1. During this past off-season, New York Islanders general manager Garth Snow added the following players to his roster: goalie Jaroslav Halak, defensemen Johnny Boychuk and Nick Leddy, and forwards Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin. Currently, the Islanders sit in first in the Metropolitan Division. Now I’m not saying that if Craig MacTavish and Snow had swapped off-season transactions the Oilers would be leading their division. What I’m saying is that MacTavish should look at what Snow was able to do and learn from it. The Oilers can’t enter the 2015-16 season with a gaping hole in their roster–as they did this season when they lacked a number two center.
2. Bruce McCurdy shared an interesting stat yesterday. During the four games that Todd Nelson has been coaching solo, the Oilers have led for 143:39, been tied for 107:29, and trailed for 0.00. No, that’s not a typo. (Update: The Oilers actually trailed for 17 minutes against Colorado.)
3. After the Oilers traded David Perron to the Penguins, one person commented on Lowetide’s blog that the Oilers basically traded Magnus Paajarvi and Ivan Barbashev (drafted with the second round pick the Oilers sent to the Blues) for a late first round pick. But I don’t agree with this logic. Perron scored 33 goals for the Oilers, and the Blues have received basically no production at the NHL level from Paajarvi. So the Oilers have a big lead in the race to win that deal.
4. The consensus around the league is that the Oilers received decent value for Perron, but fans were frustrated that the Oilers traded another good NHL player for a draft pick. The Oilers might look to trade the pick for a goalie, as Mark Spector mentions in a recent column.
5. Other than concern over the psychological well-being of the current roster, is there any other reason–other than pride–that the Oilers shouldn’t tank? Not when the prize is either Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel.
6. Should the Oilers have loaned Leon Draisaitl to Germany’s WJC team? A lot of people have expressed outrage that they didn’t–especially after Draisaitl was returned to the WHL. But do we know that Draisaitl actually wanted to play in the WJC? I’ve heard otherwise.
7. Darnell Nurse was extremely impressive in last night’s win over Russia in the gold medal game, receiving the player of the game award for Canada. I commented on Twitter that Nurse could be Chris Pronger 2.0. I didn’t mean that the two play the exact same way. What I meant was that Nurse could eventually become the number one defenseman the Oilers desperately need.
8. A translated interview with Nail Yakupov was posted recently on The Hockey Writers blog. It includes a few interesting tidbits. For example, his best friend on the Oilers is fellow Russian Nikita Nikitin.
9. With the addition of Rob Klinkhammer, the Oilers now have an all-star shutdown line. Versus the Islanders on Monday night, the Klinkhammer-Gordon-Henricks line contributed two goals.
10. Today’s random hockey card:
This Thursday (Jan. 8) will mark the twelfth anniversary of Fernando Pisani‘s debut with the Oilers. Fans of the Oilers will forever remember Pisani for this goal.
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