Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
Ugh, that's correct, I completely misread Eberle's game totals (I even remember thinking, why has he played so much less than Oshie?). My mistake.
But alright, that actually makes it a better comparison I think. What makes Oshie so much better defensively? I admittedly don't know a ton about Oshie's defensive game but visually it's never impressed me. Are there stats that show he's leaps and bounds better than Eberle?
I think playoff stats are irrelevant, considering Eberle has been in them all of once and Oshie has been in them all four years, that (again) is a super awful comparison because the difference in sample size. When Oshie was Eberle's age, he'd played in 6 rounds over 5 years and had a whopping 5 goals and 4 assists to show for it, not huge numbers.
EDIT: according to BehindtheNet, Eberle seemed to be better in 15/16 (they didn't have stats for 16/17). Higher Corsi, harder competition, low shooting percentage, better ability to maintain offensive zone possession. I'm obviously missing something that makes Oshie the superior defensive threat, but what is it?
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I don't get why anyone would trade for Eberle rather than take a run at one of the 10 free agents that are available for free.
Take Justin Williams. I suspect that a team can get him on a 2 year deal for around 8 million. In a world where a team takes Eberle in a trade over him and gives up significant assets (a top prospect and a pick) they would have to do the following cost benefit analysis.
1) For the next 2 years, Eberle will be a better player than Justin Williams (Williams has scored at the same rate as Eberle over the past 2 years).
2) Eberle will be a significantly better player (50% better if Williams cap hit is 4 million and Eberle's is 6 million)
3) Eberle will even be more significantly better than the calculation needed under number 2 as you will have to give up assets to acquire Eberle whereas Williams would be free. What is the value of one of your top prospects and a pick?
You can rinse and repeat that analysis with every single one of the 10 RW's who are available. For some Eberle will be demonstrably better under criteria one (he is definitely more valuable than Stafford for instance). However for each one the salary difference under criteria two will be different (Stafford probably is a lot cheaper than Radulov), but for all of them they are likely to sign for less than 6 million, which is the burden that Eberle brings to your team. And finally you would have to determine what the value of your assets are that you are giving up.
I don't think that Eberle is coming to the Flames under any circumstances, but if he were I suspect his value to the Flames is something like Stajan and a 3rd because of the boat anchor that is his contract.
There was an Oilers fan in this thread who said that Eberle was the 14th highest scoring RW in the last 3 years. Well Eberle is the 7th highest paid RW in the NHL. The 14th highest paid RW has a 5.275 million dollar cap hit. That difference is important, he vastly underperforms his cap hit, which significantly drags down his value. And that is if all you care about is offense and all defensive players are the same like in NHL 16.