FUTURE’S LOOKING BRIGHTER ON THE OILERS’ BLUE LINE
Over the past decade the Oilers rebuild has been through various stages.
Stage 1 occurred in 2007 when they drafted Sam Gagner, who along with Andrew Cogliano and Robert Nilsson, were supposed to become the new offensive leaders.
In the fall of 2010, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Magnus Paajarvi arrived on the scene and the acronym HOPE was born. Hall and Eberle have become solid, productive National Hockey League players, but the Oilers didn’t improve in the standings.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov and Leon Draisaitl arrived over the next four years, and each one added new excitement within Oilers nation, but they weren’t able to lead the Oilers out of a decade-long rebuild.
Connor McDavid has 10 points in 10 games and at 18 years young, he is already looking like a franchise player. He is going to be great, and the Oilers have a lot of offensive skill and potential, but they won’t be able to climb out of the basement of the NHL standings until their talent across the blue-line improves.
The biggest flaw in the organization over the past decade — realistically, since 1984 — has been their inability to develop defencemen. During the decade of rebuilding, Jeff Petry was their best homegrown D-man. He was drafted in 2006 and traded last year.
Between 2007 and 2013 the Oilers drafted Alex Plante, Jordan Bendfeld, Johan Motin, Troy Hesketh, Kyle Bigos, Martin Marincin, Jeremie Blain, Brandon Davidson, Oscar Klefbom, David Musil, Dillon Simpson, Martin Gernat, Erik Gustafsson, Joey Laleggia, Darnell Nurse and Ben Betker.
Apart from Nurse and Klefbom, the other 14 have played a combined 120 NHL games. Marincin has played 91 of those, but he’s already out of the organization. The absence of competent D-men is one of the main reasons the Oilers have floundered near the bottom of the standings.
Since 2002, the only defencemen the Oilers drafted who have played more than 162 games are Matt Greene (589) and Petry (323). And since 1984, the only defencemen the Oilers drafted and developed who regularly played top-four minutes are Petry and Tom Poti.
In the Oilers’ first five drafts, they took Kevin Lowe (1979), Paul Coffey (1980), Steve Smith (1981) and Jeff Beukeboom (1983), but since then their track record for drafting and developing D-men over the past 30 years has been atrocious.
There is an obvious correlation between their struggles in the standings since 1993 and their lack of defensive talent. The good news, however, is the present and future of the blue-line is about to change.
Klefbom was drafted 19th overall in 2011, while Nurse was taken seventh overall in 2013. Both defencemen are big, can skate, have some offensive upside and Nurse brings a nasty streak this organization hasn’t seen since Chris Pronger patrolled the blue-line in 2006.
Klefbom is entering his second season, while Nurse was recalled Monday and played his third NHL game on Tuesday, skating alongside Klefbom and scoring his first NHL goal. I’m not certain they will remain partners in the coming years, or produce huge point totals — they will leave that to McDavid, Hall and company — but the Oilers’ future finally looks bright because they have some balance.
They have young, strong, skilled, on-the-rise defenders.
The Oilers roster has been unbalanced during the endless rebuild, especially the past six seasons. Too much youth and potential up front, while the blue-line consisted mainly of journeymen or third-pairing defenders.
In most cases you need to draft and develop your top defencemen. The top 10 rearguards in total ice time last year still play for the teams that drafted them, with the exception of Ryan Suter. Suter was lured away from Nashville as a free agent by signing a $98-million contract with Minnesota. The cost to land a top-end defenceman is steep.
Drew Doughty, Erik Karlsson, Roman Josi, Shea Weber, P.K Subban, Duncan Keith, Kris Letang, Alex Pietrangelo and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are still with their original teams, and most of them have long-term contracts.
I’m not saying Nurse and Klefbom will become as dominant as the aforementioned defenders, but their pedigree, size and skill gives the Oilers their best two defensive prospects in 30 years.
The Oilers have proven scorers in Hall and Eberle, a budding superstar in McDavid and young skilled players still developing in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov. Their offensive potential is great, but they need stability on the back end. For the Oilers to finally emerge from the NHL cellar, they need Nurse and Klefbom to become top-four defencemen. You can listen to Gregor weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on TSN 1260, read him at oilersnation.com and follow him @jasongregor on twitter.