If someone had told you back on July 28, 2021, that Zach Hyman would eventually be a 54-goal scorer with the Edmonton Oilers, you would have probably called them crazy.
His career high back with the Maple Leafs was 21 goals in 51 games which even if you pro-rate it to an 82-game campaign, it only works out to just over 33 goals.
Sometimes, free agent additions work out way better than expected, and while many people were initially hesitant about the deal, especially because of the term attached to it, no one is complaining now.
The Oilers made a handful of additions to their roster this offseason, and while lately a lot of talk has been about how weak their blue line could be or how effective their bottom-six could be, considering its average age is one of the highest in the league, today I wanted to talk about upside.
There doesn’t seem to be much fanfare about some of the newest Oilers, and I’m here to try and get you hyped up about them. What if the Oilers strike gold once again, the same way they did with the Zach Hyman signing?
Here is my best-case scenario for four key additions to the roster.
Jeff Skinner
This is a fun one. Skinner was brought in on a one-year deal after being bought out by the Buffalo Sabres and while his defensive game is rather lacklustre, he gives the Oilers another legitimate 30-goal threat in their top six.
Skinner has hit the mark six times in his career and his career high was a 40-goal campaign in 2018-19 with the Sabres. He’s a proven, high-end goal scorer in the NHL and here’s the thing: he’s never played with a centreman like Connor McDavid.
If Skinner finds chemistry with McDavid, or even Leon Draisaitl for that matter, then I think he could crack the 40-goal mark this season.
Some detractors might point out that he likely won’t get a lot of power play time so hitting 40-goals might be tough, but if you look back through Skinner’s best seasons you’ll see that he’s never been much of a power play merchant. He scores a lot of his goals at 5v5. Out of those 30-goal seasons, he was only at double-digits in power play goals once. In his lone 40-goal season, he only scored eight of those goals with the man advantage.
He is a dangerous shooter who knows how to find open areas at 5v5. That skillset with Connor McDavid could be absolutely dynamite.
Best case scenario for Skinner would be 42 goals this season.
Viktor Arvidsson
I remember hoping the Oilers would find a way to add Viktor Arvidsson back in the summer of 2021 before he was eventually traded to the Kings. I love the tenacity that he plays with and like Skinner, he is a proven goal scorer.
When healthy, Arvidsson is basically a lock to score 30 goals a season and again, is similar to Skinner in the sense that he doesn’t rely on power play goals to boost his totals. He only has one season where he’s hit double-digits in power play goals.
Health is obviously a concern here. Arvidsson has never played a full 82-game season once in his career and has missed at least ten games in five of his last six seasons.
Over the last two seasons, he’s scored 34 goals in 95 games. If he can stay in the lineup and find some chemistry with Leon Draisaitl, then I could see him getting close to that mark this season.
Best case scenario for Arvidsson would be 35 goals over an 82-game regular season, which would be a career high.
Ty Emberson
I’m not going to lie, when I look at the fancy stats behind Ty Emberson’s game and read the player cards that say he brings an expected value north of $5m per season, I get pretty excited. Sometimes shutdown defenceman just take a little bit longer to develop and while the 24-year-old Emberson has only appeared in 30-games, his results have been very good despite being on a flat out terrible Sharks team.
Those good results aren’t the result of inflated offensive numbers or anything like that. By all accounts he is a very good defensive defenseman and if he can take a step forward this season, then the Oilers may have found a diamond in the rough.
Here’s the best case scenario: Emberson plays on the third pairing with Brett Kulak and despite being listed as the third pairing, the duo takes on a lot of really difficult matchups and produce high-end results. That allows the Oilers to use Darnell Nurse’s pairing in more of an offensive role and ease up his minutes.
If the duo of Kulak and Emberson can eat tough minutes and give good results, the ripple effect through the rest of the blueline will be significant.
It’s more difficult to articulate exactly what a breakout season looks like for a shutdown defenceman compared to say, an offensive winger but if Emberson were to take a leap and start to look like a player with legit top-four potential, I would love for the Oilers to reward him with an in-season extension that could turn him into a value deal for the next couple of years.
Troy Stecher
Yes, I know he isn’t technically a new addition but we only saw Troy Stecher play seven games as an Oiler last season after coming over at the deadline so I fee like it’s fair to lump him in with the rest of this group.
In a very limited sample size with Darnell Nurse, we’re talking just under 50 minutes of 5v5 TOI together, the duo produced some strong results. In 48 mins, they did not get scored on once and outshot the opposition 26-22.
What’s the best-case scenario for Stecher? Well, it would be that he develops into a near-perfect partner for Darnell Nurse and the duo gives the Oilers really solid results at 5v5 and Nurse’s game hits a level that we haven’t seen in a few years.
Nurse has worked well with good puck movers in the past, so I like the potential of this pairing and I am pretty high on Stecher’s game. I’m not sure if he can find a level that would make the Oilers not go out and address the right side of their blue line at the deadline, but in this best-case scenario, maybe it becomes a conversation.
What do you think about these scenarios? Was I not high enough on one or more of these players? Let me know!
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