IIHF Update

With the announcement that Sam Gagner will be drawing into the IIHF game for Canada tomorrow against Norway 6 Edmonton Oiler players will be representing their countries at the tournament (7 if you count Garon being the backups backup and I don’t so 6).

Now I know that during the qualifying rounds of this tournament powerhouses like Canada, US, Russia end up playing teams like Italy, Germany, Belarus etc. So stats this early do not usually mean much with teams winning games 10-1. However, it is still interesting to look at.

Player	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	TOI
Staios	Canada	6	0	0	0	+7	16:35
Grebeshkov	Russia	6	0	4	4	+6	13:48
Nilsson	Sweden	6	2	3	5	+5	12:00
Greene	USA	6	0	0	0	0	13:47
Gilbert	USA	6	1	3	4	0	16:39

So what can we glean from these results.

Well “Steady” Steve is having a pretty good campaign. Still no points to show, however, that is not what he is there for. He has been on the ice for 2 of the 10 goals scored against Canada, with both coming against the United States. He is also logging a fair amount of ice time as Duncan Keith is the team leader at 17:37.

Grebeshkov is also having a good tournament for his country. Despite having the second lowest TOI of regulars he is leading the Russian defensemen in point production. His +/- statistic is also pretty impressive at the Russians only had one lop sided win during the qualification round.

Mr. Nilsson is also picking up where he left off the regular season and is performing at a high level. He is currently tied for 7^th in point production on the Swedish team. While averaging much less ice time then his fellow countrymen.

Greene is much like Staios in the fact that he has no points, however, again if he was recruited to score them, the US scouting team did not do a very good job. However, he is logging some valuable minutes and has stayed even through the tournament which means that he must be playing responsible hockey.

Finally, Gilbert has been counted on to log the 3^rd most minutes on his team. He has also produced the 2^nd most points on the United States backend. While picking up where he left off has played responsible hockey and is even through the qualifying round.

Take from it what you want. But, to me with 4 of the 5 of these guys being 25 or under, with the addition of 18 year old Gagner and Pitkanen who left the team. The future looks bright for the Edmonton Oilers.

Condolences go out to the Stall family

Caution!

While taking a management class in University I actually came across a useful piece of information (if you've ever taken one you'll understand how amazing this is). I had a prof once say to me "people are often promoted to their highest level of incompetence" and that statement has stuck with me. Its shockingly true, organizations see someone doing good work at their position so they promote them into the next opening. There is little to no thought put in to whether they would be good at this new job, just that they were good at their last one. This continues to happen until they stop performing well, and then they are stuck in this position. So now you have someone doing a job they are not very good at and their stuck there.

So I plead discretion to not only Oiler fans, but the team itself. There looks to be a high risk of this happening to this team next year, and there is evidence that it happened this year as well. Look at a guy like Dustin Penner who had a great rookie year in Anaheim. He scored 28 goals playing with Getzlaf and Perry so the Oilers paid him big bucks to do more. Except he was no longer playing soft 2nd line minutes, he was playing on the top line against the other teams top checkers. Not only that but he is now playing with Hemsky and Horcoff who rely on speed, which exposed Penner's footspeed.

I will admit that Penner has surpassed most expectations placed upon him and has had a nice second half to the season but I could only imagine what he could have done if the Oilers played him in the role he had previously succeeded in. His struggle is no more obvious than his horrible EV production (EV/60 1.33)

So now I look to next years team and can foresee some problems there. There are young players on this team who are going to have increased expectations on them, whether desereved or not.

Nilsson/Gagner/Cogliano - three players who had outstanding breakout seasons. I can see MacTavish leaning on them more heavily, especially if the top line struggles. These kids did well but did it primarily against soft comp. Playing them against top defensive players could shatter their confidence.

Glencross/Brodziak - two guys who did insanely better than anyone could have imagined. Glencross for a UFA Tarnstrom and Brodziak with their 7th rounder in '03, these guys have overachieved already. Both showed offensive skill this season but lets not kid ourselves, they did it against the other teams worst players.

Gilbert/Grebeshkov - probably the most amazing surprises of the season, specifically Grebeshkov. These players will be relied upon to play top 4 minutes and maybe even top 2 minutes next season. Though they have been successful in this role at times both had terrible stretches. Gilbert showed signs of wearing out for a large stretch towards the end of the season and Grebeskov had a tumultuous first 2/3 of a season. These guys are probably a safer bet to cover their increased roles than the others.

I"m not saying players need to be babied along, I just want people to use some discretion before assuming great things and an immediate payoff from these players. It will be interesting to see who is given the opportunity and who succeeds in this opportunity. Any thoughts?

Best Oiler Rookie?

With the season winding down it is an appropriate time to start gauging the performances of the future of this hockey team. The guys that I am going to look at are Sam Gagner, Andrew Cogliano, Tom Gilbert and Curtis Glencross.

Bios

Name	Age	Contract status
Sam Gagner	18	3 year entry level 875,000 per ~750,000 in bonuses
Andrew Cogliano	20	3 year entry level 850,000 per ~ 350,000 in bonuses
Tom Gilbert	25	Pending RFA 835,000 ~ 75,000 in bonuses
Curtis Glencross	26	Pending UFA Group VI 522,500

*all figures from www.nhlscap.com

Let’s look first at some overall statistics

Player	Goals	Assists	Points	PP/60	TOI/G
Gagner	12	36	48	2.50	15:33
Cogliano	18	25	43	2.49	13:30
Gilbert	12	19	31	1.09	22:10
Glencross	12	10	22	2.04	11:19

First off, Gagner does lead all these rookies in scoring, but when you break it down into points per 60 minutes Cogliano is right there with him with Glencross only trailing by 0.46. As well, Gilbert is logging an incredible amount of ice time for a rookie rear guard.

Ranking:

1. Gagner
2. Cogliano
3. Gilbert and Glencross

Now let’s look at some even strength statistics

Player	Goals	Assists	Points	EV PP/60	EV TOI/G	+/-
Gagner	8	24	32	2.05	12:39	-19
Cogliano	15	19	34	2.46	10:43	0
Gilbert	10	11	21	0.94	17:24	-8
Glencross	11	9	20	2.04	10:18	+8

Looking at the even strength stats a couple of things jump out, first Cogliano is out producing Gagner even with playing less time. As well Gilbert being a D-man will take a hit in his point production. However the other glaring statistic comes from the +/- category. Gagner’s number is pretty atrocious (lupulesque) whereas, Glencross, Cogliano and Gilbert are significantly better.

Ranking:

1. Cogliano
2. Gilbert and Glencross
3. Gagner

Now let’s look at power play statistics

Player	Goals	Assists	Points	PPP/60	PP TOI/G
Gagner	4	12	16	4.64	2:47
Cogliano	1	5	6	2.33	2:00
Gilbert	2	6	8	3.48	2:12
Glencross	1	1	2	2.15	0:58

Obviously, playing on the top power play unit has helped Gagner pad some of his stats, however, for a rookie scoring 4.64 power play points per 60 minutes is fantastic. In comparison the top power play scorer in the league Alex Kovalev scores at around 8.3 PPP/60 and Jaromir Jagr is scoring at 4.62 PPP/60. Then looking at Gilbert’s numbers he is scoring at 3.48 PPP/60 on the second unit and the leading PP scoring D-Man is Sergei Gonchar scoring at 6.28 PPP/60 while playing 3 minutes of PP time more per game. Not to be overlooked is Glencross scoring at a 2.15 PPP/60 which make me wonder why is Pisani in front of the net on the second line and not Glenner?

Ranking

1. Gagner
2. Gilbert
3. Cogliano and Glencross

Now let’s look at some short handed statistics

Player	Goals	Assists	Points	SH TOI/G
Gagner	0	0	0	0:06
Cogliano	2	1	3	0:47
Gilbert	0	2	2	2:33
Glencross	0	0	0	0:02

Now I know that this seems like an unfair stat to look at since 2 of the 4 players do not kill penalties. However, I think that it would be unfair to Gilbert as he does eat up some serious PK time and that in his limited time Cogliano is a threat when out killing penalties.

Ranking

1. Gilbert
2. Cogliano
3. Gagner and Glencross

Now we will look at some of the more trivial statistics

Player	Hits/60	Blocks/60	TA/60	GA/60	TA GA differential
Gagner	0.89	1.56	1.35	2.24	-0.89
Cogliano	1.33	1.62	1.68	2.66	-0.98
Gilbert	0.81	5.30	0.98	2.49	-1.51
Glencross	8.15	1.02	1.02	1.94	-0.92

TA = Take Away

GA = Give Away

Looking at these statistics a couple of things are noticeable first, Glencross has added an aspect that the Oilers sorely missed for the first 50 games in that he goes out and attempts to hit anything that moves. Second, obviously being a defenseman Gilbert will lead this quartet in blocks as he is the last line between the shooter and Rolie the rebound factory. As well, it is good to see that 3 of the 4 of these rookies are less than 1 in the take away give away differential.

Ranking:

N/A

So now that we have looked at how the rookies stack up against each other in each of the categories I will try to rank their seasons. The one factor that I think is greatly overlooked is the age of the rookies. Does being 25 and 26 detract anything from Gilbert and Glencross as they have had 5 years of extra development over Cogliano and 7 over Gagner? Does being the youngest player in the NHL and making the jump from junior straight to the NHL add anything to what Gagner has accomplished? Is it a good sign that Cogliano showed no second half slow down that has plagued other players making the jump from the NCAA to the NHL? Looking at the arbitrary rankings that I have given after each statistic the break down is as follows:

Gagner:

2 – 1^st place finishes

0 – 2^nd place finishes

2 – 3^rd place finishes

Total = 8 points

Cogliano:

1 – 1^st place finish

2 – 2^nd place finishes

1 – 3^rd place finish

Total = 8 points

Gilbert:

1 – 1^st place finish

2 – 2^nd place finishes

1 – 3^rd place finish

Total = 8 Points

Glencross:

0 – 1^st place finishes

1 – 2^nd place finish

3 – 3^rd place finishes

Total = 5 Points

Looking at this there is a 3 way tie between Gagner, Cogliano, and Gilbert. My vote however, goes to Gagner as when he is 20, 25 or 26 he will be the franchise player of the Oilers.

Puke and Rally

This is what I think about the Oilers season lately, a crazy New Years Eve party. They are the college freshman with the popped collar and something to prove. This is clearly done by predrinking a "2-6" to get as drunk as he can as fast as he can (see: Kevin Lowe's UFA season), putting on the only expensive shirt he owns to try and make up for the rest of his clothes (see: Souray), then storms into the party as the loudest, cockiest ass clown there. You know, the guy that talks like he's got HUGE game but is probably still trying to get his card swiped (see: anything out of management's mouth in the fall).

It gets to be 45 minutes to midnight and no one can find him until you try to go the bathroom and there he is bobbing for apples. His night is done before the clock strikes and the whole point of the party is wasted on him.

But then he finds it within himself to make sure he doesn't go down like that. The 'puke and rally' ensues. Before you know it he's back with a second wind and partying until he scores with a girl or someone carries his ass home.

So now this team is rallying, and rallying hard. A big win over Phoenix tonight puts them 5 points back with 8 games remaining and in 10th place. Still not an easy feat and we likely won't be watching any playoff games this year but impressive no less. If you had told me at the beginning of the year we would be in this spot I'd have told you that you were crazier than a shit house rat. Hell if you had said that to me weeks ago it would have been the same response.

But here we are with our Ron Low era second half rally to try and take 8th. We did some serious dry heaving on New Years and now we're on a roll. Here's our record in the differing calender years:

2007: 16-20-4
2008: 22-12-1

An impressive difference. In a time when we find out Souray is gone for the season, lose Moreau AGAIN, then throw Horcoff on the heap, this team has decided to play. They have won 10 of their last 12 games and are steamrolling their way to the finish line. We don't have to do a lot of digging to find out why. Our second line's stats since we lost Horcoff on January 29th:

Cogliano 21gp 7-10-17 +9
Nilsson 20gp 4-11-15 +8
Gagner 21gp 6-18-24 -4

Two rookies and a sophomore, and three impressive stat lines. This line has been carrying the mail for this team while MacTavish tries to get Hemsky's line working. As these kids grow older they are going to get impressive. They have given this season something to watch and for that I thank them. This team is only looking up for years to come.

And for the first time in over a calender year I've thought that just maybe...they could pull it off.