Edmonton Oilers

How Badly Do We Want To Use The 22nd Pick?
June 6, 2017, 1:04 PM ET [100 Comments]
Matt Henderson
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSS • Archive • CONTACT
The Oilers currently own the 22nd pick in the NHL Entry draft slated for June 23rd and 24th. Edmonton doesn’t have its 2nd pick at the draft because the league determined that hiring a man who had been fired is the same as hiring a man who currently had a job with another team in the league. So the Oilers had to send compensation to the Bruins for hiring someone who no longer worked for them.

The league reversed its decision on that whole compensation rule, but not before it was ridiculously applied to Edmonton and a couple other teams. So…yay.

At any rate, this situation with the 2nd rounder not being there is causing some agitation for fans and people in the Edmonton media alike. It has pushed a lot of people to dig in on the argument that the Oiler 1st rounder can't be moved because if it was then the team wouldn’t have a 1st OR a 2nd rounder in the draft. The team would be sitting around at the draft until the 3rd round just playing with their fidget spinners or something.

Look, we all know that you can't leave scouts alone without giving them a task for more than 30 minutes or they become incredibly difficult to deal with. They colour on the walls, run through the hallways, they skip their naps, and bedtime just gets screwed up completely. Have you ever tried to get a scout dressed for the morning when they haven’t have a full night’s rest? It’s hell. Literal hell.

But sometimes it’s just worth it. Sometimes there are special occasions that make dealing with all those bored scouts after the fact a happy chore. For example, if the Oilers could trade their 1st round pick in a deal that actually makes them better in the present; that would be one of those occasions. Edmonton is no longer a rebuilding team. They are in the Win phase of their rebuild. It’s here. The club made the 2nd round of the playoffs and eventually lost to the referees this past year. The bar is getting raised for expectations this coming year.

It’s absolutely true that the Oilers cupboard of drafted forward prospects is suspect at best. That was helped in no small part to the unbelievably terrible Reinhart deal which robbed the Oilers of a chance to select a Barzal, Connor, or Eriksson-Ek. That said, the team is going hard after NCAA prospects and having some success doing so. We’ll keep our eye on Edmonton native Spencer Foo who had high-end offense on the right wing at Union College.

But we should also keep an eye on some past players taken in that 22nd overall spot to give us some context about our expectations. This is a late 1st rounder. We are well past the part of the draft that delivers drivers regularly. Homeruns are still more than possible, but become less likely. Here we go:

2016 – German Rubstov – PHI – Center – 15G, 0-0-0 in the KHL this past year.
2015 – Ilya Samsonov – WAS – Goalie – 27GP, 2.13 GAA, .936 sv% in the KHL this past year.
2014 – Kasperi Kapanen – PIT – Winger – 43GP, 18-25-43 in the AHL this year. Cup of coffee in the NHL with Toronto. Traded to the Leafs in the Kessel deal.
2013 – Emile Poirier – CGY – Winger – 43GP, 6-11-17 in the AHL this year.
2012 – Ollie Maatta – PIT – Defender – 55GP, 1-6-7 in the NHL this year. Promising young player but injuries seemed to derail him. Still playing in the Cup finals right now.
2011 – Tyler Biggs – TOR – Winger – 58GP, 13-19-32 in the ECHL this year with the Kalamazoo Wings. I just wanted to write Kalamazoo.
2010 – Jared Tinordi – MTL – Defender – 64GP, 1-10-11 in the AHL this year. Traded in part for John Scott.
2009 – Jordan Schroeder – VAN – Center – 37GP, 6-7-13 with the Minnesota Wild. Signed as a free agent by Minnesota.
2008 – Jordan Eberle – EDM – Winger – 82GP, 20-31-51 with the Oilers. Traded to…just kidding.
2007 – Max Pacioretty – MTL – Winger – 81GP, 35-32-67 with the Habs this past year. Captain of the team.
2006 – Claude Giroux – PHI – Center – 82GP, 14-44-58 in Philly. Captain of the team.
2005 – Matt Lashoff – BOS – Defender – 19GP, 3-4-7 in the AHL this past year. Traded in part for Mark Recchi.
2004 – Lukas Kaspar – SJ – Winger – 27GP, 7-9-16 in the KHL this past year. Career total 16 NHL games.
2003 – Marc Antoine Pouliot – EDM – Center – 28GP, 12-17-29 in the Swiss league this year. 192 NHL games total.
2002 – Sean Bergenheim – NYI – Winger – 32GP, 5-9-14 in the Swedish League this year. 506 NHL games total.
2001 – Jiri Novotny – BUF – Center – 21GP, 4-4-8 in the KHL this past year. 189 NHL games total.

This list spans 16 drafts and is probably already too damned long, so I’ll stop there. NHL teams in the 22nd spot have had a wide range of results in the recent past. Three years in a row of All-Star talent with Giroux, Pacioretty, and Eberle stand out to me as the apex. Although that was followed up with three years in a row with Schroeder, Tinordi, and Biggs. So you get the best and the worst adjacent to each other.

A couple of these prospects were traded for immediate help and it worked out pretty well for the clubs looking to win in the present. Kapanen netted the Penguins Kessell (who should have won the Conn Smythe last year) and Boston got Recchi for Lashoff and eventually won the Cup in 2011.

Importantly, these players tend to take a while developing. Kapanen was drafted three years ago and hasn’t established himself as an NHL regular yet. Poirier is a lost cause. Ollie Matta is the only NHL regular taken since Eberle in 2008. The others need time.

Time is what the Oilers used to have in abundance in this rebuild, but it’s running out. McDavid is on his ELC and will cost less than $5 million on the cap for just one more year. The Oilers have lots of space in 2017-2018 even with Draisaitl’s raise coming due. That 1st round pick at 22nd overall has the most value today but the odds of it bringing back a star player aren’t very high. The way I see it, for every Eberle there are three MA Pouliots. For every Giroux there are three Lashoffs. And, for every Pacioretty there are three Bergenheims.

However, for the teams that dealt those 22nd overall picks while they still retained value, they got key pieces that helped them win. They got the Kessels and the Recchis. They got the Stanley Cup rings.

I cannot convince myself that that the Oilers are better off using the pick to take a player who will fill out their prospect pool when they could use it to fill out their 2017-2018 opening night roster instead. I don’t care if the Oilers need to hire a babysitter for their scouts until the 3rd round begins.

Win now. Go for it. Trade the pick.