Plugging Three Holes

No, it’s not the name of a Porn movie. I’m talking about the differences between recent cup winners Pittsburgh and Chicago and an extrapolation of the Oilers current talent and roster. The general consensus is that we are missing the three following ingredients:

1. A (big body) first line centerman
2. A (big body) first pairing defenceman
3. A number one goaltender

In general I agree those are probably the three most obvious holes in the Oilers line-up, regardless of whether you’re talking about Hall arriving for the morning skate in a flying car or one with wheels. With that knowledge in hand, let’s talk about how a team might go about plugging said holes. The three obvious routes are UFA/RFA signings, trades, and finally drafting. Aside from secret Chinese cloning labs (I’d say a mix between LeBron and Crosby), I’m not sure how else a team can acquire good hockey players, so these are the three methodologies I will focus on, one hole at a time.

Analysis after the jump.

The Mythical Centersaurus

Figuring out the list of thirty first line centers in the NHL was a slightly more challenging than writing a pornographic screenplay, but I think I’ve used a fairly sound methodology. I simply took all centers in the league last year that played at least 40 games and sorted them by ice time, and then discarded anything that didn’t look right. Then I determined how they were acquired by their current team. I have bolded the ten centers I think would fit the Oilers need (the jury still out on Tavares, and  you could make an argument for Stastny, Koivu, or Richards). I also had to bump some off the list simply since I was only choosing one per team (Savard, Stamkos, Malkin, Marleau, Zetterberg, etc), but that shouldn’t blunt the point of the argument (all but Savard drafted by their current team).

NAME	TEAM	GP	TOI/60	OBTAINED
RYANGETZLAF	ANA	66	16.39	DRAFT
MICHAELCAMMALLERI	MTL	65	15.72	TRADE
PAVELDATSYUK	DET	80	15.49	DRAFT
ANZEKOPITAR	L.A	82	15.46	DRAFT
PAULSTASTNY	COL	81	15.31	DRAFT
SIDNEYCROSBY	PIT	81	14.99	DRAFT
NICKLASBACKSTROM	WSH	82	14.97	DRAFT
ERICSTAAL	CAR	70	14.89	DRAFT
TRAVISZAJAC	N.J	82	14.88	DRAFT
HENRIKSEDIN	VAN	82	14.79	DRAFT
JONATHANTOEWS	CHI	76	14.71	DRAFT
JOETHORNTON	S.J	79	14.61	TRADE
BRADRICHARDS	DAL	80	14.58	TRADE
BRANDONDUBINSKY	NYR	69	14.53	DRAFT
DAVIDLEGWAND	NSH	82	14.53	DRAFT
STEPHENWEISS	FLA	80	14.52	DRAFT
MATTSTAJAN	CGY	82	14.44	TRADE
MIKKOKOIVU	MIN	80	14.37	DRAFT
ANTOINEVERMETTE	CBJ	82	14.27	TRADE
JASONSPEZZA	OTT	60	14.18	DRAFT
VINCENTLECAVALIER	T.B	82	14.16	DRAFT
MIKERICHARDS	PHI	82	14.09	DRAFT
MIKERIBEIRO	DAL	66	13.82	TRADE
DEREKROY	BUF	80	13.75	DRAFT
DAVIDKREJCI	BOS	79	13.74	DRAFT
SHAWNHORCOFF	EDM	77	13.68	DRAFT
MIKHAILGRABOVSKI	TOR	59	13.50	TRADE
JOHNTAVARES	NYI	82	13.39	DRAFT
NICKLASBERGFORS	ATL	81	12.74	TRADE

Unless I’m missing something (and I certainly might have), none of the top line centers in the list were obtained through the FA market. By my count it is (the count for top centers in parentheses):

DRAFT: 22 (9)

TRADE: 8 (1)

This is a strong argument for finding the stud centerman through drafting. Of the elite group, 9 of 10 were acquired in the first round, and of those, 7 of the 9 were acquired with a lottery (1-5^th)  pick. Even if you include the players I tossed out like Stamkos and Marleau, the ratios remain more or less the same. In other words finding that first line center is either a product of throwing darts at the draft board (cough Ken Holland), or even more likely by getting that high draft pick via overall suckitude (alternatively, dealing with Brian Burke *tongue in cheek emoticon*).

But do you even need an Elite Center to win the Silver Bowl Thingy?

Since I think it is easy to establish how difficult it is to acquire a top center except via the draft, this begs a further question, is it actually necessary in achieving The Ultimate Goal^tm? I figure a statistical analysis to answer this question would be more difficult than finding original Rob Brown color commentary so we will have to approach it with a bit less slide ruler.

Basically I went over the finalists since the lockout and tried to figure out which teams had an Oilers style situation (center by committee). The list is fairly slim pickings:

’06 Oilers (Horcoff, Stoll, Peca)

Going back another five years, there is a bit more hope:

’04 Flames (Conroy, Yelle)
’03 Devils (Gomez, Madden)
’02 Hurricanes (Ron ’38 yr old’ Francis, O’Neill)
’00 Devils (Arnott, Madden)

I’m not sure if this indicates that elite centers are more important post lockout or if we are simply dealing with a string of champs that coincidentally have elite centers. Without sticking my neck out too far I will say it certainly seems like having an elite center is important. On the other hand the NHL wasn’t so significant different in the first half of the past decade that we can really discount all of the success that the Devils had (they were also constantly deep into the playoffs). And before your anti-blogger rage causes you to spray spittle across your flat screen, yes, I acknowledge that the Devils weird, flexible, French goalie might have helped obtain those results, but they definitely didn’t have elite centers while winning those 21^st century cups.

[For those begrudging my lack of slide rule I’m willing to bet that for all of the teams not listed in this section that they had a #1C with at least 0.8ppg in the x-offs; none of the players listed in this section hit that except Arnott (0.87).]

What do we have?

In terms of what the Oilers currently have I think there are probably two prospects that have a miniscule shot in transforming into a top line pivot:

Anton Lander (SEL 27gp 7-6-13)

Tyler Pitlick (WHL 25gp 12-13-25)

When I say miniscule, I mean I’d put their odds of becoming top 15 pivots akin to the chances of Eddie Murphy making another solid comedy (hey, it’s still possible right?). On the plus side both were taken with fairly high second rounders and definitely have some of the intangibles of a first line C – for instance Lander’s leadership and Pitlick’s ‘farm-boy-strength’. In other words they have a good shot at being solid prospects, but looking at either to be elite first liners is probably a stretch.

Following that group is the Scott-Glennie-For-Hart-Trophy longshot:

Chris Vande Velde (AHL 24gp 4-3-7)

Ryan Martindale (OHL 27gp 17-23-40)

While Martindale’s numbers look nice, and Vande Velde looked like a player in TC, their career is more likely to follow Yan Stastny’s than Peter Stastny’s. For a bonus selection one might even throw in Robby Dee (NCAA 14gp 5-9-14), but he’s already 23 and this is his first ppg campaign.

While there is some OK depth there (especially from the 2-way standpoint), no one is going to make manjam over the Oilers center depth in the minors.

In Conclusion

So if we don’t have one, is it imperative the Oilers secure a top centerman? I’ll say no, with a caveat. First, one of the draft-day darts could hit the mark and second, I still believe that if the other pieces are strong enough, you can win a cup with a balanced center-by-committee approach. If the committee approach is to work, however, we will certainly need strength from one of the other identified problem areas.

Next up:  Filling the hole in the backend (coff)