Making The Grade…The 3 Amigos: Grebs/Potter/Larsen

The newest edition in our making the grade series, I am doing these 3 together as they all haven’t played a whole heck of a lot of games.

Making The Grade… Denis Grebeshkov

Grebeshkov in his short stint this year with the Oilers, hasn’t had much of a chance to establish himself in the room. It appears he hasn’t made quite the effort to do so either though, maybe its cause he’s not sure if he’s going to be in AHL or NHL? He hasn’t had much time, but he has been great with Belov and Yak and helping them along their journey through the NHL, showing them the ropes and such

His offence has been non-existent since he came here, he even had chances on the power play the last 2 games to try to get something going, but he seems overwhelmed with that kind of pressure. He is a great skater who has the ability to move the puck well and potential to create some offence, but in the games he’s played, he just hasn’t been able to step up. He hasn’t even stepped up in the AHL. He needs to start making smarter decisions and more calculated risks, if he wants to actually chip in offensively and be of use to this team.

His defence hasn’t been atrocious, but it hasn’t been great. Like his offensive play, he seems to be overwhelmed with the work load and the pace. He has his moments where he looks like the Grebeshkov we used to have, and then he looks like he belongs int the minors. It’s hard to judge his play with such a little sample size, but he hasn’t done himself much favours in this short time.

Overall Grade=C

Corey Potter

I have seen a lot of hate on Corey Potter as of late, he’s only played 6 games with us and he hasn’t looked awful. He has looked fairly comfortable with just playing 14 minutes a game. He appeared to be not forcing plays and playing just simple basic hockey, which was limiting his mistakes. I tend not to look at plus minus as a measurement, but Potter all throughout his AHL career was a plus player, and even last year with the Oilers playing alongside the horrific Ryan Whitney he was still a +8. Everyone rags on him for such poor play, but I believe its cause when he makes his mistakes, it’s a crucial one to cost us a goal or its the odd stupid penalty by him. I’ll compare it to Tony Romo in the NFL, has one of the best 4th quarter QB ratings ever in the NFL, yet his mistakes are put under the microscope because they have been crucial. It’s not like Potter is constantly making mistakes, and taking bad penalties to put the team in a bad situation, he is playing a quiet underrated game this year for us. I myself haven’t had any complaints about his game, he has made a few turnovers but, who hasn’t? He is still playing sound in enough our own zone to stay on the plus side, especially with a team who has been horrendous on the defensive. He has simplified his game, and I can see the benefit in that for him, his offensive numbers don’t show it but he has made some great, smart, simple plays to progress the forwards up the ice.
Overall Grade= B-

Phillip Larsen

Larsens, offensive game has been stellar this year he can really jumpstart an offence. It was evident this year in the 8 games he’s played for the Oilers before sustaining his injury. He is a smooth skating defenseman, who always has his head up and is looking for every opportunity to create offence. He has a good sense when to jump into the play, and when not to. With his gifted offensive mind, comes the defensive consequences when he leaves his defensive assignment to create that big play, turning into odd man rushes going the other way. He doesn’t have the greatest puck handling skills for an offensive defenseman, but like guys like Ian White, Kimmo Timonen, Matt Carle, who all have the ability to get pucks through to the net whether it be 5 on 5 or on the power play. To me that is a very underrated skill in this league, so many guys in this league have rockets or cannons for shots, but the real skill lies within getting the puck to the net. Larsen holds that skill, and he just needs to fine tune it a bit. He can get caught running or gets caught looking in his own zone causing him to lose focus on the play and losing his coverage and assignment in his own zone. He is a one-dimensional D men, and really needs to work on D zone play and simplifying his defensive game and I believe if he does that, he will be an effective blue liner for this team.
Overall Grade=B-

Thanks for reading, tell me if you think my grades were spot in such a short time or way off , hit me up at twitter @madi39