This was most obvious after writing the following last spring:
“The Oilers are also in salary cap purgatory with difficult-to-move, cap-clogging contracts owned by Shawn Horcoff (four more years, $23 million), Dustin Penner (two years, $8.5 million), Sheldon Souray (two-years, $9 million) and Tom Gilbert (four-years, $17 million). As well, Edmonton has forward Ales Hemsky, less than a point-a-game player over his career, on the books for $9.5 million over the next two years, plus 37-year-old goalie Nikolai Khabibulin's contract which calls for the veteran to be paid $11.25 million over the next three years. That's six problematic contracts eating up more than 50 per cent of the cap, and not a true star in the group."
Cox is partly right. Horcoff, Souray, and especially Khabiboulin will be problematic going forward. I won’t get into it here but Hemsky, Penner, and Gilbert are all value at their current pacts. In any event, this isn’t baseball. Going 3 for 6 doesn’t quite make Cox the Barry Bonds of sports journalism. Not to mention that nine months later, the Oilers are 13 million under the cap this season. Just think, that’s two and a half more Phil Kessels!* Salary cap purgatory indeed.
*That would be perennial 40-goal scorer, dynamic offensive sniper, and the league’s bestest all-star ever Phil Kessel. The Oilers still have enough room to buy themselves 100 more goals and 270 goals against!
Cox outdid himself this weekend though. Still basking in the glory of chosen boy James Reimer’s first career shutout, he penned this:
Sigh, I don’t think anyone could have written an article that better encapsulates what we want this blog to be about. Here we go, line by line. Cox’s words in bold.
Next, interesting to see the Edmonton Oilers have slipped into dead last again.
Interesting to see the Toronto Maple Leafs have vaulted from second to fifth last during the second straight year they don’t have their first round pick. That’s….. errrr….. progress I suppose.
Guess they've got their sights set on Gabriel Landeskog, likely the top pick in the June entry draft.
Sure, that’d be cool. Any one of Landeskog, Larsson, or Couturier is a defensible pick to me. But again, tell me who the Leafs are looking at picking in the draft this year, Matthew Puempel?
But let's make a date for Jan., 2014. Only then, really, will we have any real evidence on whether the Oilers are doing their rebuild correctly or whether Brian Burke has done a better job with different ideas in Toronto. Like the Kessel trade, you're just going to have to wait and let this play out.
Cox’s arbitrary cutoff humours me – pontificating as if he’s the authority on this kind of thing. Not that there is any set date where we can start judging this kind of stuff, but let’s look at the situations of both teams at the end of this season for fun.*
The Leafs have $37 million committed to 12 players in 2011-2012. Key free agents include Tyler Bozak, Clarke Macarthur, Tomas Kaberle, and Luke Schenn. Say 3 of those guys resign – that number becomes $45-$50 million to 15 players. To ice a full roster, they would still have to sign seven players with about $10-15 million of cap remaining. Between $1.5-$2.0 million per player.
The Oilers have $41 million committed to 16 players in 2011-2010. Key free agents include Andrew Cogliano and Ladislav Smid. With both of those guys resigning they’ll be under $45 million for 18 players. To ice a full roster, the Oilers would still have to sign 4 players with about $15-20 million of cap remaining. Between $3.75-$5.0 million per player.
This seems to identify Edmonton as having more cap flexibility going forward. And the more I think about it, I wonder why Tambellini seems against the idea to compete next year. $20 million can buy 4 pretty good hockey players.
Also, Burke’s “different ideas” must classify as giving up two lottery picks for a temperamental and lazy offensive player who gives up as much defensively as he contributes in the opposing team’s zone. That or to building a team through “pugnacity, testosterone, truculence, and belligerence.” The latter being as conducive to winning hockey games as my Call of Duty skills are to winning a Victoria Cross.
*I find doing a direct comparison of Tambellini vs. Burke’s GM skills is like watching a drag race between a Pinto and a Neon. One may win, but it really is a waste of everyone’s time.
In Edmonton, I see Taylor Hall with a good chance to be a 35-40 goal scorer in the NHL….
In Toronto, I see no forward – rookie or not – worth two farts of Taylor Hall’s potential.
In fact, I’d say he’s already better than Phil Kessel. Consider:
Hall
GFON: 30
GAON: 39
+/- per 60: -.068
CorsiOn: 0.23
CorsiOff: -12.67
Sh%On: 8.9
Sv%On: 903
Kessel
GFON: 23
GAON: 45
+/- per 60: -1.65
CorsiOn: -3.89
CorsiOff: 0.36
Sh%On: 5.9
Sv%On: 900
The Toronto Maple Leafs give up a goal and a half per 60 minutes of even strength hockey Phil Kessel plays. Also, their team records a positive shot differential as soon as Kessel rides the pine. Looks like Ron Wilson is a smarter man than we thought all along.
Conversely, Edmonton gets killed when Taylor Hall isn’t on the ice and saws the opposition off when he’s on it. Yeah, Kessel’s getting boned by the percentages but I think this is a pretty logical argument in favour of Hall being better.
…a couple of exciting prospect in Jordan Eberle and Magnus Paajarvi and then a bunch of holes
Cox is being a tard if he doesn’t’ think Eberle or Paajarvi would fill holes on the Leafs’ top 9 right now.
The Oilers’ holes are no more pronounced than COTU.
… that need to be filled by a team that is rated the second least attractive club to be part of in the NHL in a recent survey by NHL players.
The following are results of said player poll Damien Cox is alluding to on the question of least desirable franchises to play for:
1) New York Islanders
2) Edmonton Oilers
3) Buffalo Sabres
4) Atlanta Thrashers
5) Toronto Maple Leafs
See the bolded number 5 there Damo? Yeah, you’re a buffoon – gotta love the market assassination by a Toronto writer who is too ignorant to admit the shortcomings of playing in COTU. Not that ignorance is a trait people from Toronto are known for or anything……
Want to know my theory? Players want to join teams not because of climate reasons, media pressure, arena they have to play in 41 times a year, taxation levels, or anything like that. Players would rather play for teams that regularly WIN. I know, I know, what a novel concept.
I’m sure Cox has been to Detroit before. It’s probably the biggest hellhole in the world. Yet for some reason, they don’t have any problems keeping and attracting free agents. As a city, Calgary isn’t much different than Edmonton except that their hockey team makes the playoffs every five years or so. Long Island is a 45 minute drive from New York, a franchise that is always a front runner when it comes to player recruitment. Yet the players hate playing in the Big Apple’s suburbs.
Outside of Buffalo, every team on that list has been a perennial loser over the past 3-5 years. But no, the eastern media thinks the weather is too cold in central Alberta for anyone to want to play there.* I mean, Georgia is frigid this time of year too.
*Note: Cox didn’t say this explicitly in his article but it’s been a theme of the Eastern media for a while now.
The Oilers may indeed be on course for a championship……
Well I wouldn’t go that far, they do have Steve Tambellini for a General Manager. A guy whose previous franchise (Vancouver) passed over him twice to become GM. It hurts to say this but it’s probably the best decision they ever made. Mike Gillis has done an incredible job so far.
But are the Oilers closer to a championship than Toronto? Absolutely, I’m as sure as Phil Kessel needs rogaine.
….but there's tons of work to do….
We actually agree on something.
…and right now, they're significantly worse than the Leafs,
sig•nif•i•cant (s g-n f -k nt)
adjective.
-Fairly large in amount or quantity
At the risk of overstating things, I’d like to again point out that the Toronto Maple Leafs currently sit 25 out of 30 teams in the National Hockey League. They are not significantly better than anyone.
Correct uses of the conjugated word “significant” in a sentence:
The Detroit Red Wings are significantly better than the Edmonton Oilers.
The Reporters is a significantly better show without Damien Cox.
My life will not get significantly better when I quit hearing stories about waffles, “heart” as a hockey skill, Tomas Kaberle’s No Trade Clause, and James Reimer being Jesus until he plays 50 games in the NHL.
who have a similarly youthful team with more kids (Keith Aulie, Nazem Kadri, Brad Ross, Jerry D'Amigo etc) possibly on the way.
To put it mildly, I disdain HF boards like Silvio Burlisconi does celibacy. But its parent body, Hockey’s Future does some decent work on organizational prospect rankings. Here are their latest rankings of the teams in question from November of 2012:
3) Edmonton Oilers
12) Toronto Maple Leafs
In terms of the prospects Cox names, Aulie and Kadri will probably have decent careers. However, Jerry D’Amigo is scoring at the rate of Phil Cornet in the AHL. For those of you who don’t know who Phil Cornet is, he’s not even rated among the Oilers’ top 20 prospects on HF.
Brad Ross on the other hand doesn’t have a point per game in the WHL his first post-draft year on a stacked Portland Winter Hawks team. Not a great sign.
He is on pace for his second straight 200 penalty minute season though. OOOOOOOHHHH YEEEEAAAAAHHHH, he sounds truculent all right. Burkie sure did hit another one out of the park.
Edmonton has high hopes for Curtis Hamilton, Tyler Pitlick and Anton Lander, among others.
All three guys mentioned are better prospects than Brad Ross. They are scoring at a rate far superior to him when you take into account league equivalencies.
I’d argue they’re all more promising than D’Amigo at this point too but that’s pretty subjective until we see them in the AHL. That’s a tough league and a lot of guys can’t make the adjustment from junior.
It's impossible to forecast right now which team has the better kids, although Hall is certainly the top blue-chipper in either organization.
You’re right, it is impossible but I’ve just spent the last 1,000 words analyzing why Edmonton’s are better – including why Taylor Hall is doing awesome for an 18 year old rookie. Eberle too.
You blabbered on about Jerry D’Amigo and significance.
That said, the gulf that some would have you believe exists between the rebuilding approach of the Oilers and the Leafs is theoretical, at best.
This article is theoretical, at best.
As it stands now, the Oilers are in much better shape. Of course, Tambellini will screw it all up this when he signs Michael Nylander this summer. His wife will be forced to approve this time when the choice is Edmonton or Minsk.
The St. Louis Blues have gone about their business in the same way as the Oilers, including picking defenceman Erik Johnson first overall in '06, and right now their rebuilding efforts are barely ahead of Toronto's.
Sigh, do I have to prove you wrong a second time?
If you go by Cox’s definition of the word, the Blues are significantly better than Canada’s Team. They’re averaging 1.08 points per game. Toronto averages 0.94. If point levels remain consistent over the season, the Blues will finish with 88 points compared to 77 for the Leafs.
Not to mention the Blues have similar cap room going forward plus blue-chippers like T.J. Oshie, Patrick Berglund, Alex Pietrangelo, and Erik Johnson currently skating for them. Also, they’ve got Vlad Tarasenko and Jayden Schwartz who haven’t turned pro yet.
The Leafs have Luke Schenn, Nazem Kadri, Phil Kessel, and……. Nikolai Kulemin? Jerry D’Amigo?*
I would say “barely ahead” should mean “extensively” or “considerably.” But let’s not get bogged down in semantics when we can just make generalized attacks on things we know little about, eh Damien?
*Update: And I just see the Leafs traded for Joff Lupul. BAHAHAHAHAHA. Although that Gardiner guy they got too is supposed to be a decent prospect.
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