Andrew Mangiapane Joins the Edmonton Oilers | Why upside makes the gamble worth it

Andrew Mangiapane Joins the Edmonton Oilers | Why upside makes the gamble worth it

The Edmonton Oilers added one of my favorite players in the entire National Hockey League and Andrew Mioani earlier in the week. What does the winger bring to the Edmonton Oilers on today’s edition of Locked On Oilers? You are Locked On Oilers, your daily podcast on the Edmonton Oilers, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. This Friday, 4th of July, down here in the States edition of Locked On Oilers. I am your host, Nick Seraris. I just wrapped up my third season as a host on the Lockdown Podcast Network, and I want to thank everyone that is making Locked On Oilers their first listen of the day. Locked on Oilers is a part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. And today’s show is brought to you by our friends over at Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase. On today’s show, we are going to talk all things Andrew Mioani. Going to talk about his usage, what he brings to the table from a raw skill setwise. We’ll talk a little bit about the math of his counting stat production in our second segment. And then we will tie a bow on today’s show breaking down why I think this is a worthwhile gamble for the Edmonton Oilers. So to start things out, I think it’s really important that we talk about Mapani in the context of his usage. Whenever we do these deep dives and we really explore what a player brings to the table valuewise, I really try and explain why context is so important. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a lot of the misunderstanding and the frustration people have generally stems from this component of a player evaluation. It’s one thing to say this guy averages 20 goals and 20 assists per season. It’s another to go a level deeper than that. Well, how many minutes per game do they play? Do they play special teams? Who are their most common linemates? What’s their quality of competition? What is that line’s responsibility in the minutes they have? Those are all factors that are essential in understanding what a player brings to the table because those environmental factors have such an important and frankly outsized impact on what a player’s actually able to materially do within a hockey game. You know what do they say about availabil opportunity the best type of opportunities availability or whatever you need to play if you want to make things happen for yourself. If you’re only playing 12 or 13 minutes per game, it’s going to be really challenging for you to make a significant impact on the game. Especially because generally if you’re only playing 12, 13 minutes per night, you’re probably not sneaking on to a power play unit. And as is the case in Andrew Mongji, this is not somebody who has extensive power play experience. This is somebody who has typically been a second or a third liner depending on the team they’re on. this past year in Washington, more of a third, fourth liner, but he has typically been what we would classify as a supporting cast member. Someone who has an essential role to play in the big picture of the team success, but not somebody who’s going to actively and individually drive that success. Now, we’ll talk more about his metrics and how his offense comes together in our second segment, but in a snapshot, this is a very functional hockey player. This is someone who’s got above average skating, somebody who’s very good on the forche, who’s got above average puck skills. And frankly, we’ve been waiting I I shouldn’t say we. People in Andrew Mapani FC like me have been waiting for him to find that scoring touch he had a couple years ago back in Calgary where he was over 30 goals playing with Michael Backland and Blake Coleman on really really good Flames team that of course lost to the Oilers in the second round before the Oilers subsequently lost in the conference final to Colorado. But when you have guys like this who at the worst are high floor, low ceiling guys, and that’s why Washington took a flyer on him for a draft pick last year, wasn’t essential by any means to Washington’s regular season success this year. But when you have guys like Mapani as your ninth, 10th, even 11th forward, you’re a very deep hockey team because Mapani doesn’t really have any holes in his game. He’s not a liability. He’s not weak defensively. He’s a an above average skater. He’s very strong on the forche. He’s very strong on the cycle. Those are all skills that make you valuable. You know, 1445 is his average ice time in his career overall. Last year, the lowest minutes Mjapani averaged per game of any season in his career as a full-time NHLer. noted did not kill penalties in Washington on a big scale this past year where he’d been consistently one of the four most used penalty killers on the Flames prior to last year before getting traded to Washington. This is somebody who generally speaking has mostly played against other teams bottom sixes. Somebody who’s been on what we would classify as a matchup or maybe a defensive third line. You think about the skill sets of Michael Backland, Blake Coleman, and um Andrew Miupati. I almost said Yanni Gourd because I had said Blake Coleman and I was thinking about that Tampa Bay third line. But you think about the skill sets we’re talking about here. Those guys are possession monsters. Now, as a trio, none of those guys is a particularly great shooter. You know, Majapan’s had some nice seasons, 18 19% shooting, but 14% is above average, so I should be fair, but there’s not an elite guy there shooting wise. So, it’s not a surprise to see them have a ton of possession because they’re going to milk zone time. They’re going to cycle the puck. They’re going to look for second, third, fourth scoring opportunities because they don’t have that high-end shooting talent. And to offset that, they’re going to play more of a possessionbased game. They’re going to play more of a game rooted in winning puck battles, keeping it moving, cycling the puck high to low, looking for point shots, trying to crash the net for rebounds and deflections. And this type of skill set is versatile because you can play this anywhere. We’ll talk a little bit more about the fit and why I think Mapani is a good gamble in our third segment. So, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but on paper, you see the vision here. On paper, you see the skill set. You see a guy who wants opportunity, and the Oilers are abound with opportunity for wingers right now. As we talked about on yesterday’s show, they have real openings on down that right side once you get past Zack Heyman, and it creates opportunities. And it’s never a bad thing to have lineup opportunities for guys that they can play their way into bigger roles. You think about Kaspari Kappa and Vasili Pod Coulson last year. Both are I don’t want to say exciting propositions going into their second seasons as Oilers, but I loved what I saw from Pod Coulson. And Kappan though he’s a one-dimensional player, pretty good at that one dimension when he’s focused and attentive. And last year, the Oilers did a great job of bringing that out of him. They put him in a position where he was, frankly, one of their more consistent bottom six players in the playoffs, scored the series winner against Vegas. And look, they’re going to be asking more of Mapani than what they got out of pot goals and encap. I think you should expect Mapani to be a 50point forward if he’s in the top six for the majority of next season. And we’ll talk a little more about offense. I know I keep teasing what’s ahead, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself in the material. I think it’s really interesting that what I what I find most tantalizing about Mapani is his retriever skill set. This is somebody who’s going to win a lot of loose pucks, who’s going to win a lot of foot races, who’s going to pressure defenders in their own zone, try and force them into mistakes, force them into turnovers, and what that does for your lineup. You think about how menacing Zack Heyman was on the for check in the playoffs before he broke his wrist. You think about the effect that Vilipod Coulson had, especially when he was moonlighting in the top six during the regular season as just go get the puck, get it to the best player on your line and be in the right position. I think Mjapani is a higherend version of that. I think this is someone who can get to those higher leverage areas, who can create some dangerous offense in a way someone like Pod Coulson or Kappain might not be able to on a in terms of just raw physical skills. And that’s not to denigrate Kappa or Pod Coulson, but Mapani’s been a 30 goal guy in this league. That’s a very high threshold. if you can score 30 goals in the NHL and I know it it was only one time espec but and on a very good team but the capacity to be a good hockey player is here and there’s going to be real opportunity for him to thrive here and I cannot wait to see what Mapani does as an Oiler but we are going to take our first break of today’s edition of lockdown Oilers when we come back we’re going to talk a little bit about how Mapani makes his offense coming up next so be sure to stick around to this edition locked on to Oilers where we’ve got your team covered every day. We’ve all been there. Logging on early and waiting forever for concert tickets to go on sale only to lose your spot for a show you’ve been dying to see. Live music should not be about Live Music should be about making memories, not dealing with the stress of ticket shopping. And that’s where Game Time comes in. Game time makes getting concert tickets faster and easier than ever. 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I think if they haven’t signed anyone by the time this episode goes out. But when we’re talking about upside plays, one of the real determining factors in how excited you should be is the sustainability of their offense. How do they create their offense? How do they how do they find ways to contribute to chance creation? Because there are a lot of ways to create offense. The the most straightforward skate the puck at the net and shoot it. There are more intricate ways where you’re what I would classify as a linkup player. You know, similar to what a midfielder does in soccer where you’re going to do a lot of the dirty work. You’re going to win 50/50 pucks. You’re going to get the puck to somebody who’s going to eventually make a play. And that type of interplay is an essential component of dangerous offense because when you have that in your arsenal, in your toolbox, you can start to wear the other team down. And that was something the Oilers did a tremendous job of from game three of that Kings series through about the midway point of that Dallas series is they started to wear other teams down. They were rolling four lines. All four of them had 50% or better goal splits. They were controlling play. They were controlling the tempo of play. They were actively making the other team uncomfortable. I think Mjapani can nicely contribute to that. I think his forcheing ability is something that’ll be welcomed in the top six. We talked about his puck retrieval skills. Somebody who has the capacity to win loose pucks and find a way to get the puck to a Connor, to a Leon, to a bouch. And when you have this type of guy who does have a little bit of a scoring touch on top of those puck skills, it creates an interesting dichotomy because when we talk about line makeup in combinations, the three archetypes, at least to me, the the ones I have operated under are shooter, distributor, retriever. When you have somebody who has a little bit of retrieval and a little bit of playmaking distributing, you get a little more opportunity. you have more plays. You know, when you’re a one-dimensional guy, people know the play is going to die on your stick. Either you’re going to pass or you’re going to shoot. And look, there aren’t enough multifaceted players for one-dimensional guys to not be important. There are plenty of guys who I would classify as very limited in terms of their skill set, but because they are so good at that one skill, they stay in the NHL. You know, you think about Cory Perry who’s great in a foam booth where any puck within reach of him, he’s going to find a way to make a play on it. And then the netfront stuff, but by and large, he’s not winning foot races. He’s not killing penalties. He doesn’t have a one-time. He doesn’t block shots. He doesn’t bite. He doesn’t throw a lot of hits, but he’s very tactical in his movement. He’s very efficient in his movement to make up for his lack of foot speed. He finds ways to make plays and that puts you in a position where you need to master your craft. And I think Mjapani in a reduced role in Washington saw himself as more of a contributor, somebody who’s going to help the boat along, but isn’t really doing a whole lot of paddling themselves. I think in Edmonton, he’s going to have a real opportunity to peacock, you know, to spread his wings and fly a little bit. And it’s very exciting. It’s very opportunistic. You know, when someone’s career average is 20 goals, that’s really workable. If you’re going to get 20 goals out of Mapani, that’s effectively going to make up for losing a Vander Kane. And I know and I know Evander Kane has generally been closer to that 30 goal threshold as opposed to the 20 th goal threshold. But if you can get 20 of those 30, okay, then you only need 10. You can find a way to manufacture 10 more goals in your overall season total. That’s something for you to think about as far as just the value of this type of player. And then you have the opportunity to get more out of him because he’s going to play more minutes per game, you would expect, than he did in Washington last year. He might be able to sneak on to a second power play unit or maybe if the power play goes cold, he could potentially sneak on to that first unit. He’s going to get an opportunity to potentially play with Connor or Leon, either of whom would be the best player Majapan’s played with ever, period. And yes, I know there’s going to be what about Yeah, he played like 20 minutes last year with Ovuchkin. Let’s relax. I know Obi is the best goal scorer ever, but Connor and Leon consistent opportunity to play with those guys will do a lot for what Mapani brings to the table. And not somebody who shoots the puck a ton, 141 shots on goal. 14.4% career shooter. League average shooting percentage is almost 11% now. I remember when I first started covering hockey like a decade ago, it was about 10%. Excuse me, it was about 9% and goalie save percentage was about 910. Now that number’s inverted a little bit where we see that save percentage is right around 900 and now the shooting percentage is almost over 10 more consistently than not on a yearly basis. And when you’re an above average shooter, you have the capacity to do a little bit more. You know, we talked about it from the perspective of Blake Coleman and Mapani and Michael Backland on the Flames a couple years ago where Mapani hit that 30 goal mark for the first time and only time in his career. And when you have that in your bag, that’s telling you the highest end range of outcome is a 30 goal campaign from a guy who’s only going to be making two and a half 2.6 million per year. And again, I don’t expect Mapani to come in and score 30 goals next year. But if he shoots the puck 180 times as opposed to 140, well, 14% of 180, well, that’s higher than 14% of 140. And when you’re thinking about it in terms of volume, that’s kind of the way you’re going to bank on Mapani creating his offense. Because even though he’s got the above average shooting percentage, I wouldn’t classify him as a particularly dynamic player, someone who’s going to make plays outside of structure, find ways to raise the play of guys around him. This is a supporting cast guy. I think there’s a ton of value in having a supporting cast guy with a plus shot who can forche. Well, this is a very useful skill set. He’s not costing a lot of money and he’s going to have an opportunity to play with genuinely great players. So if you are an optimist, if you feel like, okay, yeah, you lost five forwards in one off season and you need to start replacing them both internally and externally, you could do far worse than bringing Mapani in to be the fifth or sixth forward. And in an ideal world, you’ll go out and you’ll trade for a winger ahead of the trade deadline and you can drop Mapani down to that third line and you can run some permutation of him, Henrique, and Trent Frederick, which you would feel really good about if that was your third line. I know it sucks having to wait for the deadline to improve your team effectively, but that’s the reality of the situation the Oilers are in right now. They just don’t have the cap flexibility to make their moves now. So, they do need to manage that. They do need to operate in season with the mindset of trying to acrue as much cap space as possible so that when the deadline does come they have the capacity to add. Now would it shock me if Mapani went for 25 or 30 goals next year playing with Connor or Leon extensively at five of them? No, it wouldn’t because it’s within his range of outcomes. It’s like the highest possible end range of outcomes. But you think about what we talked about in that first segment as far as context. How many minutes per game is he getting? Who is he playing with? What’s the quality of competition? You get the right alignment of the environmental factors on top of the raw physical talent. And that’s how you get a 30 season out of someone like Andrew Mioani. We are going to take our second and final break of today’s edition of Locked on Oilers. When we come back, I’m going to tell you why I like this signing so much and why I think this really might work out. Coming up next on today’s edition of Locked On Oilers. Thank you to everyone who is hanging out on this Friday edition of Locked on Oilers down here in the States 4th of July. I will be at the Yankee Met game later today. I’m very glad about that. I want to take a moment. I know this is a hockey show, but uh losing Diego Jot yesterday was really tough. Losing Diego Jot, one of my favorite soccer players and one of the types of guys that you know, you’re happy they’re on your team. the type of guy who you’re proud of that that they’re on your team, the type of person, the type of competitor, and you throw that all together, just kind of a really unspeakable, unfathomable loss for the Liverpool community and the soccer community at large. And I know this is a hockey show, but I did want to take a second because that’s one of my guys. And I I I don’t want to lump Mapani in that box, but that’s the type of when I am invested in a guy, when something about a player’s game speaks to me and I care, I want to see them succeed. And in the case of Mapani, this is someone I really do see that high-end vision for and I think has a ton of utility on a good team. I think in an ideal world, he’s on your third line. I think for much of next season, you’ll likely see him with Leon. Whether it’s on the left or the right is up for a bit of conjecture. He’s played both. I know he prefers the right. Anecdotally, I know he prefers the right, but they can make it work if he wants to play on the left. I think if you wanted to, you could make a a supercharged version of that Pod Coulson Ardson and Dryidle line last year where you put Leon coming off a 50some goal season leading the league in goals with two great puck retrievers and Mjapani who’s an above average shooter and you’re going to have the mechanics of a really good line because all three of those guys are very adept at winning puck battles. All three of those guys are great at using their bodies for leverage to create space for themselves, both in terms of winning puck battles and in terms of creating space for offense. You give Leon two great puck retrievers, puck chasers, and you tell him, “Hey man, shoot as much as you want.” The danger is there that the world for Leon to hit 55, 60 goals is very much on the table if he’s going to play with two truly supporting cast guys. Now, I think that does limit you in some respects because defenses will start to queue in on that. They won’t respect Mapani or Pod Coulson shot as much because Leon’s going to take a lion share in the scoring chances. But if the mechanics are there, the capacity for something fun is really in place and I think the Oilers are going to have the chance to make something out of this. And look, I know we’re coming off of a season where both Jeff Skinner and Victor Arbertson relatively disappointed compared to what they were expected to bring to the table. I understand if people are a little more bo uh bearish on free agent acquisitions, especially in the winger market after how last year went. But I think Mapani plays a type of hockey that Chris Knobblock is going to feel comfortable with utilizing in those high lever situations alongside the team’s best players. And it’s not written in stone. You know, what makes a guy successful in Calgary or Washington won’t necessarily make them as successful as an Oiler? And we have to walk that line. It’s one of the real challenging factors as far as free agency goes because we don’t know how guys are going to adapt to different lineups, different roles, different responsibilities, different systems. There are so many variables that go into counting staff production in the NHL. It’s why counting staff production is not the best way to evaluate guys. But when we’re talking about Majapani, this is a guy who’s never had a negative goal share and never had a negative expected goal share, never had a negative high danger chance share. The mechanics of a very good supporting cast guy are here. I think if the Oilers are going to lean a little bit more into the heavy cycle game, a little bit more into the high to low, a little bit less off of the rush, at least in the non McDavid minutes, you could do far worse than adding a guy like M Japani who has the capacity to both be a bit of a shooter, you know, 20 30 goals in an ideal world and also has the linkup skills, the puck battles, the board battles, get having enough puck skills to pass the puck where it needs to go to create offense. defense and then you’re telling guy, “Okay, do what you’re great at and we’re going to put you out there with one of the best players in the world. He’s going to command a ton of attention. You’re going to have more space than you’re used to. You’re going to get opportunities to shoot because defenses are going to be doubling him. They’re going to be trick shading towards him. And that’s going to open doors for you. And if you score on those opportunities like we hope you will, you’re going to have a million opportunities to stay there.” Because if you play your way into a bigger role, you will have earned it. and we need it. That’s what’s beautiful about the reclamation project market is if the guy plays himself into a bigger role, it works out great for everybody. If not, you didn’t spend a lot. You know, $2.6 million when you’re in the cap situation the Oilers are in is a bit of a challenge. But when you think about it in the abstract, the Oilers only had, you know, $6 million in cap space or so after salary dumping arbits into the Bruins, you still have a little money left. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got in on another cheap bottom of the market guy. I there was a small part of me that was curious to see if they might take a look at someone like Brent Burns, but ultimately Burns chose Colorado in pursuit of his first career Stanley Cup. But when you have these guys who everything on paper looks good, the skill set looks good, the attitude looks good, and you say, “We’re going to drop you with a great player, and you only have to get them the puck. Get to good spots, get the puck, you are going to have the opportunity.” And look, so much of sports is converting your opportunities, is recognizing the moment, realizing the moment. And not everybody has the capacity to take advantage of their gifts. But by and large, we’re talking about someone who has really nice skills. And even if the goal scoring doesn’t manifest, the puck retrievalss will be there, the penalty killing will be there. I do think we we should probably talk about that at some point next week. because you think about all the personnel, the penalty kills lost over the last year and a half between guys leaving last year and guys leaving this year and you have some opportunities there. I’ll be curious to see if we see McDavid killing penalties with more regularity than we did even in the playoffs last year where I know Chris Knoblock felt pretty good about using that as a bit of a change of pace to shake things up and instead the Oilers are looking at this as we need to fill in lineup spots. This is a guy who’s not asking for a ton of money. The skill set fits nicely with a vacancy we have. And you think about it like this. The low end of this spectrum is you get another Pod Coulson 10 goals, 15 goals for check occasionally penalty kill though I think Majapani will be a staple on the penalty kill unlike Pod Coulson supporting role. He’s not going to shoot a lot but because he doesn’t shoot a lot he’s going to get space. because he gets space. He’s going to have opportunities to shoot the puck. He’s going to shoot probably at a higher than career average pace because he’s going to have more opportunities because he’s going to play with the best forwards he’s ever played with on a regular basis. So, the best version and look I I don’t think Heyman, excuse me, Zack Heyman, I don’t think Andrew Mioani is going to be a 30 35 40 goal guy. I think that would be crazy. That would be reminiscent of the transformation Tampa Bay was able to get Brandon Hegel to undergo where Hegel was one of the 10 15 best players in terms of even strength counting stats last year. And I don’t think that’s in the cards for Manupani. He’s not going to get he’s not that type of player. And I don’t think he has the runway to grow to the same degree that Hegel did when Tampa Bay had acquired him. But the best version of this is you got a Walmart Zack Heyman. You got 20 25 goals, a forcheing menace, somebody who’s adept at the cycle. Not not not as physical as Heyman, not someone who’s going to win at the netfront per se. Someone who’s going to win a lot of board battles for sure, but not someone who’s going to win the net front as much. He’s not as big as Heyman. He’s not as strong as Heyman, but everything about this signing makes sense on paper. Ideally, you would have liked a higherend piece, whether it’s Besser, a nickelers, you know, Marner, whoever you’re thinking of, but they could have done far worse than Mapani on the deal they signed him to. This is not particularly expensive. It is not for long-term. This is going to work out pretty nicely in theory. It’s just simply going to be a matter of can the Oilers go out there and can Mapani execute. But that will just about do it for this Friday edition of Locked on Oilers. to thank everyone that made locked on Oilers their first listen of the day. Locked on Oilers is a part of the Locked On podcast network your team every day. Be sure to check out Locked on NHL. Wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe to Locked On Oilers wherever you get your podcast. If you’re listening on Apple or Spotify, leave the show five star review. If you’re watching over on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. Hit the like button. Leave a comment on the video. Let me know what you’re thinking about Andrew Mio. I will talk to you guys on Monday. Everyone have a safe and fun weekend. Until then, let’s go Oilers.

The Edmonton Oilers added Andrew Mangiapane to their forward group but can the former 30-goal scorer recapture that form in a top-six role? On today’s episode of Locked On Oilers, host Nick Zararis breaks down Mangiapane’s usage history, scoring profile, and why his forechecking and puck retrieval could be a great fit alongside Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl. Plus: the risk-reward of a reclamation project, and how this move compares to last year’s disappointing Jeff Skinner and Victor Arvidsson signings.

Andrew Mangiapane Joins the Edmonton Oilers | Why upside makes the gamble worth it
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