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Ryan Murray’s odd tale continues in Columbus

By James O'BrienJul 14, 2018, 3:00 PM EDT
5 Comments

Ryan Murray accepted the Columbus Blue Jackets’ qualifying offer today, so he’ll register a $2.825 million cap hit for 2018-19. It says a lot about his middling development that this counts as such a minor transaction, and arguably a poor value.

Murray would have had to be a pretty sensational presence for his on-ice play to be more interesting than his draft-day backstory. There’s still time – albeit not much – for him to change that narrative, but as of today, Murray’s “What if?” scenarios bring more intrigue than his potential to boost the Columbus Blue Jackets.

It’s not just that Murray, 24, was the second pick of the 2012 NHL Draft.

Heck, it’s not just that the top of that 2012 NHL Draft was remarkably star-crossed.*

No, the most interesting thing is what could have happened.

To jog your memory, in pursuing the chance to select Murray, then-Islanders GM Garth Snow channeled Mike Ditka mortgaging basically an entire Saints draft year to land Ricky Williams. As Elliotte Friedman noted for a CBC piece that’s especially interesting to read with hindsight, the offer to move up – most likely for Murray – was as such:

Islanders sought: Second pick, which would have been Murray.

Blue Jackets would have received: Fourth pick (Islanders selected Griffin Reinhart), plus picks 34, 65, 103, 125, 155 and 185.

Wild stuff, right? As it turns out, the Islanders ended up selecting two players in 2012 who’ve seen NHL action so far: Reinhart, and Adam Pelech, who they chose in the third round (65th overall).

Of course, the most significant takeaway for the Islanders came from trading Reinhart for the picks that became Mathew Barzal and Anthony Beauvillier, which is another post (if not a “30 for 30”) for another day.

The Blue Jackets still ended up enjoying a better draft than the Islanders, nabbing intriguing goalie Joonas Korpisalo (third round, 62nd pick) and solid winger Josh Anderson (fourth round, 95th pick). All things considered, they might have found another gem if they landed that bucket of picks from Snow.

Murray’s also a “What if?” question because his early career was derailed by injuries, and we’ll never know how his development might have turned out if he was healthier.

But, as is, the 24-year-old’s a pretty marginal NHL defenseman. His best years were his rookie campaign (21 points in 66 games in 2013-14) and 2015-16, when he scored a career-high 25 points and logged an average of 22:51 TOI.

During the past two seasons, he’s been just under 18-and-a-half minutes per game, scoring 11 and 12 points. His possession stats were pretty appalling in 2016-17 and quite bad last season.

Murray’s draft pedigree probably makes him lucky to accept Columbus’ qualifying offer of blank, but it’s not all bad. It’s likely that he’ll bring similar value to the Blue Jackets as they may have received from Jack Johnson, judging from metrics such as CJ Turturo’s comparison tool (which uses Corey Sznajder’s painstaking entry/exit data).

Not exactly … inspiring.

That said, it’s not outrageous to imagine Murray being worth another shot. The one-year term limits the risk, and while he’s not likely to drop jaws with his skills, his puck-moving profile at least falls in line with what works best in the modern NHL.

Far from spectacular stuff, but hey, the guy drafted before him will be plying his trade in the KHL next season, so it could be worse.

* – To review:

1. Nail Yakupov has, uh, not been too great.

2. Ryan Murray – turns out he wasn’t worth a whole draft, even a bad one?

3. Alex Galchenyuk – a good player who was seemingly condemned for years by Montreal, and eventually traded.

4. Griffin Reinhart – Eventually a kindred spirit for Murray, in that he’s most interesting for the picks he netted the Islanders (and as one of many cruel punchlines regarding Peter Chiarelli and the Islanders).

Things started getting a lot better from 5 on, as Morgan Rielly, Hampus Lindholm, Mathew Dumba, and Jacob Trouba are quality NHL defensemen.

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James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.

PHT Morning Skate: Lamoriello hasn’t been perfect; Corvo CrossFit Champ?

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By Scott BilleckJul 12, 2018, 8:00 AM EDT
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Welcome to the PHT Morning Skate, a collection of links from around the hockey world. Have a link you want to submit? Email us at phtblog@nbcsports.com.

• It’s okay to say Lou Lamoriello hasn’t been perfect since taking over Islanders. (IslandersPointBlank)

• Erik Karlsson is likely getting traded. Or maybe not? (Scotty Wazz)

• A deep dive into how much can the Stars expect from Mattias Janmark going forward. (Dallas News)

• Former Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Joe Corvo is on the verge of becoming a CrossFit champion. (News & Observer)

• Already on the verge of losing Artemi Panarin, could the Columbus Blue Jackets also lose two-time Vezina winner Sergei Bobrovsky? (1st Ohio Battery)

• Nail Yakupov went from No. 1 draft pick to in the mix for the No. 1 draft bust of all-time. A look at how he was set up for it. (Sporting News)

• Brian MacLellan’s moves off the ice helped the Washington Capitals win the Stanley Cup on it this year. Here’s a look at what he did in 2017-18. (Nova Caps)

• A look into how the current Calgary Flames roster came to be. (Flames Nation)

• The Chicago Blackhawks have been relatively quiet this offseason, despite missing the playoffs — a rare feat for a team that’s dominated so much over the past decade. Are they expected to do anything else? (NBC Sports Chicago)

• Philadelphia Flyers prospect goaltender Carter Hart has done something no 20-year-old before him has ever done: Got off of Twitter. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

• The NHL’s future in esports. (ESPN)

• For Montreal Canadiens forward Kirk Muller is getting into artificial intelligence. (Montreal Gazette)

Scott Billeck is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @scottbilleck

Oilers continue rare boring summer with Strome signing

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By James O'BrienJul 6, 2018, 1:02 PM EDT
12 Comments

The name Ryan Strome must elicit some awkward feelings for Edmonton Oilers fans. After all, you’d need to risk an upper-body injury trying to deny that the Oilers lost in the Strome – Jordan Eberle trade.

Losing that trade prompts faint praise, then, for the Oilers’ current off-season plan of … “Don’t mess anything else up.”

That’s not what they’ve really said publicly, but so far, that’s how they’re operating. While it’s fun – especially from a writing/lampooning perspective – to rubberneck at bad moves and dysfunction (let us again thank Marc Bergevin and the Senators), recent history states that Edmonton’s better off boring.

And that’s exactly what re-signing Strome is. It’s boring, and it’s probably the right move, and you’re probably yawning with me on this one.

The team announced that it’s a two-year deal, with Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston reporting that the cap hit will come in at $3.1 million per season. That’s not a great value, but it’s not going to break the Oilers, either. Leave that to trading the pick that became Mathew Barzal for a marginal defenseman, moving Taylor Hall one-for-one for Adam Larsson, and the Milan Lucic albatross contract, instead.

Cap Friendly puts Edmonton’s cap space at just less than $5M, with RFA Darnell Nurse likely to command most of that remaining cash.

The Oilers mainly stayed out of the fray this summer, merely handing speedy winger Tobias Rieder a reasonable one-year, $2M deal. Unless they can bribe a rebuilding team to house bad contracts like Lucic’s $6M per season through 2022-23, GM Peter Chiarelli is most likely going to be limited to trying to target savvy bargains in free agency. Considering how things have gone for him in recent trades, such limitations could very well be a blessing in disguise.

A boring blessing, but a blessing.

During the last three seasons, Strome’s developed into a fairly steady 30-ish point producer, showing some versatility and adequate possession skills. The Oilers could do better and worse with $3.1M per season.

Again, a shoulder shrug seems more palatable than Edmonton’s painful tradition of face-palms.

Oilers Nation’s Cam Lewis summed things up well regarding Strome back in April: Edmonton management is better off seeing the good side of Strome, rather than placing too much focus on how he’s not Jordan Eberle.

If you can convince yourself to not attach him to Eberle, it becomes a lot easier to accept Strome for what he is. He’s a solid, two-way player who can play in a variety of situations. He can centre your third line and be responsible, he can produce some offence in a top-six role, he can play both centre and wing, and he can be useful on the power play and penalty kill. He isn’t spectacular, but he’s a versatile depth player with upside, and there’s certainly value to that.

For all the frustrations in Edmonton, the Oilers still have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. They might stumble upon solutions merely if they stop messing things up.

Strome isn’t great, and you can quibble about him being good versus mediocre. It’s a small victory, but not exasperating the mistake with more mistakes is better than the alternative.

More exciting calls to come

Here’s a take for you: the Oilers put themselves in that bind during the 2017 summer by not trying harder to extend Draisaitl before his breakout 2016-17 season. Maybe a lack of contract year motivation would have meant a slightly less dominant Draisaitl that year, but smart teams lock up core players earlier rather than later.

It’s a consideration that could be particularly important for the Oilers when it comes to Jesse Puljujarvi.

After this past season, the Columbus Blue Jackets look shrewd (rather than bold) for taking Pierre-Luc Dubois as the third pick of the 2016 NHL Draft over Puljujarvi. Puljujarvi’s been moving in and out of the NHL early in his career, generating 12 goals and 20 points in 65 games with the Oilers in 2017-18.

That’s a letdown, yet it may also be an opportunity for the Oilers to save money, for once.

If Edmonton expects Puljujarvi to make huge strides going forward, they’d be better off trying to sign him to a team-friendly contract this summer, rather than waiting to see what happens. Ideally, Edmonton would either save money with a “bridge” contract or keep his cap hit at a reasonable clip by handing out the sort of term that looks brilliant in retrospect.

Determining that the Finn can take big steps forward instead of floundering like, say, Nail Yakupov, comes down to the judgment of Edmonton’s staff. That’s the scary part, but they either need to start getting these things right or step aside for someone who can.

***

Theoretically, more decisions could be coming for the Oilers.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins never seems far from trade rumors, though it’s a relief for Edmonton anytime they abstain at this point. With Cam Talbot‘s contract expiring after 2018-19, the Oilers must eventually figure out if his past season was an aberration or if they eventually need to find a new goalie.

So, yes, there are some deeper questions on the horizon for Edmonton, which opens the door for them to sink or swim.

History teaches us that they might be better off treading water, so it’s probably for the best that they’re just floating along this summer.

James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.

Yakupov takes disappointing career to KHL

By Joey AlfieriJul 3, 2018, 10:00 AM EDT
14 Comments

When the Edmonton Oilers made Nail Yakupov the first overall pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, they expected him to become an impact forward almost right away. Not only did that not happen, but he was barely able to last six seasons in the NHL.

On Tuesday morning, it was announced that Yakupov had signed a one-year deal with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL.

The 24-year-old’s NHL career got off to a promising start, as he was able to put up a respectable 17 goals and 31 points in 48 games during the lockout-shortened season in 2012-13. Only Taylor Hall, Sam Gagner and Jordan Eberle had more points for the Oilers that season. But things went downhill after that.

In his sophomore year, he had 11 goals, 24 points and a minus-33 rating in 63 games. Throughout that season, there was plenty of chatter about Yakupov already not being in Edmonton’s plans anymore. He was made a healthy scratch early in the year and things just fell apart after that.

He returned to the Oilers the following year, but he accumulated just 14 goals and 33 points in 81 games. Clearly, that’s not enough for a player who was selected first just two years before that.

In 2015-16, his final year with Edmonton, Yakupov had eight goals and 23 points in 60 contests.

In October of 2017, the Oilers were able to get prospect Zach Pochiro, who’s spent most of his pro career in the ECHL, and a conditional third-rounder from St. Louis in exchange from the Russian winger.

It didn’t take the Blues long to figure out that this gamble wasn’t going to work out. During his only year in St. Louis, Yakupov netted three goals and nine points in 40 games. Again, effort appeared to be an issue at times.

Finally, last season, he ended up signing with the Colorado Avalanche after the Blues decided not to tend him a qualifying offer. Yakupov was regularly scratched toward the end of the season. He ended up with nine goals and seven assists in 58 games. Those numbers aren’t pretty.

All in all, he heads to the KHL with 62 goals and 74 assists in 350 career NHL games.

If he can put together a solid campaign in the KHL, there might be some interest in North America because he’s still relatively young. An NHL return doesn’t seem realistic right now, but stranger things have happened.

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Joey Alfieri is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @joeyalfieri.

Are you ready for the Oilers to win another draft lottery? It could happen

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By Adam GretzFeb 18, 2018, 1:39 PM EST
20 Comments

Be sure to visit NBCOlympics.com and NBC Olympic Talk for full hockey coverage from PyeongChang.

There has been no greater disappointment in the NHL this season than the pathetic showing put forward by the Edmonton Oilers organization. It has been a collective effort from everybody involved, from the general manager that seems to thinks he is building a team in 2002, to the coach that has not figured out how to fix his team’s garbage special teams, to the owner that put all of these people in power, to the players on the ice.

They all own it.

This is a team that entered the season with the second-best odds to win the Stanley Cup. it is now positioned near the bottom of the standings and already has virtually no chance to make the playoffs with still a quarter of the season left to be played.

They may have been a little overrated at the start of the year, but there was almost nobody that saw this sort of season coming.

Following their loss to the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday afternoon, their sixth loss in a row and eighth in the past 10 games, the Oilers now find themselves with the third-worst record in the NHL and are only six points ahead of the Coyotes when it comes to having the worst record in the league.

For a team that has Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl at the top of its lineup it is an inexcusable waste of young talent. In the case of McDavid, it is a waste of MVP talent. Generational talent.

Only three teams in the history of the league has ever missed the playoffs with the reigning league MVP on its roster.

The Edmonton Oilers are not only going to do join them, they are going to miss the playoffs by miles.

With an MVP that has a cap hit of less than a million dollars in a salary cap league.

[Related: Connor McDavid could author one of the NHL’s greatest wasted seasons]

What this raging dumpster fire of a season has done is put the Oilers in a great position to do the only type of winning they’ve become accustomed to over the past decade — the NHL Draft Lottery.

Entering play on Sunday the Oilers would have the third-best odds to land the No. 1 overall pick with a 10.5 percent chance winning. That would give them the opportunity to select Swedish phenom defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, a prospect that is pretty much the exact player they need.

Those odds are … somewhat favorable, and high enough to probably drive hockey fans that are tired of watching the Oilers waste these picks insane.

Let’s revisit this history, just in case you’ve forgotten:

Between 2010 and 2015 the Oilers picked first overall four times in six years, landing picks that brought them Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, and McDavid. That includes a run between 2010 and 2012 where they picked first overall three consecutive years. In the years between 2012 and 2015 they picked seventh (Darnel Nurse) and third (Draisaitl). Four No. 1 picks in six years is a run unlike anything we had ever seen in the history of the NHL draft.

And they didn’t always need to finish with the worst record to get there. It was the perfect combination of being a lousy organization and getting some fantastic luck.

When they won the draft lottery in 2010 to get Hall the Oilers won it with the worst record in the league.

The next season (the Nugent-Hopkins pick) the Oilers again finished with the worst record in the league and were able to maintain that pick when the New Jersey Devils won the lottery and moved up four spots from No. 8 to No. 4 (this was when winning the draft lottery meant you could only move up four spots). The Devils winning that draft lottery would turn out to be significant for the Oilers down the line because the Devils used that pick to select defenseman Adam Larsson. In the summer of 2016 the Oilers traded Hall to the Devils in a one-for-one swap for … Adam Larsson.

The next year they won the draft lottery to move up from the second spot to the top pick where they selected Nail Yakupov.

In 2015, they finished with the third-worst record and won the Connor McDavid lottery.

So, in other words, it’s happened before. There is nothing stopping it from happening again.

The closest we ever came to a draft pick run like the Oilers have had was when the Quebec Nordiques picked first overall three years in a row between 1989 and 1991. That was before the draft lottery was put into place and the team with the worst record just simply picked first.

Even though none of the players the Nordiques picked first overall (Mats Sundin, Owen Nolan, Eric Lindros) won a championship with the team, those picks helped set the stage for what would become two Stanley Cup winning teams. Sundin was eventually traded for Wendel Clark, who was later traded for Claude Lemieux. Nolan was traded for Sandis Ozolinsh, one of the most productive defensemen in the league and a member of the 1996 Stanley Cup championship team. The Eric Lindros trade … well … that trade turned out to be historic.

The expansion Ottawa Senators had a run of three No. 1 overall picks in four years between 1993 and 1996 when they picked Alexandre Daigle, Bryan Berard and Chris Phillips. Daigle turned out to be a bust and Berard was traded (for a package that included Wade Redden, a long-time staple on the Senators’ blue line), but Phillips played more than 1,100 games in Ottawa over 17 seasons. Starting in 1996, the year of the third and final No. 1 pick, the Senators went on an 11-year run where they made the playoffs every year (with Redden and Phillips playing significant roles). It never resulted in a championship, but they made the Conference Finals twice and the Stanley Cup Final once.

What’s so maddening about the Oilers, even as a completely neutral observer, is how they have completely wasted this draft pick bounty.

It’s certainly possible they could come back next season and be decent. When you have Connor McDavid that chance always exists. But he can’t do it alone, and we have to trust an organization that has made the playoffs three times in 16 years (and only once in 12 years) can figure out what the hell it is doing.

Especially when it has a proven track record of, again, wasting the talent it has been lucky enough to get.

Yakupov simply did not work out, not really anything anybody can do about that. Arguing that he was a bad pick would be 20/20 hindsight. Sometimes picks just don’t work out and there weren’t many people arguing against his selection at the time.

But after that it’s a story of waste.

Hall, one of the best left wingers in the league and a player that has a pretty compelling MVP argument this season (he won’t win, but there is an argument to be made), was traded for an okay-but-nothing-special defenseman.

Don’t be shocked if Nugent-Hopkins, another talented and productive player that probably gets underrated because he’s been stuck on a lousy team for his entire career, gets moved in a similar deal in the next year or two.

They traded another of their top forwards, Jordan Eberle, for a lesser player in Ryan Strome that will not ever come close to matching Eberle’s production.

They signed Milan Lucic and Kris Russell for a combined $10 million per season for at least the next … four years?!

They managed to get one playoff appearance out of McDavid’s entry level contract, and as I said a couple months ago, the front office that could not build a competitive team around him making the league minimum now has to figure out a way to build a competitive team around him while he is making $12 million per year (with Leon Draisaitl riding shotgun making $8 million per year).

At this point their reward for all of this incompetence could be anything from an 8.5 percent chance (fifth worst record) to an 18 percent chance (if they should happen to collapse enough to finish with the worst record — and I’m not betting against that) to land one of the best defense prospects to enter the NHL in years. Those odds are way too high. Those odds are too much in their favor. They do not deserve odds that high.

If their is some sort of just and loving draft lottery deity floating around in the hockey world it will not allow this to happen. It can not happen.

For the sake of Rasmus Dahlin’s career.

For the sake of hockey fans outside of Edmonton.

Heck, just for my own personal sanity, the Edmonton freaking Oilers can not be rewarded with another top draft pick. Especially one that could be this good at a position where they have a desperate need.

Somebody else — literally, anybody else — needs to get the chance to make something out of Rasmus Dahlin.

Anybody but the Edmonton Oilers.

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.