Oilers strong in blue-line prospects

If you’re a flag-waving part of OilerNation, you care about today more than tomorrow.

But, if you’re part of Edmonton Oilers management, you’re paid to look down the road and to see Evan Bouchard, Dmitri Samorukov and Philip Broberg here for development camp. There’s a feeling of what if … what if they’re part of the defence for a decade when they get to the NHL?

“You don’t want to evaluate too much here because this is summer camp,” said Scott Howson, the Oilers head of player personnel, “because the players are here to get to know each other.”

But … Howson used to be GM in Columbus so he knows about building hockey teams.

So Bouchard, Samorukov and Broberg, along with some kids in Bakersfield, show great promise.

“Any successful team is strong on the back-end and what we’ve done here is accumulate defencemen, and it’s not just these three. It’s William Lagesson, Caleb Jones, Ethan Bear in Bakersfield, and Joel Persson coming in from Sweden this year. We have a good young stable,” said Howson, who also likes Phil Kemp at Yale, who had a fine world junior for USA.

“The three (Bouchard, Samorukov and Broberg) are all big and really good skaters, strong with the puck. Very promising,” said Howson, agreeing there’s no such thing as too many D.

So if you drafted Kemp or Michael Kesselring (off to Northeastern), are there enough seats at the party for everybody?

Maybe it’s the wrong time to be a defenceman.

“Nah, you don’t know what’s going to happen one year, two, three years from now. Phil Kemp (seventh-round, 2017) had a strong second half for Yale last year and a great world junior last Christmas. He went in as the sixth or seventh defenceman and ended up as a top four when they reduced it in the gold medal game (USA). I’m quite high on Phil. He’ll need two more years of college and I expect he’ll be a good pro for the Oilers,” said Howson of the 6-foot-4, 202 pound defensive blueliner.

Broberg is the shiniest new toy though as their first-round draft pick.

“Comes as advertised with his skating. The very first drill with (Olympic figure-skating champ and Oiler skating coach) David Pelletier and some of the stuff he was doing with ease (edge-work) while others were struggling,” said Howson.

Ken Hitchcock, in his all-purpose team role, has had a large hand in compiling the list of UFA forwards the Oilers should be going after before free-agency July 1.

“Senior adviser … I’m too old to be a junior adviser,” joked the 67-year-old.

He’ll be back for main camp, but what he does once next season starts is up in the air. He might be down in Bakersfield more to see the prospects on the farm because he has a place in California.

Hitchcock liked what he saw from Raphael Lavoie at the camp. Long reach, nice hands and finish. “He scores and scores and scores. I think he can get 60 this season (Quebec Major Junior Hockey League),” said Hitchcock.

When told Hitchcock said he could get that many, Lavoie was taken aback.

“Well, if he says it, it’s probably true,” laughed Lavoie, who had 32 in regular season and another 20 in the playoffs for Halifax.

The Billy Moores Cup scrimmage Thursday didn’t have the usual buzz because the Oilers only invited 21 kids and Samorukov and Kirill Maksimov were hurt and didn’t take part in what was a 3-on-3 half-ice game with three different teams. The blue squad with Lavoie, Ryan McLeod, Tomas Mazura, Nolan Vesey and Patrik Siikanen and goalie Stuart Skinner beat the Whites (Cameron Hebig, Skyler Brind’Amour, Graham McPhee, Taylor Ward, Matej Blumel and goalie Dylan Wells in the final.