In the end I think both sides are kind of saying the same thing so not sure of the argument.
The Oilers best chance at a cup is this upcoming 24-25 season (really it was probably last season but let's ignore that for a second), it's the last season with Drai, McDavid, Bouchard, and Skinner all on their "value" deals.
The Oilers second best chance at a cup is next season in 25-26, they will have a cap crunch, but at least McDavid, Ekholm, and Skinner will still be on their value deals. Won't be nearly as good a shot as 24-25, but still a chance.
Then after that it will be tough, you'll be paying $50M for 4 players and the cap isn't going to raise fast enough to make up for it. And even if you can re-sign McDavid you are going to have to find replacements for Ekholm, Henrique, Arvidsson, Kane, Kulak with absolutely no real prospects or players under 24 in your system right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InternationalVillager
This board is overrating the loss of Foegele and McLeod to a great degree. Yes- they were good defensive players for them. Yes they helped the PK.
Arvidsson is a whole level better than either player. With Savoie coming into the mix, they actually have an elite prospect that is going to be cost controlled for the next few years. If we had him in our system, the same people would be ecstatic.
I know this is the Oilers but this isnt the E=NG thread. Try to remain objective.
This loss of these two bottom 6 players is extremely overblown.
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Savoie will be good and is a good get, but offense isn't what this team lacks and they really didn't even leave a top 9 spot open for him. Also he won't get a sniff of the PP which is going to be tough for a young player. I actually wouldn't be shocked if he's flipped for a d-man before the end of the season.
And in terms of what they lost it's way deeper than what you list - look at their playoff roster and they lost a lot.
McLeod, Holloway, Foegele, Ceci, Desharnais, Broberg. The backend especially took a decent hit, because even though those guys aren't amazing, they never really replaced them. Oilers did add some good forwards in Skinner and Arvidsson but they are both old and aren't really proven in the playoffs.
Oilers only had 8 skaters who were under 28 years old skate in the playoffs last season, they lost 5 of them, only keeping McDavid, Draisaitl, and Bouchard.
In the end though the Oilers have a chance to win a cup as long as McDavid is there - really even last season the entire playoff run was just McDavid and special teams dragging them to the finals.
At even strength in the playoffs:
McDavid + Draisaitl: + 4, 59.8% xGF
McDavid w/o Draisaitl: +8, 62.5% xGF
Draisatil w/o McDavid: -4, 45.3% xGF
Neither 97 or 29: -8, 45.8% xGF
Oilers finished at 61 GF, and 61 GA in the playoffs, with an xGF of 49.8% at even strength. Those aren't really Stanley Cup winner type of metrics at 5v5.
What carried them was a +22 on the PP, and a +1 on the PK. And those special teams numbers are going to be damn near impossible to replicate - especially the PK which had 4 GA on an XGA of 13. Oilers really lived up to the special teams merchant title last playoffs, and had a lot go right, I'm not sure that happens again.
