Quote:
Originally Posted by flylock shox
I continue to find it really interesting the impact a talent like McDavid makes to a team, particularly on an entry level contract. He basically becomes a 1 man first line, with a cascade effect down the rest of the roster.
Just for interests sake, if the Flames drafted a guy like that, their forward lines might look like:
Versteeg - McCrozky - Brouwer
Gaudreau - Monahan - Ferland
Tkachuk - Backlund - Frolik
Bennett - Jankowski - Lazar
And you get the added bonus of more easily signing players to come join your squad, so a guy like Brouwer becomes a guy like Lucic pretty easily so long as you have the cap space, or you upgrade that 4th line significantly by adding a single impact UFA or dropping one or both of the first line wingers down to the 4th line. It really is a massive shortcut to building a deep and talented team.
I think the Oilers roll through Anaheim and hopefully face the preds. That would be a tough series for them. But I'm increasingly of he view it's an Oilers - Pens final. Hopefully Sid will save us.
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It doesn't matter much FA wise, they won't be able to sign any kind of impactful free agents for a while. Adding basically 20 million to your payroll (McDavid 12 million, Draisaitl probably 7 million plus other signings) will force them to drop a large chunk of salary. Its not as easy as trading Eberle or RNH as teams don't take 6 million dollar contracts without sending major dollars back.
So the Oilers are going to have to hope that they have a steady stream of good players coming from their prospects base.
While JP improved over the span of the year, IIRC he was benched late in the season and there's no guarantee that he's going to be NHL ready for next year.
I would expect that the Oilers over the next 3 years are going to be basically Alvin, a couple of chipmonks and a whole lot of hope.