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With his magnificent skating and a dazzling hockey smile, Ryan McLeod is fast becoming one of the favorites at Oil Country. Photo by Ian Kucerak / Postmedia
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With the NHL Draft now in hindsight, it’s still a busy time on the summer hockey calendar with the annual “Free Agent Frenzy” just around the corner.
First, however, comes the important business of issuing – or not – qualified offers to restricted free agents. The Edmonton Oilers have 7 young players with expiring contracts and have opted to start the renewal process with 4 of them and cut ties with the other 3.
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The #Oilers have made qualifying offers to the following players:
🔸 Tyler Benson🔹 Ryan McLeod🔸 Jesse Puljujarvi🔹 Kailer Yamamoto
– Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) July 10, 2022
Each is an interesting story worth following, as in fact Oilers fans have been doing for years in each case. Presented above in alphabetical order, so we follow this trend, with a brief summary at the bottom of the 3 FRGs that did not make the cut.
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Tyler Benson was right in the bubble after a disappointing season spent spinning his wheels first in Edmonton, then in Bakersfield. His waiver waiver has expired at the end of his entry-level contract, Benson signed a minimum 1-year league extension last summer and spent the first 5 months of 2021-22 on the roster. of the big league. However, he struggled to gain strength, playing around half of the games and averaging just 8:33 per night.
His was a classic Catch 22 situation, where he projected himself better as a support player with skilled linebackers, but never produced far below the lineup to earn that opportunity. Your most frequent linemates of the season? Colton Sceviour, Ryan McLeod, Kyle Turris, Derek Ryan, Devin Shore, Zack Kassian. Not exactly Muderers’ Row. The same can be said of Benson himself with sparse statistics of 1-1-2, -5.
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To his credit, Benson tried to change his game for an agitator, and proved effective enough to put himself under the skin of his opponents, even when a couple of untimely penalties did not help his cause. But in early March, with the healthiest team and Evander Kane added to the top of the food chain on the left, Benson became supernumerary and was exempt from the league. He once again proved to be an effective player at that level, but he got hurt in the first game of the playoffs and that was all. A miserable ending to a disappointing season.
Good decision by the Oilers to qualify it in my opinion. Since being selected in the second round in 2016, the club has invested 6 years in its development, 4 of them professionally. During this time he has established himself as an excellent player in the junior highs who can help at least at this level, keeping the team competitive and guiding younger players. It will also be an in-depth call option for the Oilers, and will surely retain the hope of catching lightning in a bottle and taking the next step when the opportunity arises.
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Step 1: Sign the qualification offer directly. Step 2: Take your tail off this summer by improving your skating. Step 3: Make a great impression on the training camp and preseason. The good news is that he’s already well known for being Jay Woodcroft’s coach, but even that didn’t save him last March, so he’ll have to take a step back.
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Ryan McLeod was a block to qualify, and is still one to sign. Like Benson, a high second-round pick, McLeod had a much less impressive season as a rookie professional, but then made giant strides in each of years 2 and 3 of his now-expired ELC.
Last season, McLeod had an unremarkable training ground and was caught in a numbers game as the only bubble player who did not require exemptions to be sent to Bakersfield. He returned after a 7-match exile as a much more focused player, and proceeded to enter and move up to the lineup, where he remained. McLeod spent many nights at 4C, but slowly moved up to 3C with the versatility of filling at 2LW when needed. He averaged 12:46 per game during the season and increased to 14:33 in the playoffs. He also became a regular in the second powerplay unit and a prominent player on the penalty spot.
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A truly gifted skater, McLeod excels in the transition game and has become increasingly comfortable loading the puck at high speed, demonstrating additional skills at both exits and area entrances. He is not a natural finalist, but he has shown a gradual improvement in this regard, and has finally scored 12 goals in 87 regular season games and playoffs in 2021-22. His scoring rates of 0.56 goals and 1.29 points for 60 minutes in 5 vs. 5 placed him at the peak between the 3rd and 4th line rates at 5 vs. 5, which coincides with his deployment. .
He also kept up with underlying numbers, such as ice shots and goal actions, and offered good value against his ELC-limited header hit. By far, the most exciting news is that he remained, largely in the demanding center position, as a 22-year-old in the NHL. As a pick on the Day 2 draft, he has already established himself as a regular in the NHL with many advantages.
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McLeod is unique among the 4 players who receive QO because he has no refereeing rights. In theory, this should make an extension at a price favorable to the team a very likely bet, although here it says that the smart game is to sign a bridge agreement of 2 or even 3 years to a slightly higher price that should still turn out to be a bargain. throughout the life of the agreement.
Ryan McLeod is exactly the type of player the Oilers need most: a selection from the Day 2 draft, developed in-house and projected as a solid paper player at a reasonable cost over the next few years.
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Jesse Puljujarvi is, by far, the most discussed player between the current RFA group of the Oilers and the one who produces the most divided opinions. Represents the continental division between numbers and the eye test.
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At first glance, many saw an awkward, sometimes clumsy player, who was increasingly fighting the record and struggling to finish his own goal opportunities.
In terms of production, their numbers were good, not great: 7th among the Oilers strikers in points, 6th in goals, 5th in assists, 4th in shots, 3rd in more. All this in just 65 games, an excellent value for a 23-year-old with a limit below $ 1.2 million, but disappointing for those expecting more than a fourth overall draft pick the teammate of more frequent line of which was Connor McDavid.
Their ice numbers, on the other hand, were universally fabulous. The Oilers outscored, outscored and outscored their opponents by a wide margin with JP on the ice, a shot that was held no matter who their linebackers were. These results were provided in some detail in this end-of-season post, so they will not be repeated here even if they have changed a bit along the stretch. We later compared him to another Colorado winger, Valeri Nichushkin, on April 22, a comparison that later went viral (here’s an example of many) even when Nichushkin’s star made it to the playoffs while that of Puljujarvi faded with a disappointing publication. -season.
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Our own work here at the Cult of Hockey analyzing goal chances managed to find areas where visual proof and numbers largely coincided. In his review of the season at Puljujarvi, teammate David Staples expanded the player’s ability to contribute to Grade A shots through hard plays on the net. He was especially effective at winning battles for or around the disc that led or continued with a possession and led directly to goal opportunities, with 23 of those attributions, 6 more than any other Oiler.
After an exceptional start, JP’s season was compromised by both an illness and an injury. In particular, he never seemed to recover from a season-ending “non-COVID” illness that forced him out of 3 games. And since then, a whirlwind of rumors about possible exchanges and trade requests, but so far no real business.
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The club has now taken the next necessary step in classifying the player, who now has tree rights. The most likely outcome of this distance is a trade followed by a new (negotiation) contract elsewhere, although a one-year extension of commitment is not in doubt. He is a player with a lot to prove and time to prove it, as he turned 24 during the playoffs. Will he be here in Edmonton this time? Yes, here is the problem.
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Kailer Yamamoto is in a superficial position similar to Puljujarvi. Another anniversary of 98, another first round selection, another right winger, another young man who gets the arbitration rights after an economic bridge contract. It even had the same limit, $ 1.175 billion.
But there are important differences. The beginning of them, Yamamoto has 4 years of control of the club, Puljujarvi only 2. Leaving a lot of space for another bridge contract for KY, although with a good salary increase after the season of 20 goals and 21 assists that the young winger published in 2021. -22.
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