OILERS WINGER KASSIAN PROVING HE’S MORE THAN JUST HEAVY HITTER
Every NHL team wants a Tom Wilson these days, an abrasive winger with the hands to score, the knuckles to fight and the foot-speed to play with the brightest stars in the galaxy, minus those nasty hits to the head which raise the ire of the player safety folks.
Do the Edmonton Oilers have a bookend Wilson in Zack Kassian? How should we react to the right-winger’s career-best 15 goals, 13 when the calendar flipped to 2019? Is it crazy to think Kassian can play on the top line for more than a few weeks with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who have 85 goals and 211 points? Should the Oilers pencil him in there for next season too, like it’s his job to lose or would they be deceiving themselves? Are they viewing him as the placeholder until they try and get somebody with a better offensive pedigree to play with the No. 1 tag-team in the NHL?
Wilson, who turns 25 on Friday, has 143 points in 449 games. Kassian, 28, has 142 points in 460. Kassian has 67 goals, Wilson 57. Wilson has 925 PIMs, Kassian 712. Kassian may be a better skater, Wilson has a more accurate shot (18.3 shooting percentage to 14.6 for Kassian this season).
Wilson has 22 goals in Washington, playing with Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov, but it’s his first 20-goal year. He had 14 last season and others of three, four and two of seven goals. Kassian had back-to-back seven-goal years, and now 15. But he had 14 and 10 before that in Vancouver.
Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock wants to see Kassian do it big-picture, not the current snapshot as he talks the Wilson comparison.
“He’ll have to play the whole year with top players and be productive,” said Hitchcock, “but Zack has the right conscience … he’s got the hockey sense and foot-speed to keep up and because he can kill penalties and does a good job of it, he understands positional play. He’s a trusted player. You never know.”
Draisaitl thoroughly enjoys having Kassian on the right-side. Contending Cup teams at the deadline could have used him (say Toronto) for his skating, muscle and some offence, but he had eight goals on Feb. 25. He’s got double that now.
“He’s got very underrated hockey sense. He can play with anybody in the lineup and he can build chemistry with them. He’s strong, holds onto pucks, he’s great at the cycle and he’s getting very good at playing on the rush. He’s very effective,” said Draisaitl.
If you score, they say it’s because you’re with McDavid and Draisaitl. But, if you find yourself at the intersection of Opportunity and Wonderment, don’t you have to prove you can be a driver, too? He’s always had skill as a first-round draft pick, but has been cast as a protector/ penalty-killer/good skater.
“You’re going to get Grade A scoring chances because they create so much, but at the end of the day there’s good goalies and good defenders and you still have to put it in the net,” said Kassian, who’s played a banging, serve-and-protect role, but he’s shown flashes that he can play with stars, like the Sedins with the Canucks.
This is a watershed year with 15 goals, seven in the last 13 games. Maybe he’s got 20 in him like Wilson, or Alex Chiasson who had considerable time with McDavid in the first few months and has a career-best 21 right now and 36 points.
“In Vancouver, I showed I could put up numbers. I’ve always felt I could score. I did it in spurts. I had 10 in 40 games, 14 one year,” said Kassian. “But there was a lot going on in my life personally where I let the opportunities slide and then I came here with my last chance and you’re given a role and you’re not going to pout or complain.”
Kassian, has had stretches where he scored, but it turned into a tease where people wanted more (goals, banging, protection). He worked hard and worked on his skills. But he couldn’t deliver. He is now. He can skate with McDavid and Draisaitl, he can look after them, he can get to the net on zone entries and he’ll stay there to give them room.