Author Archives: jtunnicliff

Where Will Cooper Marody Play Next Season
As everybody is likely aware of by now the Oilers have signed the NCAA C Cooper Marody to an entry level contract. Although the contract details are not confirmed capfriendly.com has the numbers at 3 years with a $925k cap hit and there is no word of bonuses as of yet.
To help get an idea of how Marody will fit into the Oilers forward depth charts I’ve put together a table comparing his NCAA seasons to Drake Cagguila, Patrick Russell and Joseph Gambardella all of whom were signed as UFA’s from the NCAA. Note that these players all finished their NCAA careers and were UFA’s as they didn’t sign with the NHL team that had drafted them while Marody is turning pro with 1 year of NCAA eligibility remaining.

The Oilers 2018 -2019 Cap Situation?
The Oilers have 15 players under contract for next season at a cap hit of a touch over $62M. With the cap expected to be in the range of 78 – 82 million next season that may not seem like such a bad spot to be in but let’s look a bit closer.

Oilers Costly Win And McDavid’s Historic Season
The Oilers closed out the season last night with a 3 – 2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks in a shootout. Normally that would be a good thing but in this case the win moved the Oilers past the Blackhawks and the Rangers to finish the season in 23rd place overall or more importantly 9th last. If they had lost the game in regulation last night not only would the Sedins have left on a more positive note but the Oilers would have finished 7th last and had a better chance for a higher draft pick.
Continue reading

Oilershockey’s Top 10 Draft Rankings – April
When the season started I really didn’t expect to be thinking about who the Oilers would be picking at the draft come april but here we are. The Oilers will be picking somewhere in the top 10 so I’ve done some research and have come up with the first ever Oilerhockey top 10 draft rankings.
Continue reading

Who Will The Oilers Expose In The Upcoming Expansion Draft?
The NHL will hold an expansion draft on June 21st of this year in which the Vegas Golden Knights will pick one player from each team to build its roster for the 2017/18 season. Each team will have the ability to protect a list of players from the expansion draft but are required to expose a minimum number of players who meet certain criteria.
Continue reading

Oilers Clinch!!
On April 13th, 2006 the Edmonton Oilers beat the Anaheim Ducks 2-1 at home to clinch a playoff spot. It was their 81st game of the season and it was a great day.
This is a great day too.
The Edmonton Oilers beat the LA Kings 2-1 at home to clinch a playoff spot!!!!
Anybody remember what they did back in the that 2006 season?
Oilers Sign Another College Kid
Senior Joe Gambardella (@DJgamz5) signs two-year deal @EdmontonOilers #UnitedInBlue #UMLHockey50 #AlwaysARiverHawkhttps://t.co/6GBqgLsnRo pic.twitter.com/dHf7AGGhtX
— UMass Lowell Hockey (@RiverHawkHockey) March 28, 2017
Peter Chiarelli won the jackpot last season with the signings of Matt Benning and Drake Caggiula and he’s at it again. Today the Oilers have signed Joe Gambardella to a two-year deal and have added some much needed depth to the center position in the organization. Gambardella is coming off a big season where he scored 52 points in 41 games centering the top line for UMass Lowell in the NCAA.
The 23 year old Gambardella isn’t huge at 5’10 and 201lbs but seems like a suitable replacement in the organization for Anton Lander who appears to jetting off to play in the KHL next season.
This is a big signing imo, this kid is probably on par with what Drake Caggiula was a year ago when he signed with the Oilers and Caggiula was able to make the team out of training camp and stick with the big club all season. I don’t expect Gambardella to make the Oilers out of camp next season but I think he’ll be in the conversation and could be an early call up if a center is injured on the big club.
Oilers Trade Davidson to Habs for Desharnais
The #Oilers have acquired forward David Desharnais in exchange for defenceman Brandon Davidson. #NHLTrade pic.twitter.com/bH9GI3UV4m
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) March 1, 2017
Oilers trade Nail Yakupov for Cap Space and a Pick
The Oilers have traded Nail! Sad days.
Nail Yakupov to the Blues for Zach Pochiro and a conditional pick.
There has been all kinds of speculation that Yakupov had asked for a trade and that the Oilers were close to trading him last season but honestly we’ll never know for certain how much truth there is to this stuff. What we do know is that Peter Chiarelli has now traded two of the wonder kids from the previous administration and in both cases cap space was a large part of the decision.
Continue reading
Should the Oilers Trade For Hamonic or Shattenkirk?
There has been so much talk this season of the Oilers making a trade in the off-season to bring in a true top pairing D-man. Much of the talk has Jordan Eberle or Ryan Nugent Hopkins being sent out to acquire Travis Hamonic or Kevin Shattenkirk, both of whom would likely improve this team a great deal. I don’t want to get into the pros and cons of dealing Ebs or the Nuge but we all know that you need to trade value to get value and for the first time in a while I trust the GM to make the right deal.
So the question remain: Should the Oilers trade for Hamonic or Shattenkirk? I’ll admit that before doing research for this article I would have picked Shattenkirk, I’m just more familiar with the player so I have less doubt that he can come in and help the team win. I put together a player usage chart over at hockeyabstract.com to compare both of these guys to defensemen already on the Oilers and I’m actually a bit surpised:
Continue reading