Who Do the Edmonton Oilers NEED to Step Up Next Season

Who Do the Edmonton Oilers NEED to Step Up Next Season

If you had to give me a list of three players who you think need to have a better grade than they did this season, who would be on your list of three? And I’m going to throw one caveat in there. Okay, you can’t say Stuart Skinner. Damn it. He’s too obvious. Everyone knows that Stuart Skinner needs to be better next season, the goalending in general. So, we’re only talking skaters. Give me your three skaters who need to have a better grade than they did last season. And another thing that would obviously apply to this, Seavoi I don’t think would count cuz like what was his grade last year? He only played four games. Ike Howard wouldn’t be someone who you’d like have a grade for. So whatever. So guys who would have played last year who need to have a better grade next year. Who are your three? First one. Let’s just get this one over with. Mats, I need more from him. You can’t just go through a season scoring two goals. I understand you play on the fourth line. But that’s that’s not a good enough excuse for me. You got to get more than five. And that’s not a very high bar. The others pay him a decent amount of money. He’s a decent penalty killer for them. I just want to see it because like the thing is too like his minutes were raised from the previous season. Like almost 13 minutes a night and you’re scoring two goals. I think he finished with like 20 points and that’s not bad but I need more from Matam. Like so he would be my one. So I didn’t have him on my list. He’s not in my top three because I just think the ceiling doesn’t really matter, but I need more from him because I keep thinking of Florida’s where it’s like their fourth line was just so impactful and all they did really was be physical. You know what I mean? That’s what I that’s what I want. I want like an actual impact consistently. I don’t need every night, but when the playoffs come around, I can’t just be like, “Oh, Matis Yamok’s in my lineup.” So, and I do see some people saying Darnell Nurse in here. I think we’re actually kind of forgetting he had an okay regular season. His season was good. He fell apart in the second part second half of the playoffs. Yeah, that was kind of it. He was fine against uh LA. Vegas was fine and started to fall off a little bit against Dallas and then really fell off against Florida. Last year he was going to tell the Allar Mhm. Yeah, that’s right. Um so I gave this player a good grade for last season. The reason I’m putting him at my one is because if he were to take a step forward, he plays a very very important role. I’m going Vasil Pod Coulson. Mhm. He had a very good year. He established himself as an NHLER. There’s no question that he’s going to be an NHL for the next number of years. Eight goals though, played a ton with Leon Dryidle. If that guy finds any amount of scoring touch next season, you might have like we keep talking like, oh, can Seavoy get you 20? Can Howard get you 20? There is no guarantee either of those guys. It’s I won’t say a reach, but if your bar is 20 goals for those guys, you’re setting your bar too high. Pod Kohl’s and I had eight. We know he works well with Dry settle. We know Dry settle likes playing with him. I would give him like a B for what he did last season, but if he were to go up to an A and Vili Pod goes and I know we talked about him on Monday’s show. If he can be a 20 goal guy for you, that changes the complexion of your forward group, right? It’s no longer like, uh, who are you playing with? Dry Cidle, we’re moving guys in and out. God, Pud Coulson’s gone 15 games without a goal. Yeah. It would be like, whoa, we actually have a guy who scores next to Leon. Pud Coulson is my number one. For the record, I thought I Yamak is my three. Okay. So, you’re going you’re going three to one. Going the other way. Yeah. So, I’m going one to three. Yeah. You You said one and I recognized my own mistake there. So, then let’s each go. Who’s your number two? Number two for me. My number one I think is an interesting one. I’m going to say number two, and I know he wasn’t here for a long time, but I think he with the contract and everything like you need more from Trent Frederick next year. was torn on where to put him cuz I’m like, “God, how much of a grade do you really give him for last year?” Like, yeah, based off expectations for what this year should be. He needs to play a lot better. And I didn’t mind him in the playoffs as much as other people did. Obviously, the offense wasn’t there at all. I shouldn’t even say consistently. Just didn’t arrive. But I think defensively wasn’t a liability by any means. So, I’m going to kind of switch up the rules a little bit and based off my playoff grade cuz he was here for seven minutes in regular season. I would like to see it. a lot more from from Frederick. So, in my two, I was a little bit torn between those two guys cuz I wanted to include one of Frederick or Henrik. And Henrik was here for a little bit longer. So, I put Henrik on the board just because he was here all of last season. Mhm. You know, he’s 30 whatever years old. Like, I think the idea that you’re ever going to get a 25 goal season from Adam Henrik is is probably out of the question at 35, but can you go from 12 to 16? Can he give you a few better minutes? Can he maybe work on his speed? a little bit and I felt like he took a step back this last year and there’s kind of that saying where like every year the NHL gets a half step quicker and if you get a half step slower oh boy you’re a step behind whereas when you’re Henrik’s age if you can just kind of find a way to up your speed a little bit you’re going to be able to keep up with the league as it as it goes. So I have Henrik at my number two. Um, again, there is some amount of upside there cuz if Henrik can take a bit of a step forward and be like a really good third line center for you, okay, then Nooj moves back up to the wing and and you know, maybe the way your depth chart just kind of jiggles around is a little bit different. So, I had Henrik at my two. I see Gourd had Henrik at his two as well, but Gourd had Noo at his one. I think I’d argue that a little bit. I think accepting N for kind of what he is right now. He had some quieter moments last year for sure. You can’t set the bar with NG being like when’s he going to get back to that 100 point? Like we very clearly looking at Ryan N Hopkins stat sheet. We know what the career year is going to be when all is said and done. It’s the year he had 104 points. Does he have a little bit of room to to to move up? Sure. Would I like to see him back in that maybe 25 goal range? Yeah. Uh yeah, maybe N is fair. I don’t I just think Net one is a bit harsh judging him on last year, especially because again, I’m not sure how much more upside there is like Pud Cole and I see some significant upside. New year two though, I wouldn’t argue it. Uh my number one, Ryan Hopkins. It is really. Yeah, I mean he had 49 points last season. He’s gone from 167 to 49. The drop off has been significant. Do you really think there’s a world he’s ever a 70 point guy again? Uh I I don’t even need him to be 70 points. I need 60. So you just want another 11 point? I I just need him to kind of take that step. At the end of the day, you play all your minutes with McDavid and Hyman. And Heyman could easily be a number one as well. He ended up finishing what was it close to 30 goals, I think. So, 27, whatever it was. Playoffs, obviously kind of different, change his style up a little bit. And the reason I don’t have Hyman on the list is cuz he’s going to start the season injured. I would just imagine he’s going to have a difficult first half of the year whenever he comes back. Obviously, takes a while to come back, but I think with NG, it’s just his role is going to be interesting. Is he a first lineer? Is he a third liner? But I think he’s always going to be on the number one power play and I want to see him shoot more on there. There was large portions of last season where it was like where is he? You kind of just forgot about him. I still think he’s a fantastic player and I love NG but I want to see him get to that 60 65 point range somewhere in there cuz I think that’s when the others can really thrive. I mean look at the playoffs. He was fantastic. He’s so good against Dallas. He and it’s great when you see those stretches against Dallas because then you know he’s still he still has it in. Remember when Connor and Leon were out noobs was the best player on the Oilers. He put the team on his back at the end of the regular season. So you know it’s still still got it. Yeah. He just I need him more more consistently and and again I just Yeah. And maybe it is a similar argument to Pud Coen where like if Noo went from 20 to 30 goals you view this forward group and probably the power play a lot differently. I wanted to see cuz again just looking at the basic numbers his shots on goal per game have gone way down year-over-year. Um and I’m interested to see his uh how his shots per 60 on the power play have dropped over the last number of seasons. Rates power play Oilers. Um cuz yeah straight up shots per 60. His 100point year he was 11.36 at five on five 8.3 the next year 9.87. And that actually ended a streak of 1 2 3 4 5 6 seven straight years on the power play where he had north of 10 shots per 60 on the power play. And that number has been below 10 back year. So shooting the puck on the power play for Nooj I mean we rant about this so many times during the season but like him shooting the puck and being a weapon there opens up everything else totally cuz if they have to respect Nooj they can’t overload that dry cidle side and you can kind of see things. So yeah I think that’s well that was the year they were in the number one power play ever wasn’t it? Yeah, like and obviously like guys get old, they take a slight step back, but I think I’d like to see news do that some like a lot of people question my Yan Mark one. His minutes per game were an average of a third liner in the NHL this season. I’m not asking him to go perform and get his 20 goal seasons. Get eight or nine, man. Get six. Like score a goal with a stick. How about that? Yeah. Like it’s not high expectations, but I’ve graded him as like a D this year. So based off like my evaluation, I would like a C++. Yeah, that’s fair. Um I and again maybe this is where I I I’m off a bit on NGE because you’re right. Noo going from what he had last year where maybe you’d call that what a C plus season if you went C plus to A then like you’re probably talking another 10 goals. Like I view Pod Cole and if he went from B to A I’m like that’s probably another 12 to 13 goals. Like that’s a significant uptick. Maybe Darnell Nurse does belong on my list just because let’s what did you call last year? Was inconsistent. Yeah. C plus B minus. Yeah, somewhere in there. C at worst. Regular season. 33 points, five goals. He was plus 11 on the year. If he found a way to go to from B minus to A minus next year, how much different do you view this blue line? Well, I view the blue line blue line sorry, as a a strength of the team. I think it’s massively underrated amongst like league. And I know there was some people there was one guy, I can’t remember his name, he was doing like Yeah. And he he said he’s like this is a good blue line. It’s like a little bit underrated. And I think people look at Vegas’s blue line even without Petrangelo and rate it higher than the others. I just I don’t see it like that. I think once the Oilers get and like Ekol’s a big factor in all of this how’s his health? How’s he doing? I think WMAN is is underrated possibly. I think he even if Echol isn’t what he is next season if he can step up. And then you have a guy like Emerson. Like I don’t think Emerson’s any beer by any means. putting him on my list. I think I didn’t really rate him in like not a negative way, but I didn’t really have any expectations. Next season, I don’t have expectations. My expectations is that he will play probably 70 games next year. The Oilers will probably acquire a defenseman at the deadline and then will be out the lineup in the playoffs. And is that such a bad thing? No, because if your seven is a trustworthy, good penalty killing defenseman, that’s what you need. We saw this last year, like injuries are gonna happen. Yeah, I I agree. But I I think there’s a lot there’s a I think a lot of players had good seasons. I don’t think many players have like great years. Like Bousard, I know people have mentioned him like his point total dropped off significantly. But I think of he’s probably someone you can put in there. But I mean I still think Bard had like a B level season, a B+ level season. So there’s a few guys. It was such an interesting regular season. It wasn’t impressive at all. Wasn’t impressive at all. They finished third in the division. So overall the season was a C. What’s up, nation citizens? If you like that video, then you need to be subscribed to the Oilers Nation YouTube podcast, live shows, exclusive interviews and analysis, everything you need from your favorite voices at Oilers Nation. And you don’t want to miss any of it. So, hammer that subscribe button.

The Edmonton Oilers are heading into next season with high expectations, but for them to take the next step, a few key players will need to elevate their game. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will need to bounce back and provide consistent secondary scoring, Vasily Podkolzin must prove he can be a full-time contributor in the top nine, and Darnell Nurse will need to steady his game and lead on the back end while playing big minutes.

Today, Tyler and Liam discussed who on the Oilers needs to step up most next season, how these players can impact Edmonton’s push for a Stanley Cup, and what improvements they need to make to help push this core over the top.

Who do you think needs to step up this upcoming regular season?

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