So I’ve waited a few days because I feel that this topic is insane. I thought this would just blow over but it hasn’t and we find ourselves here. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is being described as soft and being thrown into trade discussions among media members and Oiler fans. People, this is insane, please stop.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is in a dangerous spot right now, he’s about to join to Jeff Petry, Ales Hemsky, Shawn Horcoff, Dustin Penner and countless others before them as players the media targets to run out of town. Unfortunately, more often than not, these absurd head callings end up happening. Notice that every player I mentioned after RNH was traded away by the Oilers.
Nuge Is Still #1:
Is Connor McDavid the best player on the Edmonton Oilers currently? Yes, I believe he is. I also believe that McDavid will be the best player in the NHL at some point during his career so that shows my expectations of him. That said, he is only 18 years old and cannot be expected to carry the Oilers’ top line. Asking him to face the toughest opponents each and every night is quite an unfair and unrealistic task right now.
Night in and night out, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins goes against the other team’s top players. We see him handle Anze Kopitar, Jonathan Toews, Joe Thornton, Henrik Sedin and players of the like. He’s handled that battle for years and each and every season he has gotten better at it. Nuge is still Edmonton’s number one and that won’t be changing for at least another season.
The Offense:
There is this perception that Nuge doesn’t score, that he’s a bust offensively. That simply could not be farther from the truth. Currently, Nuge is one pace for his fourth season of 50 or more points, solid offensive production for a young player going up against the top dogs each and every night. This is all before the age of 23!
Twitter user @AGretz pointed out on Tuesday afternoon that Nuge would be just the seventh player to accomplish that feat over the last twenty years if in fact he reached 50 points. The others? Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Toews, Anze Kopitar, Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane and Ilya Kovalchuk.
RNH isn’t producing much at five-on-five right now, but his recent seasons suggest a player who will score just fine in that regard and who will be a steady power-play producer. There is nothing wrong with his offense, he’s a top-six producer on any NHL team. He’s in a cold stretch right now and people are vastly overreacting to it.
Center Depth:
Can anyone tell me the last time that the Edmonton Oilers had center depth? I’d say it was the 2005-06 season, exactly ten years ago. It’s no coincidence that it’s also the last time the Oilers actually made the NHL’s postseason. That year, Shawn Horcoff, Mike Peca and Jarrett Stoll lined up for Edmonton at center while Marty Reasoner and Rem Murray saw fourth line duty during the season.
Edmonton, when healthy, now has Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Leon Draisaitl down the middle with Mark Letestu and Anton Lander there to provide depth. I’d argue that the top three guys this season could form the best one-two-three punch Edmonton has seen since the 1980’s.
Center depth wins folks. The Los Angeles Kings and Chicago Blackhawks have had it in spades the last few seasons and they have been trading Stanley Cups. The Anaheim Ducks, contenders every season, have it too. You need to be deep down the middle to win in this league and the Oilers are about to be deep down the middle for the first time in a decade.
Trading that depth away before even playing with it is one of the most absurd suggestions I have ever seen.
Proposed Deals:
The Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson mentioned a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins trade proposal in his column over the weekend. The main team mentioned? The Nashville Predators, with defenders Shea Weber and Seth Jones labelled as guys that would make sense for Edmonton.
Sure, getting Weber makes Edmonton a better team right now, but Weber is also over 30 years old and is at the end of his prime. In three years, he’ll be a good NHL defender but a shell of his elite self. Meanwhile, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will be a stud in the NHL. The Oilers are at least a few years away from competing so that deal makes zero sense for the Oilers.
Seth Jones makes sense from an age standpoint, he’s younger and fits in with the young core in Edmonton. That said, Jones is currently a third pairing defender for the Predators, clearly fifth on their depth chart. Yes, he has the draft pedigree and was great in juniors, but he has yet to push his way up Nashville’s depth chart. Trading your number one center for a third pairing defender doesn’t sound like great asset management.
People lost their minds over the Oilers giving up picks for Griffin Reinhart this past summer. Giving up Nuge for Seth Jones is arguably a worse version of that trade.
Last Thought:
The Edmonton Oilers are not a good hockey team. This is the reality we face right now and it sucks. The Oilers, Peter Chiarelli specifically, cannot afford to let the frustration push them to make stupid moves. Building up the middle must be the game plan for this organization. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins give you center depth that no other team in the NHL can compete with.
Trading one of those guys, the veteran and arguably best one right now, doesn’t make much sense at all. Nuge is in a cold streak folks, but let’s step away from the ledge, he’ll be fine and we’ll all laugh this off in a month.
The Oilers need a shakeup, but trading RNH isn’t the shakeup that is needed. That’s just dumb.
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