Will Acton On Line Four?

This past season, Oiler fans were introduced to Will Acton, a long time Maple Leafs farmhand that joined his father, associate coach Keith Acton, and his former head coach, Dallas Eakins in Edmonton. Acton played in 30 games for the Oilers, his first 30 NHL contests, and recorded five points playing in mainly a fourth line role.

The Oilers are still weak at center, and while ideally they play RNH on line one, Leon Draisaitl on line three, Boyd Gordon on line four and someone on line two (Arcobello or an add), that likely won’t happen. Edmonton will likely need to ride Boyd Gordon more than it intended coming into the off-season, and might need someone to take that fourth line center role.

Could Will Acton, who was signed by the current GM, has a history with the coach, and knows the system, be an option for the Oilers this season in the bottom six? It’s not as far-fetched as some might think.

The Situation:

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will center the top-line, we know that for certain. The Oilers ideally wanted to role three scoring lines and a tough-assignments fourth line, the Chicago lineup model if you will. Ideally, Boyd Gordon was slated to center the tough-assignments line, while Mark Arcobello and Leon Draisaitl fought for the soft-minutes third line and a veteran, like Olli Jokinen, would handle the second line.

Edmonton struck out on Jokinen, and then David Legwand, and then Mike Ribeiro and Derek Roy. That leaves the Oilers with Mark Arcobello and Leon Draisaitl for the second and third lines, a far from ideal situation. Arcobello looked good in about half a season last year, but only has 42 pro games under his belt, while the big German is a greenhorn drafted just over a month ago.

Our friend Lowetide has mentioned that this likely means that Gordon, the defensive veteran, will need to play more minutes and will likely end up on the third line.

That would push Draisaitl/Arco’s scoring line up to the second unit, and would leave that tough-assignments line without a center. That’s where Acton, a defense first forward, would step in.

The situation is kind of a mess, and it could be avoided a few different ways. One is Edmonton sticks to their guns and puts Arcobello on line two and Draisaitl on line three, and another is Edmonton makes a deal for a center to play on the second line. The third option is that shuffled up roster I spent the last few paragraphs explaining.

The Player:

Acton is far from perfect, but if Edmonton needs a defensive forward to replace Gordon than Acton might be next in line. He played in 30 games last year for Edmonton, and played on the fourth line in the role that is being questioned. Now, the Oilers didn’t deploy their fourth line in a defensive zone hell last year, but still, it wasn’t overly easy pickings.

Acton is only 27 years old, and still has some miles left in the tank, so if he does take the role and run with it he could be a longer term solution, although that seems highly unlikely. He’s got decent size too, clocking in at 6’2” and 199 pounds. He’s willing to throw his body around as well, and isn’t afraid to muck it up.

Acton’s not exactly an offensive dynamo, as he posted only five points in 30 games last year, with three of those being goals. Acton really wasn’t an offensive presence for Edmonton, and rarely even applied pressure on the opponent. That was a problem within itself last year for the club’s fourth line.

Possession wise and advanced stats wise, Acton is no angel either. He posted a 39.3% Corsi For, one of the worst on the team and likely one of the worst in the NHL last season. He played with Luke Gazdic, which would hurt anyone’s numbers, but even the big enforcer was better than Acton, who posted a CorsiRel of -8%, a terrible margin that most AHL players could replace.

Acton is a hard working player, and tries to take care of his own end first. In the AHL, he is a solid and responsible defensive forward, but in the NHL he did not look good as a role player for Edmonton. The Corsi numbers suggest he was one of the worst Oilers last year, and the eye test would agree. On top of that, he provides no offense and rarely even applied pressure on the opponent.

It was a bad showing for Acton, and although he looked good in the AHL following his disaster of an NHL start, it’s hard to imagine him being a solid contributor on a fourth line that focuses on tough-assignments.

The Overview:

Will Acton is a solid role player for the Oklahoma City Barons, but is far from an ideal option for an NHL team. If Edmonton fails to add another center between now and training camp, and the Oilers decide that Boyd Gordon’s role is going to expand beyond that fourth line role, then Acton has a shot at the roster. He won the job last year, and very well could do it again.

In fact, I’m willing to bet that we see Acton in Edmonton again this season at some point, but only as a call-up for a hand full of games. Fact of the matter is, Anton Lander is ahead of Acton in the call-up department, and I believe that Edmonton will attempt to role three scoring lines with the centers they currently have.

The lineup has some confusing possibilities, and one of them is Will Acton sliding back into the NHL on the 4th line. I doubt it happens, but stranger things have happened with this club.

If anything, this just shows how important it is for Edmonton to snag another center at some point this off-season.