Quoting: TrueCanuck
An argument can be made for Draisaitl as a top 5 centre, but he's really not in that territory either - so there's the overrating of the players.
LOL, sure. He won the Hart and Art Ross last year, he's 2nd in points & 4th in goals over the past 5 seasons combined. At some point you detractors will have to see that it's not all because of McDavid, just like Jagr wasn't all because of Lemieux.
Quoting: TrueCanuck
As for the depth, good teams win starting with centre depth and Edmonton doesn't have it in that regard. Oilers have 2 legit options at centre, and then a bunch of question marks (at least a team like Toronto has 3 options at centre I guess).
McDavid > Matthews
Draisaitl > Tavares
Nugent-Hopkins > Engvall / Kerfoot / whoever
Holloway > any Leafs prospect
Quoting: TrueCanuck
On top of that, Edmonton has again, 2 legit options on the wing and then a bunch of question marks & that's even after they bring in Hyman (which good luck with that contract in 2-3 years time). Keeping the Leafs as the model here, they had better depth on the wing and much higher talent - they were able to round out a top 6 of wingers and even their 3rd line wingers at least did their role well, where as Edmonton is left with question marks everywhere. Yamamoto took a step back, Puljujarvi was good but in consistent, Hyman is good but there's still no guarantee he fits in, so you're left with 1 maybe 2 options at wing (RNH and maybe Hyman). That's a hard forward core to sell to a team expecting to win a cup and even Toronto's was better and they couldn't get past the first round.
You're underselling the young wingers and also ignoring Edmonton's cap space. They could easily bring in another good winger like Saad or Tatar this summer.
Here's Yamamoto & Puljujarvi's goal scoring over the past 2 seasons (1 for JP) compared to Toronto's top-6 wingers:
Nylander: 1.09
Puljujarvi: 0.89
Hyman: 0.88
Marner: 0.82
Yamamoto: 0.72
Kerfoot: 0.56
Three of the top-5 here are playing in Edmonton next year. Plus Nuge scored as well as Marner (0.80).
Quoting: TrueCanuck
Then the defence - oh buy. Again, Nurse is not a top 10 defenceman, Norris votes don't mean much, it says he had a good season but doesn't show his overall game (the award is highly valued towards offensive minded defenseman), he's closer to a top 20 guy. From there again it's nothing but question marks - Bear took a step back and was inconsistent, Keith was brought in but has been on the decline for almost 5 seasons, it'll be Bouchard'a first real full season so you don't know how he'll end up
If you knew anything at all about hockey you'd know that Nurse's game isn't based around offense.
As for the rest of it, I never made any claims about Keith, in fact I didn't even mention his name. So that's a complete red herring. Bear has played well with Nurse, better than Barrie except for luck (
NST link), Bouchard has shown well in previous at bats and won't be relied on for anything more than 3rd pairing and PP duty this year, while Broberg is trending ahead of Klefbom. I didn't even mention Samorukov, who could make the team out of camp this fall.
Quoting: TrueCanuck
and then you bring in 2 slow footed guys in Forbort and Hamonic to play in a lineup that's based around speed.
Forbort is rumored to be signing in Boston, a lineup that's based around speed. Not everyone has to skate like the wind in order to play fast, you know.
Quoting: TrueCanuck
Then you wanna bring back the same goalie tandem as last season, where Smith is due for a set back at his age - 1 good season still doesn't change what he is - and Koskinen who's just garbage.
That tandem is in place already, I didn't set that up. Nor would I have. You need to separate your criticism for Holland with your criticism for me. We aren't the same person... the whole point of this AGM was to show how stupid the draft day trade down was due to the goaltending situation, I'd say I nailed it.