83 more goals than they scored. He’s not going to be an every day player, but if there’s a spot open, he’s definitely better than Shore (49 games last season), Sceviour (35 games), Benson (29 games), Perlini (23 games) and Turris (23 games). That’s a lot of junk that dressed for a combined for over 150 man games last season.

I’ll take Gags back at 750-800K all day long. Haters can pound sand.

 

[TheNumber4]

HAHAHAAHAAHAHA

Lol

 

[tiger_80]

Sam Gagner: The Return of the King

The Hobbit

Don't want Gagner on the Oilers. The guy is kinda loser. if he's on your team, your team is probably pretty shitty)))

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Oilers Organization has always maintained that Gagner>Cogliano. Time for Gagner to prove it if he joins us on a Cup run. We know what Cogs brought to the Avs, time for Sam to prove our belief in him this whole time was right.

Nah, Cogliano's been the better player their whole careers. Last playoffs didnt need to prove it. They are what they are and Gagner is not a player that will help us.

I get people like him because he was a nice guy when he was here but we're not a laughing stock anymore, we can do better.

 

[TheNumber4]

Nah, Cogliano's been the player their whole careers. Last playoffs didnt need to prove it. They are what they are and Gagner is not a player that will help us.

I get people like him because he seems like a nice guy when he was here but we're not a laughing stock anymore, we can do better.

Potential to be a Top 6 player I think Gags has always had over Cogs. There’s just more skill there. But Cogs found a better fit for his skill set, said differently, Cogs is a better bottom 6 forward than Gags is a top 6 forward, and probably by quite a margin.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Potential to be a Top 6 player I think Gags has always had over Cogs. There’s just more skill there. But Cogs found a better fit for his skill set, said differently, Cogs is a better bottom 6 forward than Gags is a top 6 forward, and probably by quite a margin.

Potential only matters until you become the player you are. That potential's best before date was 8 years ago. Gagner isn't a top-6 player, so he cant help us in the top-6. He also isn't a bottom-6 player. Thats what separates him from Cogliano and the reason why we don't need him.

 

[TheNumber4]

Potential only matters until you become the player you are. That potential's best before date was 8 years ago. Gagner isn't a top-6 player, so he cant help us in the top-6. He also isn't a bottom-6 player. Thats what separates him from Cogliano and the reason why we don't need him.

Realistically you are probably right. I’m not a huge fan of the addition, but it seems like it’s happening. So we can only hope can bring some of that skill to our bottom 6 and help it produce better than it has in our recent past.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Realistically you are probably right. I’m not a huge fan of the addition, but it seems like it’s happening. So we can only hope can bring some of that skill to our bottom 6 and help it produce better than it has in our recent past.

I think players like Gagner are what has been the core issue of whats wrong with our bottom-6 in the first place over the past several years. Just a bunch of players that we dont really know what they are or how they're going to help us.
We have the goals from the top-6 already, we dont need offensive players that arent good enough to be in the top-6.
We need to start focusing on bottom-6 players that are committed to goal suppression, forechecking, punishing the other team physically. Which of those attributes do you see in Gagner?

Bottom-6 players who actually know what their role is and not constantly cheating to try and get a few extra points so they can get a look every 10 games next to Draisaitl or McDavid.

 

[Homesick]

He's an upgrade over the other junk we threw in the bottom 6 last year.
(Brassard, Benson, Shore, Perlini, Kassian, Turris. ) and the price is rumoured to be right.
Gagner has re-invented his game at this stage of his career and accepted his role. Kills penalties and isn't a turnover machine anymore

 

[Fourier]

Its just that he's never had all that much to give … I am tired of feel good stories. I want my team to win. Gagner wasn't good enough back then, and he certainly isn't now.

Gagner was not good enough to be the team's #1C. I may be wrong but I don't think that is the role they are looking at for him now.

Gagner may simply replace Shore on the roster saving you $100K which might actually be needed to sign McLeod. But as likely this is about finding another viable option for an emergency recall. They will need player making under $900K that they can bring up in this situation or they will have to play short handed. Gagner is a plug and play vet. You can throw him in a variety of situations short term and he knows what to do. He can play all three forward positions and he can even pk. He won't need much if any practice time with the team to know his job.

 

[Fourier]

I think players like Gagner are what has been the core issue of whats wrong with our bottom-6 in the first place over the past several years. Just a bunch of players that we dont really know what they are or how they're going to help us.
We have the goals from the top-6 already, we dont need offensive players that arent good enough to be in the top-6.
We need to start focusing on bottom-6 players that are committed to goal suppression, forechecking, punishing the other team physically. Which of those attributes do you see in Gagner?

Bottom-6 players who actually know what their role is and not constantly cheating to try and get a few extra points so they can get a look every 10 games next to Draisaitl or McDavid.

Except the bolded is not Sam Gagner right now. In fact he has been exactly the opposite of what you are describing.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Except the bolded is not Sam Gagner right now. In fact he has been exactly the opposite of what you are describing.

Thats exactly what my post is saying.

 

[Fourier]

Except the bolded is not Sam Gagner right now. In fact he has been exactly the opposite of what you are describing.

Thats exactly what my post is saying.

I bolded the wrong part of your post. I have edited my post to better reflect what I meant. The present version of Gagner is not a guy who cheats for offense or needs to play in the top 6. He knows his new role and actually plays it quite well. The current version plays hard, is decent and responsible defensively and still has some skill.

No one expects him to be a big difference maker. But the current cap situation means that this team needs some players making near league minimum who can play a variety of roles in a pinch. Gagner can do that, and there are not a lot of other options who might sign for $800K or less that you can say that about.

 

[TheNumber4]

I think players like Gagner are what has been the core issue of whats wrong with our bottom-6 in the first place over the past several years. Just a bunch of players that we dont really know what they are or how they're going to help us.
We have the goals from the top-6 already, we dont need offensive players that arent good enough to be in the top-6.
We need to start focusing on bottom-6 players that are committed to goal suppression, forechecking, punishing the other team physically. Which of those attributes do you see in Gagner?

Bottom-6 players who actually know what their role is and not constantly cheating to try and get a few extra points so they can get a look every 10 games next to Draisaitl or McDavid.

I know what you are saying, having a specilized bottom 6 as energy or defensive guys is the traditional thought. But if we have 4 legit scoring lines that gets us into an elite team category. We haven’t been able to do that not cause of not having the role players, it’s cause our players plain sucked.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

I bolded the wrong part of your post. I have edited my post to better reflect what I meant. The present version of Gagner is not a guy who cheats for offense or needs to play in the top 6. He knows his new role and actually plays it quite well. The current version plays hard, is decent and responsible defensively and still has some skill.

No one expects him to be a big difference maker. But the current cap situation means that this team needs some players making near league minimum who can play a variety of roles in a pinch. Gagner can do that, and there are not a lot of other options who might sign for $800K or less that you can say that about.

The guy was 14th out of the 16 forwards on the Detroit Red Wings in on-ice expected goals (38.8%). The Wings were 47.3% with him off the ice.

16th out of the 16 forwards in one-ice expected goal differential (-27.3). The next highest was -20.

Again, this is the Detroit Red Wings. Not the Avalanche, the Panthers or the Lightning. He's not playing with elite players.

The numbers suggest the exact opposite of what you're saying.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

I know what you are saying, having a specilized bottom 6 as energy or defensive guys is the traditional thought. But if we have 4 legit scoring lines that gets us into an elite team category. We haven’t been able to do that not cause of not having the role players, it’s cause our players plain sucked.

Elite teams don't have 4 legit scoring lines though. They have role players that know their place. Thats why Colorado got Cogliano, Aube-Kubel and Sturm.

 

[MessierII]

I mean, didn’t he get around 30 points on a junk Detroit team? I think he had around a 48% goal differential as well

Getting points on a bad team isn’t necessarily a positive. Worse teams give worse players more minutes.

 

[The Nuge]

I just don't get this fanbases' obsession with old Oilers from the decade of darkness.

It's almost as if a faction of the fanbase want these guys to return so they can say they were somehow right all those years ago.

Because this fanbase should be sick of watching high end talent leave. For every Gagner or Keith that wants to come here and talks about how great everything was here, it helps the narrative of people don’t want to come to Edmonton

 

[The Nuge]

Elite teams don't have 4 legit scoring lines though. They have role players that know their place. Thats why Colorado got Cogliano, Aube-Kubel and Sturm.

You mean like having a guy who was top 5 in SH TOI last year?

 

[MessierII]

You mean like having a guy who was top 5 in SH TOI last year?

On the worst pk in the league. Gagner has never been a penalty killer until this year and the pk he played the most minutes on sucked.

 

[The Nuge]

On the worst pk in the league. Gagner has never been a penalty killer until this year and the pk he played the most minutes on sucked.

He also PKed under Krueger and was pretty good at it