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 Adam
Messages: 6842
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB
6 Cups
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| Mullet wrote on Sun, 01 December 2019 09:52 |
They should start treating smith like a backup goalie not a 1a/1b. He lets so many soft goals. He should get fewer games. On an aside his puck handling is overrated and causes more errors than it advances the play.
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After a good start, his numbers have reverted to mirror last year. That's not all that surprising - he's an old goalie who was showing real signs of regression. The good news is that A) it's only a one-year deal and B) back-up goalies have been moving in the league again this year so worst case scenario, we may be able to replace him cheaply if needed.
The bad news comes if the other shoe drops on Koskinen as well. Much of our playoff hopes, as well as the chances of making any noise in the playoffs, revolves around at least one goalie proving to be what they looked like at the start of this season. If Koskinen falls back to where he was at the second half of last year, it could be devastating on the chances of the Oilers making any noise - even with the top two scorers in the league.
Complicating that is the cap crunch. There are some 2006 comparables here - the early part of that year showed a talented team who was competitive, but with a flawed roster with some glaring holes - specifically depth defence and goaltending. We were able to acquire Spacek and Tarnstrom in January, and then Roloson at the deadline and even were able to bolster the forward ranks by bringing on Samsonov and Rem Murray. We did it at the expense of only two low-cost roster players (Cross & Reasoner) plus a bubble guy in Rita.
This time, it's scoring wingers, depth forwards and possibly goaltending that look like the issues. It's unlikely we could do the same fix this season, unless we were able to package out some of our uglier contracts in those deals. There's so little cap room, that we may be able to patch only one hole, if that - and it sure doesn't help that bafflingly, Mike Smith has a no-move clause.
Ultimately, we're not in a terrible position today after the last few years, I'll definitely take this - but we've heard a few pundits (Friedman, Burke) recently ask whether there's any point in us pursuing a Taylor Hall-type trade and the roster flaws are the biggest reason for that. Playing every other night for two months in the post-season would make it incredibly difficult to lean on McDavid & Draisaitl for 25 mins a night, and a series with a couple long overtimes might kill them. To be a contender, the Oilers probably need to upgrade 3 forwards and one goalie.
Maybe you can do one of those via a promotion from the farm because let's face it - Patrick Russell, Riley Sheahan and Josh Archibald aren't adding much of anything at this point - but that still leaves 3 people to be acquired with minimal cap room.
"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireLowe #FireBobbyNicks #FireKenHolland #FireKeithGretzky
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