Free washer | Not the right year to fish first

Would the Edmonton Oilers have progressed faster with Nathan MacKinnon, Aleksander Barkov or Seth Jones in their roster?

Mathias Brunet
Press

The question obviously does not arise. Despite their many repechage lottery victories, unfortunately they did not always inherit the right vintage.

Oilers fans were excited to get their hands on Nail Yakupov in 2012, after his 69-point season, including 31 goals, in just 42 games at Sarnia, in the Ontario Junior League.

“Fail for Nail” had become a popular slogan in Alberta. But Yakupov was already out of the NHL at 25, and in retrospect, the 2012 vintage was one of the weakest in recent history.

The Columbus Blue Jackets drafted second-place defenseman Ryan Murray, Canadian Alex Galchenyuk subsequently and the Islanders cast their hopes on defenseman Griffin Reinhart.

Despite all his faults, and already at his sixth club, Galchenyuk is still third in the counters of this vintage behind Filip Forsberg and Tomas Hertl. That says a lot about the quality of the hopes that year …

If given the choice, the Oilers would have jumped at the chance to trade their first pick in 2012 for that of 2013, with a much more interesting group of players.

The Oilers drafted seventh in 2013. They still found a solid defenseman, Darnell Nurse. But it’s neither MacKinnon, the Avalanche’s first choice, nor Barkov, the Panthers’ second choice, or defenseman Seth Jones, drafted fourth by the Nashville Predators, behind Jonathan Drouin, the Lightning’s choice of Tampa Bay.

The Oilers finally won the jackpot in 2015 with Connor McDavid. They still haven’t become a powerhouse, but we now understand why they waded into mediocrity for so long despite a slew of top picks in total such as Taylor Hall (2010), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2011) and Yakupov (2012): they have not come across the good years.

And the Canadian in all of this?

With another defeat on Wednesday in Boston, the Canadian now finds himself alone in last place in the general standings, one point behind the Arizona Coyotes.

If the draft took place today, Montreal would have a 25.7% chance of obtaining the first choice. Unfortunately, there is no Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews or Nathan MacKinnon on the horizon.

Right-handed center Shane Wright remains the consensus first choice, but he’s leaving many wanting more this winter. Some compare his style of play to that of Patrice Bergeron, due to his reliability in all three zones, but that’s setting the bar high, and we expected better offensive production from Wright this season.

In 2019-2020, at just 15 (he turned 16 mid-season), Wright had 66 points, including 39 goals, in 58 games for Kingston. Two years later, Wright, 18, has 30 points, including 11 goals, in 22 games, ranking 33rd in scoring in the Ontario Junior League.

It’s not bad, but an eventual first overall pick is expected to produce more at the junior level. Over a 65-game season, that corresponds to 24 goals and 87 points.

In their year of eligibility, Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Tyler Seguin, who aren’t McDavids or MacKinnons, all had over 105 points in a season of roughly 65 games. Nick Suzuki, 13th overall pick, had 96, including 45 goals, in 65 games.

After Wright, there is no consensus. Logan Cooley, a 5-foot-10 center, has 34 points in 24 games in the American development program. Matthew Savoie is producing at an interesting rate in the WHL, 52 points in 34 games, but he’s a 5-foot-9 center.

It’s unclear which of Simon Nemec, Joakim Kemell, Connor Geekie, David Jiricek will sneak into the top 3.

In short, Montreal will undoubtedly get their hands on a quality player in July, but not a savior. The big player’s name is Connor Bedard, he’s only 16, and he won’t be available until 2023. And Russian striker Matvei Michkov isn’t stung either. Will the Canadian be so miserable next year?

When Dominique Ducharme gets angry

At some point, Wednesday evening, Dominique Ducharme had had enough. No doubt nostalgic for his band of American League players who struggled like devils in holy water before the Holidays (we bring out an old sports cliché here!), And in front of the inertia of some of their returning veterans. game, the coach of the Canadian decided to go there on merit. He demoted Joel Armia to the fourth line and promoted Michael Pezzetta with Christian Dvorak and Jonathan Drouin. Pezzetta, 23, a modest sixth-round pick in 2016, scored his second goal of the season and he was one of his club’s best. For a player with 25 points in 115 career American League games and even had to go through ECHL briefly, that’s not normal. But if we want to create a new culture of work ethic and the thirst to win, we have to make such decisions.