Dobber’s offseason fantasy hockey grades – Edmonton Oilers

For the last 17 years (12 with The Hockey News) Dobber has reviewed each team from a fantasy-hockey standpoint and graded them.

The 18th annual review will appear here on DobberHockey throughout the summer…er, winter. This is not a review of the likely performance on the ice or in the standings, but in the realm of fantasy hockey both for the season ahead as well as the foreseeable future. Offensively, will the team perform? Are there plenty of depth options worthy of owning in keeper leagues? What about over the next two or three years? These questions are what I take into consideration when looking at the depth chart and the player potential on that depth chart.

Enjoy!

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Gone – Tomas Jurco, Matt Benning, Mike Green, Andreas Athanasiou, Markus Granlund, Brandon Manning, Riley Sheahan

Incoming – Dominik Kahun, Tyson Barrie, Seth Griffith, Anton Forsberg, Kyle Turris, Alan Quine, Adam Cracknell

Impact of changes – The Oilers made some great moves in addressing their lack of scoring depth up front and replacing the hole on defense left by the injury to Oscar Klefbom. Turris as a third-line center allows Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to play on the wing full time, which gives the team a top player to play with either Leon Draisaitl or Connor McDavid. Adding Kahun gives them a winger who can play on the top six and likely bump Zack Kassian out of there.

The addition of Barrie gives the team that elite puck-moving right-shot defenseman and allows them to keep hotshot prospect Evan Bouchard in the minors to develop for another year. He will run the power play from the blue line and will have some elite players to pass to (not to say that Auston Matthews and John Tavares from his former team were stiffs, though). It's a fresh start and a different style that may/should help Barrie get back on track. Unfortunately, this hurts Darnell Nurse in that he was just about to see a huge increase in PP time after the Klefbom news…and now that gets taken away and then some.

Ready for full-time – Kailer Yamamoto was called up last season and posted 26 points in 27 games. I'd say he's ready for full time. Of course, he got most of that on a line that absolutely lit it up before the season was paused – playing with RNH and Draisaitl. Not bad, as far as linemates go. For some inexplicable reason, in the play-in round he was removed from what for three weeks was probably the best line in hockey. Or rather, Nugent-Hopkins was removed. And the replacements (Tyler Ennis, Athanasiou) left something to be desired. Whether or not the line will be reunited will have a massive impact on Yamamoto's output in the year ahead. Could be 50 points, could be 25. Yes, it will make that much of a difference.

Jesse Puljujarvi will be making a (hopefully) triumphant return to the NHL after a full season in Finland. He seemed to have regained his confidence as a dominant player because he posed 53 points in 56 games for Karpat and was plus-30. At 6-4, 201 pounds he needs to be given time to blossom into the player he could be. Oilers' fans, team brass and Puljujarvi himself have not been very patient. Now 22 and having hopefully learned a few more things, Jesse is ready to show us what he can do. I suspect that once James Neal shows the team that he can't keep up on the first line, or he suffers that inevitable injury, then Puljujarvi will get a chance in the top six.

Philip Broberg is a left-shot defenseman who was drafted eighth overall in 2019. He is a big, strong and positionally-sound defenseman who will eventually be that final-minute stalwart that the blue line needs. He does have a bit of offensive potential, but we likely won't see much in terms of production for the first several years. He's still only 19 years old, so playing one more year in Sweden or in the AHL won't hurt, but he'll get a long look in training camp.

Edmonton Oilers prospect depth chart and fantasy upsides can be found here

Fantasy Outlook – A deeper offense up front means a little more help for McDavid and Draisaitl, who were 1-2 in NHL scoring last season. And Barrie is a top puck-moving power-play quarterback. You can't help but think that this team will score more goals on the power play as a result of the latter, and more even-strength goals as a result of the former. Defense? We don't need no stinkin' defense!

Further to that, the fact that Edmonton didn't address their weakness in goal certainly hurts. They were in on Jacob Markstrom up to the very end and signing him would have made a massive difference. Instead, this team is rolling with Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith again. Koskinen started red-hot for his first 15 starts last year as well as the year before. If he can just stretch that a little longer, this shortened season will be almost over. But he'll see no shortage of rubber.

The prospect pipeline is still below average, but there is enough promise there that perhaps in a year's time some of these kids such as Dylan Holloway, Tyler Benson, Kirill Maximov and Raphael Lavoie will vault themselves onto our radar.

Fantasy Grade: B+ (last year was B-)

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2020 Offseason Fantasy Hockey Grades

Winnipeg

Washington

Vegas

Vancouver

Toronto

Tampa Bay

St. Louis

San Jose

Pittsburgh

Philadelphia

Ottawa

NY Rangers

NY Islanders

New Jersey

Nashville

Montreal

Minnesota

Los Angeles

Florida