Edmonton Oilers prospect pool takes major hit, per NHL analyst
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The Edmonton Oilers haven't had a strong prospect pool for a number of years as they push for a Stanley Cup, but an analyst has raised new concern about the overall pool.
There's still a number of young players that the organization will have hope for, but overall, it seems like the Oilers' prospect system is backsliding even more than before.
Entire Edmonton Oilers' prospect pool takes a step back from last season
Analyst David Staples of the Edmonton Journal took a look at recent internal rankings for the Oilers' prospect system, and found that only 3 players took a step forward last year. The rest stagnated, or regressed.
If we look at the Top 20 Oilers prospects - as ranked by the Cult of Hockey panel last summer - we see that seven of them have been moved out of the organization, eight of them trended down as prospects, two of them remained about the same, and just three of them, Matt Savoie, Noah Philp and Maxim Berzekin, trended up.
Trending down either a lot or a bit, sometimes due to injury, were Jarventie, Vinni, Beau Akey, Jayden Grubbe, Matvey Petrov, James Stefan, Dalyn Wakely and Matt Coponi.
- David Staples, Edmonton Journal
Trending down either a lot or a bit, sometimes due to injury, were Jarventie, Vinni, Beau Akey, Jayden Grubbe, Matvey Petrov, James Stefan, Dalyn Wakely and Matt Coponi.
- David Staples, Edmonton Journal
There's still some promising players in the system who could have rebound years with better situations. The other downside is that the Oilers may not have much to trade away. However, the Oilers prospect pool will really rest on 2 players.
If either Matthew Savoie or Ike Howard can immediately break out in the Oilers top 6 as a legitimate offensive threat, they may have a new core player on an entry level contract. All focus will be on those two players.
The Oilers prospect pool may be weak, but it will entirely rest on the rate of Savoie and Howard. If they become core players on value deals in their win-now window, the rest of the prospect pool won't matter much anyway.
| POLL | ||
AOUT 12 | 292 ANSWERS Edmonton Oilers prospect pool takes major hit, per NHL analyst Do you think either Savoie or Howard will emerge as a star for the Oilers? | ||
| Yes | 242 | 82.9 % |
| No | 50 | 17.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
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