NHL Season Recap - Edmonton Oilers

Edmonton Oilers

2016-17 season: 47-26-9, 103 points Beat San Jose 4-2 in the First Round Lost to Anaheim 4-3 in the Conference Semifinals	Head Coach: Todd McLellan (2015)
2nd Place Pacific Division	General Manager: Peter Chiarelli (2015)
4th Place Western Conference	AHL Affiliate: Bakersfield Condors ECHL Affiliate: Norfolk Admirals
Draft Position: 22nd

Top Forwards

POS	Age	Name	GP	Points	Goals	Assists	+/-	CF%
C	20	Connor McDavid	82	100	30	70	27	53.8
C	21	Leon Draisaitl	82	77	29	48	7	52.1
RW	26	Jordan Eberle	82	51	20	31	3	52.8
LW	28	Milan Lucic	82	50	23	27	-3	51.5
C	23	Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	82	43	18	25	-10	49.6
LW	28	Patrick Maroon	81	42	27	15	13	53.6
C	31	Mark Lestestu	78	35	16	19	-2	45.4
RW	26	Zack Kassian	79	24	7	17	4	47.4
LW	22	Drake Caggiula	60	18	7	11	3	47.6
LW	30	Benoit Pouliot	67	14	8	6	-5	48.6

Top Defensemen

POS	Age	Name	GP	Points	Goals	Assists	+/-	CF%
D	23	Oscar Klefbom	82	38	12	26	7	50.6
D	30	Andrej Sekera	80	35	8	27	14	49.8
D	24	Adam Larsson	79	19	4	15	21	49.9
D	22	Matt Benning	62	15	3	12	15	52.3
D	29	Kris Russell	68	13	1	12	5	46.5

Top Goaltenders

POS	Age	Name	Games Started	W/L Record	Shutouts	GAA		Save %
G	29	Cam Talbot	73	42-22-8	7	2.39	.919
G	32	Jonas Gustavsson	5	1-3-1	0	3.10	.878
G	23	Laurent Brossoit	4	4-1-0	0	1.99	.928

Trades Made During the Season

What They Acquired	Team They Traded With	In Exchange For
F Justin Fontaine	New York Rangers	F Taylor Beck
C David Desharnais	Montreal Canadiens	D Brandon Davidson
F Henrik Samuelsson	Arizona Coyotes	F Mitchell Moroz
F Zach Pochiro Conditional 2017  3rd RD Pick	St. Louis Blues	F Nail Yakupov

Impending Free Agents

POS	Age	Name	2016-17 Cap Hit
C	30	David Desharnais	$2,800,000
D	38	Andrew Ference	$3,250,000
D	30	Kris Russell	$3,100,000
LW	35	Matt Hendricks	$1,850,000
C	26	Anton Lander	$987,500
D	29	Eric Gryba	$950,000
G	32	Jonas Gustavsson	$800,000
RW	25	Tyler Pitlick	$725,000
RW	29	Justin Fontaine	$600,000
D	24	Jordan Oesterle	$585,000
D	30	Mark Fraser	$575,000

Draft Needs

• The Oilers have eight picks in the upcoming draft and will be drafting outside the top 10 for the first time since 2005.  The Oilers have some of the best young players in the league and already have one of the best forward groups at the NHL level.  That doesn't even include Jesse Puljujarvi, who was drafted by Edmonton fourth overall last year.  They also have a young core on defense with veterans in depth roles with not as much depth in the minors at the position as they do at forward.  I think that they spend several picks on defensemen in the draft but will probably take the best available player with their first round selection.

What I Said About Them Before the Season

• I hated the move GM Peter Chiarelli made to send elite winger Taylor Hall to New Jersey for top four defenseman Adam Larsson.  I also hated that they signed veteran Milan Lucic to help replace Hall's production.  I even questioned the decision to draft Jesse Puljujarvi with the fourth overall pick last year and thought that they should have taken a defenseman or goaltender at that spot.  Finally, I made the bizarre decision to write that Edmonton isn't much further ahead in their rebuild than Buffalo or Toronto and thought that this team wasn't good enough to be a playoff team this season and should have traded Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or Jordan Eberle instead of Hall in order to acquire a defenseman.

Success/Failure

• Absolute Success - I was completely wrong in my preseason coverage of the Oilers and was also wrong in my analysis of the team's transactions last offseason.  The Taylor Hall/Adam Larsson trade ended up working out for the Oilers as Larsson was the team's best defenseman and ate up a lot of ice time.  I'm not saying that Hall and Larsson are the same caliber of player, just that trading Hall was the requirement to acquire a defenseman with Larsson's abilities. All that the Oilers ended up doing this season was become one of the best teams in the Western Conference and get all the way to the seventh game of the Conference Semifinals.  They were even the better team in that series and would have advanced had they not been on the short end of some very questionable calls by the referees.  That being said, the didn't have to experience the playoff letdown that most young teams deal with in their first taste of the playoffs.  The Oilers made the playoffs as a result of the continued development of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Oscar Klefbom on defense.  McDavid, who is a generational talent and was selected first overall in the 2015 draft, should win the Hart Trophy as league MVP this season and staked a claim on the title of best player in the league.  They also got surprising production from Patrick Maroon, who more than doubled his career high in goal this season, by netting 27 of them while skating on McDavid's line for much of the season.  In net, they were led by Cam Talbot, who started 73 games in the regular season and was approaching 100 games started by the time they were eliminated if preseason games were included.  His 73 games started were the most in the league this season and his play began to slip as the playoffs progressed most likely the result of exhaustion.  This was a very good team this season who easily could have been in the Western Conference Finals and will be one of the favorites to win the Western Conference next season. Edmonton should win a Stanley Cup in the next few years.

Offseason Needs

• I think that something has to happen with one of or both Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.  RNH was drafted first overall in the 2011 draft and it's becoming more and more evident that he isn't good enough to warrant being taken with that selection, nor is he worth his $6 million contract.  Eberle was better than RNH during the regular season but was awful in the playoffs, often looking sluggish on the ice.  He is also being paid $6 million per season and isn't worth this contract considering he has become a third liner for Edmonton.  There have been rumors that Eberle played his last game with the Oilers in game seven of the Conference Semis which would be the right move in my opinion.  My biggest question is whether they will be able to find a suitable trade partner considering his cap hit and I think that they'd have to eat some of his contract or take another bad contract in return.  RNH is still a good player but just isn't a player good enough to warrant his contract.  In any trade they make, I would like to see Edmonton target a defenseman since Kris Russell and Eric Gryba are both free agents this offseason.

*All stats and information came from hockey-reference.com, rosterresource.com, spotrac.com, NHL.com, hockeydb.com, capfriendly.com, tsn.ca, and eliteprospects.com*