Cousin Strawberry wrote: ↑Thu Apr 24, 2025 11:09 am
The striking thing about the coil are how slow and shitty their depth are now that Mclovin, Holliday and McLeod are gone
I've wondered how much of the Oilers' problems are indirectly related to McDavid and Draisaitl.
When they aren't on the ice, particularly McDavid, the team is nest to useless. It's almost as if the rest of the team is so accustomed to those two guys carrying the load, and being able to put points up by the handful, that they haven't figured out how to do it themselves unless they are lucky enough to be out there against a mediocre opponent's 4th line and 3rd pairing.
No team has won the cup having payroll commitments that weight the total cap so heavily into a pair of players. McDavid is, for all intents and purposes, a bargain in today's cap world, but that changes after next season.
The only way that McDavid wins a Cup in Edmonton is if he pulls a Crosby and takes less than Draisaitl. The NHL maximum salary is 20% of the overall cap, next year that cap is $95M, it is projected to be $104M the following year. Last time around he took 16%. His body of work since then has been over the top, and the Oilers would never have been what they are without him. I can't see him taking less than $17M, and his agent will be going for closer to $20M considering the max will be a bit over that. If Edmonton retains his services for even that $17M, they will have committed $31M to just two players. In the regular season that seems to be workable, the two act as a 1A/1B pair of top-6 pivots who feast on the PP together. Come the playoffs the only time I have noticed Draisaitl doing much, at even strength, is when Knoblauch realizes that it's crunch time and loads the two of them up on a line together. When he does that, Edmonton tends to dominate play in the offensive zone, the trade off is that every time they aren't on the ice the other team owns a very tilted rink.
The last two games in LA have people thinking that Edmonton will be lucky to get back to Rogers for game 6. If that's the case, then Bowman has some serious work cut out for him this summer. He has to fix the crease, the blueline needs an overhaul, and they truly need players in their bottom-9 who can carry their own sticks.
There are absolutely zero options to improve upon Skinner and Pickard via free agency. In the case of Skinner, anyone taking him is doing Edmonton a favour and acquiring a $2.6M backup. So that means trading for someone, and if they are wise, they pay the price for someone established rather than take a one or two year up and coming guy who ends up cratering after they extend him to an overpriced contract.
Ekholm is the only guy in their top-4 who actually knows what it means to be reliable in your own zone. He's 34, has one year remaining, and is likely only 2 years away from being better suited to a role in the 5 spot. The lower body injury he is rehabbing right now may be something that impacts his mobility going forward accelerating the natural decline of aging defenders.
Nurse is a joke. A boat anchor of a contract that has the Oilers paying 10% of next season's salary cap to a 4/5 guy.
Bouchard may come far more cheaply than many imagined after last spring.....but his play this season might mean that any potential buyer could be acquiring another Darnell Nurse.
McDavid will be 29 before next season is halfway done, Draisaitl will be 30 this year. Aside from the aforementioned McDavid, Bouchard and Pod are their only players who take regular shifts that are under the age of 30.
I'd say the McDavid Oilers have one more shot at a Cup (next season).....and if they fall short, I can see this becoming a 32 year-old Leon's team as McDavid takes his show elsewhere looking for a shot at the grail.
