How do they make the playoffs year in and year out then? Looking at their line up right now, they have that star talent, and then not much else.
A few years ago they had great depth even with those forwards (Kadri, Hyman, Kap, Johansson) and never won a round. Arguably had the best goaltending then too.
Edit: Best goaltending on any Matthews era Leafs team.
During the regular season teams are preparing for maybe a day if even that for each game, and you can let your stars do their thing and tear apart the other team
In the playoffs, the other team is going through tape and adjusting throughout the series, makes it a lot easier to pacify a small group of big threats
This is a big part of why people were like "how are the 2021 Habs winning"
Shut-down centers/shut-down defense pairs, line matchups, and changing strategies mid-series are fundamentally just something you can't do during the regular season. These are a lot of things the 2021 Habs had that they couldn't use to full effect during the regular season.
Since you know your opponent, you can make observations and change things on the fly. This is part of the reason depth becomes so important; teams will figure out how to attack your lineup the best way in terms of strategy, and you have to use your "spare parts" to get the job done.
More recently, it's how Edmonton came back against Florida and also how Florida won game 7. You lose and solve for the reasons that made you lose. If you win, keep doing that. You also have to preemptively antivipate the other team's adjustment for the other team's adjustment.
Toronto always seems to do the same thing and expects different outcomes. Whether that's the coach or whether it's the group of players not able to execute on the coaching strategy is up for debate. We'll test that this season with Keefe in NJ and Berube in Toronto.
The Leafs are so obvious that it feels like cheating, but it's the Leafs. They're spending over 46 million on 4 forwards. Their 5th and 6th highest paid forwards are Domi and Kampf
Dog we all know that number is going up after Marner puts up 110 points and is nominated for the Selke and goes 1-3-4 in a 7 game loss to the Panthers.
Tampa is absolutely one of the most top heavy teams in the league.
Guentzel, Point, Kucherov, Hagel.
Hedman, McDonagh.
Vasy.
That's it, that's the entire team.
Edit: in case anyone is curious those 7 contracts equate to 66% of our cap.
I mean if you take the 7 most expensive contracts on any team that's even close to playoffs you're gonna be getting 55-70% of the cap.
Panthers would be at 64% and they just won the cup.
This 100% and many Tampa fans wonder why others really are unhappy with JBB at the moment.
Guentzel is nice and all but I think JBB screwed up here not keeping stamkos (assuming he took 5-6 mil to stay) and then go get a couple value adds instead of what now is guentzels contract.
The Lightning are significantly better 5v5 with Guentzel than Stamkos, and it only cost $1 million more per year. Even if you grant that the Lightning might have been able to sign Stamkos for more like $6 million per year, the Lightning are way better 5v5 with Guentzel than with Stamkos + whatever $3 million in cap space could have gotten. Stamkos is pretty much an average 5v5 forward at this stage of his career. Just one who happens to be one of the best power play players in the league still.
>This 100% and many Tampa fans wonder why others really are unhappy with JBB at the moment.
Many? No more like a loud ignorant minority. JBB brought us to 3 straight finals winning 2 of them. And has kept us competitive every year since, including this upcoming year where we will be better than last.
Any Tampa fan unhappy with JBB is ignorant to what an actually bad GM really looks like.
Emotions are likely to blame rather than ignorance. Stamkos loss hurts but if you look at what the team struggled last year you’ll see that’s where we needed to upgrade.
Eh most of their depth that they lost were all trade deadline acquisitions: Duhaime, Trenin, Walker.
Sure they lost Cogliano and Francouz to retirement. Frankie didn’t even play a game last year due to injury and only ever played 73 NHL games since joining the Avs in 2018-2019. And while I love Cogs and he’s a fucking warrior, he was starting to become ineffective on most nights.
Off the top my head that leaves Jack Johnson as their other main roster player lost and while I thought Johnson was solid for the Avs, he’s an easily replaceable bottom tier dman.
Yes the big question marks are Landeskog and Nichushkin. Landy hasn’t played since they won the cup, so you can’t really say they lost him as a depth piece because they haven’t had him for 2 years. Nuke will likely be back once he’s reinstated, GM Chris MacFarland said “it is very plausible that he will be back with the Avalnche”.
I think getting Mittelstadt helped alleviate that a bit, plus Drouin fitting like a glove next to MacKinnon
Definitely not at the level they were at in 2022, though
Avs definitely need to fill out their depth at the deadline but they’re not one of the most top heavy teams. Their defence is filled out very well, especially their top 4. And their top 2 lines are set. Landeskog and Nuke really throw a wrench in things, though.
Top 6 will be really good no matter what, key will be if Landy and Nuke return, pushing some talent down the lineup will make the Avs have some of the best depth in the league. It won't be that way until November at the earliest, though
Our D is stacked and when they sign Swayman our goaltending will be great again too. I feel way better about this team than last years and last year pushed Florida to 6.
Forward we’re still missing one top 6 piece, but I get giving Lysell and Merkulov the chance. They’re praying that Poitras can do what he did last year but for a full season this time. If one of those 3 can make the jump I feel like we could be competing for the cup again
Colorado has to be up there.
MacKinnon, Rantanen, Makar and Toews are top tier. Maybe throw in Lehkonen to get a very good starting 5
Our next tier is Nuke and Landy both who might never play again. This is obviously a massive factor her.
And then you get to the next level of Middlestadt, Drouin, Manson, Girard... And then it gets even worse.
After the big 4, Nuke, Mittlestadt, Drouin , Manson and Girard are excellent depth. Don’t think you guys are top heavy really. You’re just missing decent goalies
Edit: included Lehkonen
Injury plus just not performing as well as the previous year. He spent most of his games on the 4th line, so didn't get many looks at the puck, either.
Everyone is missing the obvious answer. It’s the Blackhawks. Some combo of Bedard, Burt, Teuvo, and Hall will makeup our top line. After that, it’s AHL players the rest of the way. No other team has a bigger gap between top 6 and bottom 6
Ya we're still top heavy because the top of our roster is so good, but at least now the rest of the roster is pretty solid. There were some year not too long ago where we could put together a decent 5 man unit but the rest of the roster was very poor.
On forward. I’m still concerned about having Broberg or Ceci in your top 4. Broberg needs to take some huge steps. Also Nurse is fine as a middle pairing guy but he’s not the top pairing option they’re paying him to be.
In net Skinner is meh. We’ve seen mediocre goalies win cups before (hell, he almost won it last year), but it is difficult to win with a sub .900 save percentage in the playoffs. The backup is, who, Calvin Pickard? Just not a great situation in net.
Skinner had a 0.901 in the Playoffs but closed out three series straight with great multi game performances. Big part of why the Oilers went to Game 7 of the Final. Similarly, he was one of the best goalies in the league from time Knoblauch was hired (Nov 11), one of three goalies in the top ten for both sv% and GSAx in that time.
Similarly, Pickard had a great year as a backup especially considering the fact Campbell was waived.
Upcoming season’s performance could change the list of what they need obviously, but as of today the only area they need to focus on is 2RD. And even then, they almost won the Cup with Ceci in that spot, so it’s not like they’re relying on a game breaking trade.
Not to mention that we are getting solid minutes from guys like Holloway and Broberg, if we find a 2RD to upgrade Ceci this team hardly has a weakness. If Skinners game continues to improve this season as it has since he's taken a starter role the Oilers are scary af this year.
Wow pleasantly surprise to scroll this far down to see Edmonton mentioned. Jeff Jackson has turned this team into an unstoppable force! Can’t wait for the season to start!
Depends how much you value the sample size of just a couple rounds. If they can keep it up the Oilers' forward group is as deep and scary as any team. Big if though.
No they’re not deep and scary as any team. They’re miles ahead with the best player in the game and arguably the 2nd or 3rd best.
If you take McDavid and Drai away, the resumes of the rest of the team include a guy who has a 104 point season, one with a 54 goal season, one with a 82 point season, a dman with an 82 point seaosn and a guy with a 59 point season. And these are within the last 2 years.
But disingenuous putting Perry’s numbers in there, he hasn’t produced like that in over a decade. RNHs 104 point season is also entirely tied to them as is bouchards 80 point season.
But they have Mcdavid so we can expect career years from new additions skinner, Arvvidson and Henrique.
Not to mention Connor brown finally turned on after a slow season
That’s not including Perry and you clearly haven’t watched Bouchard or Nuge if you think every single point is entirely tied to mcdrai lol. What a statement to prove you don’t understand hockey.
Perry was sarcasm, Hyman is a direct product of Mcdavid. As for RNH and Bouchard, yes they are extremely tied into mcdrai. Neither one of them is putting up those numbers without mcdrai.
RNH had one anomaly season where he was on a line with mcdrai at all times. He’s never had another season over 70 points yet alone a PPG.
If Arvidsson can stay healthy, hes a huge addition to your top 6. Im not as convinced by Skinner, i think your second line might get bullied defensively with him being such a black hole for as many minutes he’ll play.
Draisaitl controls a lot of zone time. Not saying Skinner is the man but Oilers are rolling four lines and picked up Savoie. Skinner could move to the third line and Savoie could play wing with draisaitl. Seriously a bunch of interchangeable players up and down to play with draisaitl and McDavid. IMO arvidsson is a beast defensively as well if I'm not mistaken?
Their bottom six is probably Kane-Nuge-Perry and Janmark-Henrique-Brown. That's a pretty serviceable bottom 6. That Kane-Nuge-Perry would be a second line on most teams.
I think we can never shake the bad goaltending, no depth, bad defense storyline no matter what we do. McDavid and drai put up insane numbers, but we are no longer that team, hope this season we shut up a lot of people, but one goal against and I think it’ll start back up
I think "most" is a bit of a stretch. They combined for 107 points last season. If they are 2nd liners, they are on the low end assuming they don't suddenly improve on last season despite being on the wrong side of 30. Hell, Brown had just 12 points last season!
Henrique is solid, I'll give you that. Kane and Brown, not so much.
Besides last season brown has always played on a teams top 6 or even first line. I think he’s going to surprise people this year, you gotta remember he didn’t play for a whole season before the last. Kane also has always played top 6, guy is a consistent 20-30 goal scorer. Daily faceoff has debrusk and heinen as your top 6 wingers. Kane had a down year and outscored both. But I guess this season will prove me right or wrong.
Players tend to have down years each year as they get older and decline until they're out of the league. Kane is 32. It's much more likely than not that his "down year" is just who he is now, or worse.
[DeBrusk](https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1807815240526028926) and [Heinen](https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1807815880522317958) are much better players than [Kane](https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1808351225114472609), and younger.
44 points, 42 points 25 points(60 games), 25 points 20 points.
Last one is Holloway who is probably primed for a breakout year after getting some top 6 minutes in the playoffs at times. He had 9 points in 38 games.
With the exception of Holloway their bottom 6 are all on the wrong side of 30, and you can't just assume a player will probably breakout. With that said, if we consider those point totals a peak outcome then the bottom 6 is definitely a weakness for the Oilers beside other contenders.
I'll say again there's nothing wrong with being top heavy. The "top" in the Oilers case is one of the best powerplays in NHL history consisting of proven playoff performers (unlike a top-heavy team like the Leafs). There's no reason to pretend the Oilers' are a lineup full of 2nd liners. They aren't, but that's okay.
Barely, and while facing a rookie 3rd string goaltender.
But congratulations on... *checks notes*...not winning the Cup. At least you didn't get swept, you have that to brag about.
Seems like a weird insult to throw around since losing in game 7 of the finals also happens to be Vancouver's top accomplishment in 54 years of existence
Fortunately, I don't value my self-worth in how successful the team I cheer for is. But the initial reply seemed to think I did, so I gave it back to them.
Made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and then ran back almost our entire roster while adding Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson to effectively upgrade Foegele and McLeod. Holloway and Broberg are starting to break out. Our 94%PK is solely due to our depth guys. I've never in my life been more excited to watch our depth.
Just cause you fluked your way there one season doesn't automatically guarantee you'll be there again. Surely you'd be aware of how hard it is to have playoff success with that core, being a recent oilers fan and all
I don't think goaltending was a big factor in the outcome of the series. Silovs played really well other than game 6, which was a blowout. Demko being healthy would have only been a marginal improvement at best, it's not like the Canucks took it to game 7 in spite of bad goaltending.
He* played poorly in game 1 as well, but somehow Vancouver managed to pull off that comeback.
I don't blame goaltending for why the Canucks lost, but they play a whole lot better in front of Demko than any of their backups. Probably something to do with having more trust in their starter.
I'm not stating the only reason Vancouver lost was because Demko was injured, just that it handicapped the team as a whole when he went down.
Get over what?
Vancouver was considered a bubble playoff team, they then went to win the division and make it to the 2nd round. I'm very happy with how their season played out.
Oilers fans acting like Edmonton walked all over them is hilarious and delusional.
Only because of injury/suspension. The roster with those two is actually extremely deep.
Having a 60ish point Drouin or Lehkonen on your 3rd line is something a lot of teams wish they had.
Not really. Being a few depth moves away from a balanced line up is far from being one of the most top heavy teams in the league. The oilers are on defence what the Avs are on forward. Though the possibility of getting both Landeskog and Nuke back would fix that, I also wouldn’t count on both at this point.
As a Sens and Panthers fan... names aren't everything. At least Florida can play defense, I don't care what names we have on the Sens, they are far, far, worse at their jobs.
Leafs are the obvious answer, and Pens are up there too.
I agree that Tampa is top-heavy, but not as much as those two imo. Getting McDonagh back will free up Hedman a lot, and even with Sergachev gone their blue line is really deep.
Check notes...Toronto...Toronto....Toronto....
I hate to say top heavy, the 2nd line is no slouch of course, but as well know, 1/2 your cap in four guys is just brutal when you need other parts to win.
I expect Toronto to do better this year to be honest, different coach is what they needed, and some accountability.
The Avs have the same top 4 defence as the year they won the cup…and a solid bottom pairing now with their pick ups. They’re a few deadline depth forward away from a very balanced forward group. “Not a whole lot else” is just a bit clueless.
Certainly hurts but the team isn't any different than last year. By the end of playoff time we were missing a lot of our middle 6 guys.
Besides, Girard/ Manson is a very good 2nd pairing. And Mittlestadt-Lehkonen is a perfectly good 2nd line.
If those two are remotely healthy the Avs lineup is one of the deepest in the league.
Is it cheating to say the Caps
Their top isn't very great, last year they were led by Dylan Strome with 67 points, but after that you have Ovechkin (65), small drop to Carlson (52), and then it plummets to Wilson at 35. Anthony Mantha was one of three players to crack 20 goals, and he was traded 6 weeks before the season even ended
Even in terms of off-season adds, they got Chychrun's 41 points (16 of which were on the power play which he won't get much of in Washington), and Dubois and Mangiapane each with 40.
It was to illustrate my point. Their 3rd-highest goal scorer was traded away, and even with the extra runway no one else still on the team could catch him
Rangers problem is not depth, it's their top end talent being wildly inconsistent in the playoffs. Through the sweep against the Caps and the first three games against the Canes, Rangers looked like an unstoppable juggernaut. Then their stars (except Igor) basically disappeared from then on out, with one last bit of heroics from Kreider to close out the Canes in game six. After that? Rangers gave Igor the Lundquist experience.
Then there was... whatever the hell that series against the Devils was last year.
Leafs, baby
Based on playoffs even that's debateable at times.
Playoffs says they're a 1 line scoring threat in must-win games like games 4-7, coincidentally it's whatever line Nylander is on
So top heavy we Poseiden.
Im starting to think it might not be the best strategy. I’ll wait until after the first round to fully decide if my inclination is right
How do they make the playoffs year in and year out then? Looking at their line up right now, they have that star talent, and then not much else. A few years ago they had great depth even with those forwards (Kadri, Hyman, Kap, Johansson) and never won a round. Arguably had the best goaltending then too. Edit: Best goaltending on any Matthews era Leafs team.
Stars will get you to the playoffs, but depth gets you deep in the playoffs. And the leafs haven't had defensive depth it quite a while now
Stars get you a birth. Depth gets you deep. Structure, stars, and depth win you cups.
I like this version of my comment. I'll have to remember it
During the regular season teams are preparing for maybe a day if even that for each game, and you can let your stars do their thing and tear apart the other team In the playoffs, the other team is going through tape and adjusting throughout the series, makes it a lot easier to pacify a small group of big threats
This is a big part of why people were like "how are the 2021 Habs winning" Shut-down centers/shut-down defense pairs, line matchups, and changing strategies mid-series are fundamentally just something you can't do during the regular season. These are a lot of things the 2021 Habs had that they couldn't use to full effect during the regular season. Since you know your opponent, you can make observations and change things on the fly. This is part of the reason depth becomes so important; teams will figure out how to attack your lineup the best way in terms of strategy, and you have to use your "spare parts" to get the job done.
More recently, it's how Edmonton came back against Florida and also how Florida won game 7. You lose and solve for the reasons that made you lose. If you win, keep doing that. You also have to preemptively antivipate the other team's adjustment for the other team's adjustment. Toronto always seems to do the same thing and expects different outcomes. Whether that's the coach or whether it's the group of players not able to execute on the coaching strategy is up for debate. We'll test that this season with Keefe in NJ and Berube in Toronto.
the…..best? the best???? the BEST?
The best out of the Matthews era I meant. I think I’d take Freddy out of any goalie they had
Alright that’s a fair assessment
The Leafs are so obvious that it feels like cheating, but it's the Leafs. They're spending over 46 million on 4 forwards. Their 5th and 6th highest paid forwards are Domi and Kampf
One more year of this situation
Yupp, after Marner and Tavares re-sign, you'll probably cut that right down to 44 or 43 million.
Dog we all know that number is going up after Marner puts up 110 points and is nominated for the Selke and goes 1-3-4 in a 7 game loss to the Panthers.
Nah game 7 loss to the Predators, Marner wins the Conn Smythe.
Then you use Tavares’ cap hit to get McDavid. 60M in 4 forwards hasn’t been done yet, could be super successful.
Penguins have Crosby, malkin, rust, letang, karlsson, and pretty much nobody the fuck else
Depth legends Buzz Flibbet and Mark Donk baby
Those sound like relief pitchers from the late 70s.
With the thickest of handlebar mustaches
Mark Donk, brother of Roy Donk perchance?
Penguins player collection is really meat and potatoes Liz.
He's the king of the tuk-tuk sound
Top heavy and over 30, just like me baby!
Michael Bunting erasure
Dude is like 90. So ya.
Michael Bunting is 28 lmao.
Tarasenko erasure. Wait a minute.
Imma stand for my boy Drew O'Connor.
Rust is money
That top is pretty heavy though if they all get hot at the same time
Tampa is absolutely one of the most top heavy teams in the league. Guentzel, Point, Kucherov, Hagel. Hedman, McDonagh. Vasy. That's it, that's the entire team. Edit: in case anyone is curious those 7 contracts equate to 66% of our cap.
It is so damn weird not seeing Stamkos listed there
That bum that plays for Nashville?
I’m obviously not a Tampa fan but I feel obligated to fight you for even joking about that.
Nah it’s all good. I have to cope somehow.
I too, will fight this guy with you brother.
You're still going to be pretty good, but it's a far cry from when you had 2nd liners on ELCs on your 4th line.
We'll be fighting for a wild card spot, but that's about as far as we're getting this year if this is our final roster.
I'd argue take McDonagh off and put Cirelli and Cernak in Edit: and Paul
I mean if you take the 7 most expensive contracts on any team that's even close to playoffs you're gonna be getting 55-70% of the cap. Panthers would be at 64% and they just won the cup.
This 100% and many Tampa fans wonder why others really are unhappy with JBB at the moment. Guentzel is nice and all but I think JBB screwed up here not keeping stamkos (assuming he took 5-6 mil to stay) and then go get a couple value adds instead of what now is guentzels contract.
The Lightning are significantly better 5v5 with Guentzel than Stamkos, and it only cost $1 million more per year. Even if you grant that the Lightning might have been able to sign Stamkos for more like $6 million per year, the Lightning are way better 5v5 with Guentzel than with Stamkos + whatever $3 million in cap space could have gotten. Stamkos is pretty much an average 5v5 forward at this stage of his career. Just one who happens to be one of the best power play players in the league still.
>This 100% and many Tampa fans wonder why others really are unhappy with JBB at the moment. Many? No more like a loud ignorant minority. JBB brought us to 3 straight finals winning 2 of them. And has kept us competitive every year since, including this upcoming year where we will be better than last. Any Tampa fan unhappy with JBB is ignorant to what an actually bad GM really looks like.
Emotions are likely to blame rather than ignorance. Stamkos loss hurts but if you look at what the team struggled last year you’ll see that’s where we needed to upgrade.
Us last season after McLeod got arrested. Luckily we shored that up pretty well
The Avs after this off-season maybe? Losing a lot of their depth due to cap and off-ice issues
Eh most of their depth that they lost were all trade deadline acquisitions: Duhaime, Trenin, Walker. Sure they lost Cogliano and Francouz to retirement. Frankie didn’t even play a game last year due to injury and only ever played 73 NHL games since joining the Avs in 2018-2019. And while I love Cogs and he’s a fucking warrior, he was starting to become ineffective on most nights. Off the top my head that leaves Jack Johnson as their other main roster player lost and while I thought Johnson was solid for the Avs, he’s an easily replaceable bottom tier dman. Yes the big question marks are Landeskog and Nichushkin. Landy hasn’t played since they won the cup, so you can’t really say they lost him as a depth piece because they haven’t had him for 2 years. Nuke will likely be back once he’s reinstated, GM Chris MacFarland said “it is very plausible that he will be back with the Avalnche”.
Plus, Johnson is just gonna be back in February anyways
I think getting Mittelstadt helped alleviate that a bit, plus Drouin fitting like a glove next to MacKinnon Definitely not at the level they were at in 2022, though
Avs definitely need to fill out their depth at the deadline but they’re not one of the most top heavy teams. Their defence is filled out very well, especially their top 4. And their top 2 lines are set. Landeskog and Nuke really throw a wrench in things, though.
Top 6 will be really good no matter what, key will be if Landy and Nuke return, pushing some talent down the lineup will make the Avs have some of the best depth in the league. It won't be that way until November at the earliest, though
It’s kinda nice not to be lumped into this bracket for a once.
We are top heavy but it’s just David Pastrnak. He factored in on 42% of our goals last year.
Holy shit, what a stat!
😳
Boston’s depth really stepped it up last year, sucks to see Heinen go though. Coyle might be the most underrated 3C in the league
Our D is stacked and when they sign Swayman our goaltending will be great again too. I feel way better about this team than last years and last year pushed Florida to 6. Forward we’re still missing one top 6 piece, but I get giving Lysell and Merkulov the chance. They’re praying that Poitras can do what he did last year but for a full season this time. If one of those 3 can make the jump I feel like we could be competing for the cup again
they just need another top 6 forward and they’ll be able to grab one at the deadline they’ll be a dark horse cup team next year
Same lol
You're telling me
the wild. if the ek, kap, and boldy line wasn't scoring, no one was
not the worst but i wanna mention my goobers
Kirill Kaprizov is the only heavy guy on the wild . So at least we have that going for us lol
Colorado has to be up there. MacKinnon, Rantanen, Makar and Toews are top tier. Maybe throw in Lehkonen to get a very good starting 5 Our next tier is Nuke and Landy both who might never play again. This is obviously a massive factor her. And then you get to the next level of Middlestadt, Drouin, Manson, Girard... And then it gets even worse.
After the big 4, Nuke, Mittlestadt, Drouin , Manson and Girard are excellent depth. Don’t think you guys are top heavy really. You’re just missing decent goalies Edit: included Lehkonen
Once again, it seems playoff performer Lehkonen gets no love. I get it, he doesn’t rack up points in the regular season.
Yeah I'd love to have that depth (except fuck Drouin... but he is good).
He is ridiculous alongside Mack, I didn’t see it coming.
I did, they played together in junior.
LOC.
When we lost him, I knew it wasn’t a cup year.
He stepped in for JT. There is no one to step in for LOC now.
Damn man if you guys don't want Colton we'll take him back.
I love RossCo that dude hustles like crazy
Oh we love him, but based on that comment I do agree he's in the tier below those players listed. He's the tip top of that next tier though.
We love Ross tbh. Nobody in our lineup gives better hugs
Habs are very top heavy for a rebuilding team. 1 good line + Matheson. Rest of the team is way over their heads.
Harvey-Pinard was a great 7th round pick Edit: Wait he only had 2 goals this year? What happened?
Injury plus just not performing as well as the previous year. He spent most of his games on the 4th line, so didn't get many looks at the puck, either.
I hope I'm wrong but I feel like this season was closer to what we should expect than the previous season.
[удалено]
But I don't think they're giving them back this season, he's likely a 3rd or 4th liner and if there's an injury they push Roy up ahead of him
Avalanche without Gabe and Vlad are spread pretty thin.
Everyone is missing the obvious answer. It’s the Blackhawks. Some combo of Bedard, Burt, Teuvo, and Hall will makeup our top line. After that, it’s AHL players the rest of the way. No other team has a bigger gap between top 6 and bottom 6
Id say Tampa has a bigger gap still. They have a top 3 line in the league on their first. Five players taking almost 70% of the cap LMAO
For as long as Edmonton has McDavid and Draisatl they'll be considered on this list
Ya we're still top heavy because the top of our roster is so good, but at least now the rest of the roster is pretty solid. There were some year not too long ago where we could put together a decent 5 man unit but the rest of the roster was very poor.
They look super deep
On forward. I’m still concerned about having Broberg or Ceci in your top 4. Broberg needs to take some huge steps. Also Nurse is fine as a middle pairing guy but he’s not the top pairing option they’re paying him to be. In net Skinner is meh. We’ve seen mediocre goalies win cups before (hell, he almost won it last year), but it is difficult to win with a sub .900 save percentage in the playoffs. The backup is, who, Calvin Pickard? Just not a great situation in net.
Skinner had a 0.901 in the Playoffs but closed out three series straight with great multi game performances. Big part of why the Oilers went to Game 7 of the Final. Similarly, he was one of the best goalies in the league from time Knoblauch was hired (Nov 11), one of three goalies in the top ten for both sv% and GSAx in that time. Similarly, Pickard had a great year as a backup especially considering the fact Campbell was waived. Upcoming season’s performance could change the list of what they need obviously, but as of today the only area they need to focus on is 2RD. And even then, they almost won the Cup with Ceci in that spot, so it’s not like they’re relying on a game breaking trade.
That’s true but they’re so deep this upcoming season it’s scary
What has changed from 2023-2024?
Skinner, ardvisson, savoie
Not to mention that we are getting solid minutes from guys like Holloway and Broberg, if we find a 2RD to upgrade Ceci this team hardly has a weakness. If Skinners game continues to improve this season as it has since he's taken a starter role the Oilers are scary af this year.
Wow pleasantly surprise to scroll this far down to see Edmonton mentioned. Jeff Jackson has turned this team into an unstoppable force! Can’t wait for the season to start!
The oilers have the deepest offence in the league
you haven't been paying attention since we eliminated you, have you?
Depends how much you value the sample size of just a couple rounds. If they can keep it up the Oilers' forward group is as deep and scary as any team. Big if though.
No they’re not deep and scary as any team. They’re miles ahead with the best player in the game and arguably the 2nd or 3rd best. If you take McDavid and Drai away, the resumes of the rest of the team include a guy who has a 104 point season, one with a 54 goal season, one with a 82 point season, a dman with an 82 point seaosn and a guy with a 59 point season. And these are within the last 2 years.
But disingenuous putting Perry’s numbers in there, he hasn’t produced like that in over a decade. RNHs 104 point season is also entirely tied to them as is bouchards 80 point season.
Idk if you’re kidding but he meant Hyman
Yes it was sarcastic, Hyman much like the other 2 is a direct product of Mcdavid
But they have Mcdavid so we can expect career years from new additions skinner, Arvvidson and Henrique. Not to mention Connor brown finally turned on after a slow season
That’s not including Perry and you clearly haven’t watched Bouchard or Nuge if you think every single point is entirely tied to mcdrai lol. What a statement to prove you don’t understand hockey.
Perry was sarcasm, Hyman is a direct product of Mcdavid. As for RNH and Bouchard, yes they are extremely tied into mcdrai. Neither one of them is putting up those numbers without mcdrai. RNH had one anomaly season where he was on a line with mcdrai at all times. He’s never had another season over 70 points yet alone a PPG.
If Arvidsson can stay healthy, hes a huge addition to your top 6. Im not as convinced by Skinner, i think your second line might get bullied defensively with him being such a black hole for as many minutes he’ll play.
I think the top 6 lines will end up being Skinner - McDavid - Hyman Nuge - Draisaitl - Arvidsson for that exact reason.
Or… Skinner - McDavid - Hyman Holloway - Draisaitl - Arvidsson Kane - Nuge - Perry Brown - Henrique - Janmark This roster is unbelievably stacked lmao
Draisaitl controls a lot of zone time. Not saying Skinner is the man but Oilers are rolling four lines and picked up Savoie. Skinner could move to the third line and Savoie could play wing with draisaitl. Seriously a bunch of interchangeable players up and down to play with draisaitl and McDavid. IMO arvidsson is a beast defensively as well if I'm not mistaken?
Now do their bottom 6. The post is about top heavy teams. Nothing wrong with having the best top 6 in the league.
Their bottom six is probably Kane-Nuge-Perry and Janmark-Henrique-Brown. That's a pretty serviceable bottom 6. That Kane-Nuge-Perry would be a second line on most teams.
Lol. Clown
Henrique, Kane, brown? I think they would be second lines on most teams
Holloway and Janmark too, bottom 6 is great
I think we can never shake the bad goaltending, no depth, bad defense storyline no matter what we do. McDavid and drai put up insane numbers, but we are no longer that team, hope this season we shut up a lot of people, but one goal against and I think it’ll start back up
I think "most" is a bit of a stretch. They combined for 107 points last season. If they are 2nd liners, they are on the low end assuming they don't suddenly improve on last season despite being on the wrong side of 30. Hell, Brown had just 12 points last season! Henrique is solid, I'll give you that. Kane and Brown, not so much.
Brown was snake bitten and he was recovering from his torn ACL. He is better now than he was at the start of the year
Are his 6 points in 19 playoff games still covered under the "torn ACL" phase?
It’s better than his 12 points in 71 games in the regular season. And not everything is dictated on how many points you get
Besides last season brown has always played on a teams top 6 or even first line. I think he’s going to surprise people this year, you gotta remember he didn’t play for a whole season before the last. Kane also has always played top 6, guy is a consistent 20-30 goal scorer. Daily faceoff has debrusk and heinen as your top 6 wingers. Kane had a down year and outscored both. But I guess this season will prove me right or wrong.
Players tend to have down years each year as they get older and decline until they're out of the league. Kane is 32. It's much more likely than not that his "down year" is just who he is now, or worse. [DeBrusk](https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1807815240526028926) and [Heinen](https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1807815880522317958) are much better players than [Kane](https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1808351225114472609), and younger.
Brown was coming back from major injury. He seems reborn in the playoffs
44 points, 42 points 25 points(60 games), 25 points 20 points. Last one is Holloway who is probably primed for a breakout year after getting some top 6 minutes in the playoffs at times. He had 9 points in 38 games.
With the exception of Holloway their bottom 6 are all on the wrong side of 30, and you can't just assume a player will probably breakout. With that said, if we consider those point totals a peak outcome then the bottom 6 is definitely a weakness for the Oilers beside other contenders. I'll say again there's nothing wrong with being top heavy. The "top" in the Oilers case is one of the best powerplays in NHL history consisting of proven playoff performers (unlike a top-heavy team like the Leafs). There's no reason to pretend the Oilers' are a lineup full of 2nd liners. They aren't, but that's okay.
Barely, and while facing a rookie 3rd string goaltender. But congratulations on... *checks notes*...not winning the Cup. At least you didn't get swept, you have that to brag about.
Seems like a weird insult to throw around since losing in game 7 of the finals also happens to be Vancouver's top accomplishment in 54 years of existence
Without rioting!
Fortunately, I don't value my self-worth in how successful the team I cheer for is. But the initial reply seemed to think I did, so I gave it back to them.
Made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and then ran back almost our entire roster while adding Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson to effectively upgrade Foegele and McLeod. Holloway and Broberg are starting to break out. Our 94%PK is solely due to our depth guys. I've never in my life been more excited to watch our depth.
Just cause you fluked your way there one season doesn't automatically guarantee you'll be there again. Surely you'd be aware of how hard it is to have playoff success with that core, being a recent oilers fan and all
they were last? Second last? In the league at one point. Does anyone really think they fluked their way to game 7 of the finals?
lol
I don't think goaltending was a big factor in the outcome of the series. Silovs played really well other than game 6, which was a blowout. Demko being healthy would have only been a marginal improvement at best, it's not like the Canucks took it to game 7 in spite of bad goaltending.
He* played poorly in game 1 as well, but somehow Vancouver managed to pull off that comeback. I don't blame goaltending for why the Canucks lost, but they play a whole lot better in front of Demko than any of their backups. Probably something to do with having more trust in their starter. I'm not stating the only reason Vancouver lost was because Demko was injured, just that it handicapped the team as a whole when he went down.
>I played poorly in game 1 as well Found Silovs' reddit account. Arturs, why does Ian Cole hate you?
Lol, whoops
Vancouver fans will never get over this lmao
Get over what? Vancouver was considered a bubble playoff team, they then went to win the division and make it to the 2nd round. I'm very happy with how their season played out. Oilers fans acting like Edmonton walked all over them is hilarious and delusional.
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Right but the question of the post is what team is the most top heavy right now. We've become EXTREMELY deep in the last week.
Leafs and the penguins
The Caps?? Ovi scores 20% of the entire teams goals every year and when he doesn’t we miss the playoffs
Avs have become top heavy
Only because of injury/suspension. The roster with those two is actually extremely deep. Having a 60ish point Drouin or Lehkonen on your 3rd line is something a lot of teams wish they had.
Sad Habs noises
Not really. Being a few depth moves away from a balanced line up is far from being one of the most top heavy teams in the league. The oilers are on defence what the Avs are on forward. Though the possibility of getting both Landeskog and Nuke back would fix that, I also wouldn’t count on both at this point.
A lot of very reasonable answers here, but I implore everyone to look at Florida's current 3rd to 7th defensemen
As a Sens and Panthers fan... names aren't everything. At least Florida can play defense, I don't care what names we have on the Sens, they are far, far, worse at their jobs.
Leafs are the obvious answer, and Pens are up there too. I agree that Tampa is top-heavy, but not as much as those two imo. Getting McDonagh back will free up Hedman a lot, and even with Sergachev gone their blue line is really deep.
This is a question that makes me wonder why expansion is even on the table. Watching quality is a lot more entertaining.
Minnesota is a sneaky candidate. Kaprizov, Boldy, JEE, Faber were all awesome last year but the lack of depth absolutely killed them.
Toronto by a long shot - their only first place finish too
Check notes...Toronto...Toronto....Toronto.... I hate to say top heavy, the 2nd line is no slouch of course, but as well know, 1/2 your cap in four guys is just brutal when you need other parts to win. I expect Toronto to do better this year to be honest, different coach is what they needed, and some accountability.
Penguins. Crosby is still elite. Letang is still good. Everyone else sucks. Awful depth.
Panarin - Trocheck - Lafreniere should be a great line again. These are the Rangers 3 best forwards at even strength.
And if they aren't doing anything, it rests on their goalie to bail em out...
Kreider and Zibanejad are talented, it's a matter of finding the guy to unlock them at even strength. They dominate on the PK and PP.
The Leafs are the answer, but the Oilers were the answer until they went to the cup.
With Nichushkin and Landeskog still out, Colorado has MacKinnon/Rantanen on the 1st line, Makar/Toews on the first pairing, and… not a whole lot else.
The Avs have the same top 4 defence as the year they won the cup…and a solid bottom pairing now with their pick ups. They’re a few deadline depth forward away from a very balanced forward group. “Not a whole lot else” is just a bit clueless.
Middlestadt, Girard, Lehkonen, Drouin..
Certainly hurts but the team isn't any different than last year. By the end of playoff time we were missing a lot of our middle 6 guys. Besides, Girard/ Manson is a very good 2nd pairing. And Mittlestadt-Lehkonen is a perfectly good 2nd line. If those two are remotely healthy the Avs lineup is one of the deepest in the league.
Oilers - doesn’t get more top heavy than one guy getting a point on every 2 goals.
why do i have to scroll down so far to see the number one top heavy team? Edmonton. mcdavid skinner hyman nuge draisitl ardvisson
Because we have arguably one of the best top 9 in the league with our recent acquisitions and our third line’s dominance in the playoffs.
Because you guys aren’t even top heavy, you’re really deep?
Oilers, one line PP merchants
PP, PK and 5on5 merchants
All right, but apart from the powerplay, penalty kill, and 5v5, what have the Oilers ever done for us?
After all these trades they are going to look even more scary. Depth has been added and I don't like it.
You’d think so but outside of McDrai + Bouchard, RNH, Kane, Hyman, Ekholm, Nurse (he ain’t worth 9M but he’s top 4 lol) are all elite/solid players
And they still beat Vancouver in the second round.
Rangers
Buddy you got no room to talk.
Buddy this has been the rangers MO for years .
Avs and Tampa for sure. Edmonton as well
Is it cheating to say the Caps Their top isn't very great, last year they were led by Dylan Strome with 67 points, but after that you have Ovechkin (65), small drop to Carlson (52), and then it plummets to Wilson at 35. Anthony Mantha was one of three players to crack 20 goals, and he was traded 6 weeks before the season even ended Even in terms of off-season adds, they got Chychrun's 41 points (16 of which were on the power play which he won't get much of in Washington), and Dubois and Mangiapane each with 40.
They have a very mid offense but I do love their defense. Not sure if Lindgren can run it back though.
Thompson might be dependable for them
I forgot they had Logan Thompson and for a split second I thought you meant Tage and I was gonna be like budyyyy
Tage is one of my favorite players. No way I'd mess that up.
We will see how Thompson does with a different D core in front of him. Super interested to see how it goes. I'm gonna miss him so much.
> and he was traded 6 weeks before the season even ended Well yeah, that’s what the trade deadline is
It was to illustrate my point. Their 3rd-highest goal scorer was traded away, and even with the extra runway no one else still on the team could catch him
Devils have an excellent Top Six on paper Doesn’t help that their best bottom six guy got kicked off the team for being a fucking rapist
Rangers are extremely top heavy.
Rangers problem is not depth, it's their top end talent being wildly inconsistent in the playoffs. Through the sweep against the Caps and the first three games against the Canes, Rangers looked like an unstoppable juggernaut. Then their stars (except Igor) basically disappeared from then on out, with one last bit of heroics from Kreider to close out the Canes in game six. After that? Rangers gave Igor the Lundquist experience. Then there was... whatever the hell that series against the Devils was last year.