Just Who Is Benoit Pouliot

The summer of size continued for the Edmonton Oilers on July 1^st free agent frenzy day, The Oilers signed defenseman Mark Fayne, Keith Aulie and had already traded for Teddy Purcell – all players well over 6 feet. Pouliot is no different measuring in at 6’3” and weighs around 200 lbs.

Pouliot, after bouncing around a bunch of NHL teams since being drafted 4^th overall back in 2005, finally signed a long term contract on July 1^st this year with the Oilers. A team that needed to get bigger without sacrificing skill to do it (See the San Jose Sharks for that), Benoit does have some skill, setting a career high in points (36) last season with the New York Rangers. That’s not crazy but he played on the third line with the Rangers, a similar position he’ll most likely see when the Oilers start the 2014/15 season.

Pouliot was one of the best performing possession players on the Rangers last season, check out this neat article from Litter Box Cats that includes some neat information on Pouliot’s line. But were Pouliot made his money was this offseason during the Rangers unlikely run to the Stanley Cup Finals. Pouliot was a point per game guy during the run while maintaining his good corsi numbers and playing a physical style that teams have been wanting to see from him since he was drafted.

This worries me a bit as we have seen many a player perform in the second season and sign a big money big term contract only to be a disappointment though out. The optimist in me says he’s going to continue this positive development curve and be a key member of the top 9 forwards for many years, but this thought will be in the back of my mind until Pouliot proves otherwise.

That article I linked above brings about a good point when it comes to line combinations, if you look at the premise of it, they have a good possession forward along with a high shooting percentage forward and a guy that can do a bit of both. I’ve talked about having Draisaitl on a line with Purcell and Pouliot before, but apply the above ideas and what about Arcobello centering Yakupov and Pouliout, that could be a perfect combination and bring out the best in all three players.

All the talk has been about three scoring lines this season, and I wonder if finally the Oilers have the ability to put something like this together. Only time will tell, but there are some combo’s there that just might work, it’s up to Dallas Eakins to figure it out in a few weeks time.

Once again here is a video featuring Pouliot and some highlights from a few years ago, of course this is a highlight reel, but watch it. There is some amazing things in this video, Pouliot’s consistency hasn’t been there which is why he’s bounced around but if what he brought in this video and last years playoffs manages to become the norm for him, we’ve got ourselves one hell of a player.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70fcGI7NkVQ]

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