Put another way, if a perennially losing team is doing something differently than a perennially winning team, there's a chance - one worth looking into - that difference is part of the team's problems. There's a lot of moving parts in the hockey operations sector of an NHL franchise; there's a reason why there's so much disagreement among Oilers fans about where the team is going wrong because there's just a lot of individuals involved and a lot of decisions being made each day.
Just because the failure of the team is so pronounced doesn't mean they're not doing anything right, the strengths of the organisation could just be overridden by the weaknesses. This can perpetuate widespread inefficiencies across an industry, as good ideas are implemented at bad times or by bad actors and the history of the technique is tainted by circumstances in spite of its value.
So, when you look at the differences between how successful clubs utilise their farm teams and how the Edmonton Oilers have, you keep those two things in mind - they could be part of the problem, but they also could be a strength obscured by weaknesses elsewhere.
It doesn't take long for this detective to lean to the former when it comes to their farm team processes, but it's important to keep the tenet on hand that just because a decision is made by an organisation that fails, doesn't mean it contributed in that direction.
Here's the shortlist we'll look at, containing the two largest differences between successful AHL teams - as well as the AHL teams for successful NHL teams - and the Edmonton Oilers.
- Successful teams play their prospects. We don't have league-tracked time-on-ice numbers for the AHL yet, but through various proxies numerically, and through anecdotal reports, Oilers prospects have not gotten large minute shares in offensive situations with any immediacy after turning pro. AHL teams that produce NHL-ready players at respectable rates give their draft picks preferential treatment in the form of a playing time push, at evens and on the power-play.
- Successful teams sign offensively productive veterans. In the holes between what would be a perfectly balanced forward corps of purely legit NHL prospects, players are signed with a track record of scoring.
These two factors are intertwined. Not only do prospects not play up the lineup immediately, but alongside them are players without the offensive talents to nurture the same in the prospects. Good teams play good players with good players. The Golden Knights used the Chicago Wolves for their AHL club this year, and supplied them with forwards like Teemu Pulkinnen, Beau Bennett and TJ Tynan. That's a first round pick that had first round pick offense in Junior, and two more players who also had first round pick offense in Junior but without the skating or size to complement their production enough to have themselves selected high in the 2010 and 2011 drafts, respectively. If you're short one forward from having an all-prospect powerplay, not only do you help your prospects learn how to play with skill and build confidence scoring goals when you sign a more productive pro, but the team is stronger as well and will play games into spring.
Having an AHL team deep with skill helps you make the playoffs and makes them more useful also, because when you add your junior prospects to the club like Tyler Benson and Ostap Safin last spring, even if they're playing down the lineup they're making and taking passes to and from players that better resemble the teammates offensively that you hope to play them with when they do turn pro.
I have my criticisms of checking bottom-sixes in the NHL, and I believe the most common defense against my argument there - that there's simply not enough forwards in the league with the requisite talent to run a full skill line as your fourth unit - falls flat when it comes to the AHL because the players pushed off of NHL rosters in this way are the perfect specimen to provide this job for. Since NHL rosters run checking fourth lines, there's plenty of players to pluck from rosters' edge, ones that NHL coaching staffs have decided aren't quite productive enough for the top-nine. Pay these guys, and they'll play hockey for you.
What's the offensive Pedigree of the Bakersfield 18?
The Condors released their camp roster a few days ago, among 31 names there were 18 forwards. Via Holty's Blog, the cuts since then have resulted in some tryouts being released and some players being assigned to the Wichita Thunder (the ECHL affiliate), but 17 forwards still remain. Let's run it down the list of contracted players for the former draft-and-follow college guys and undrafted signings and assess their historical production individually, and then evaluate the group.
(I will be using the players' last AHL seasons' boxcars where possible, and their last amateur season's NHLE - using Emmanuel Perry's latest conversion. For CHLers, their over-age season will be omitted and the previous one used, to combat the quirks that come with using a non age-adjusted factor.)
Joseph Gambardella - Scored miles from PPG (the wrong way) in the USHL as a 19 year old, that was a bad omen, but blossomed in his junior year of college, which is usually a good one. Thing is, he was older than an average NHL-prospect junior who enters the NCAA at 18, and his NHL-potential scoring number his senior year (52pts in 41 GP) thus came at a more mature age as well. From my readings, much of his contributions come from his forechecking prowess and other activity without the puck.
2016-17 NCAA NHLe - 17.68
2017-18 AHL NHLe - 13.21
Tyler Vesel - Another player who played in the USHL for their 19 year old season before heading off to college, Vesel scored at a much better rate - 33 goals in 49 games - but once he hit college, he took until his junior year to ramp up offensively, and never quite hit the numbers needed to show a true NHL likelihood. Like Gambardella, he has a two-way reputation.
2017-18 NCAA NHLe - 12.39
Evan Polei - Came in at under a point per game as a physically mature over-ager in the WHL, while racking up tons of penalty minutes. The player-identity here is quite obvious. Spent half his last season in the ECHL, clocking in at about 0.60 points-per-game.
2015-16 WHL NHLe - 7.75
2017-18 AHL NHLe - 10.43
Nolan Vesey - Another NCAA player, who played the regular NHL prospect age-seasons there, at 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Spending time on the top unit as a senior still didn't result in skill-player type scoring numbers - the team was unsuccessful as well, to be fair - and from my readings is yet another 'two-way' guy.
2017-18 NCAA NHLe - 9.42
Colin Larkin - This is a 24 year-old player from the NCAA, like the others, except... he played Div. III. This is why I won't be using an NHLe for his amateur seasons - and why he's not projectable as a scorer at any professional level. Scored two points in his 16-game appearance in Bakersfield last year. This is a microcosm of the study, finding out what the Oilers organisation does, that nobody else does. One of the things that fits? Signing a 24-year old Division III college free agent to a pro contract.
2017-18 AHL NHLe - 4.35
Mitch Callahan - An 188 penalty minute man ten years ago in the WHL, at age 18. Another 'two-way' player, who also earned the label of 'agitator'. He's been a successful player in the AHL for years skating alongside NHL prospects like Teemu Pulkinnen, Tomas Nosek, Anthony Mantha and others in Grand Rapids. A fine complementary player at that level, and fell off in an eyebrow-raising fashion upon arrival in Bakersfield. A clue that there's more at play than just player personnel when it comes to the lack of offense for this team.
2010-11 WHL NHLe - 10.71
2017-18 AHL NHLe - 6.95
Josh Currie - Undrafted out of junior, blew up his boxcars as an over-ager and earned an ECHL spot, got himself promoted to the AHL from there and has put up a couple 20 goal seasons since. A nice story, but another player without a great history of production. Played for the Condors when they were an ECHL team.
2011-2012 QMJHL NHLe - 7.21
2017-18 AHL NHLe - 23.52
Cameron Hebig - The first player so far with a history of production at an early age. Was well shy of being a substantial prospect in his draft year, and then once he got going thereafter he sustained some pretty serious injuries and the implications from them scared teams away. He's a longshot, but he's got skill and plays well with skill, skating with Sam Steel very effectively this past season. The kind of player you don't mind playing alongside your scoring prospect, because that's exactly what he's been doing in his junior career.
2015-16 WHL NHLe - 14.38
Braden Christoffer - Another high penalty-minute WHL guy. That's one of about three or four solid trends we're discovering here. His AHL scoring is so low that it prompts investigation into playing time, which turns up that he didn't have plenty, but enough that his ability or inability offensively isn't shrouded in mystery.
2013-14 WHL NHLe - 6.94
2017-18 AHL NHLe - 8.28
John McFarland - A former second-round pick (2010) who had the requisite offense as an April birthday to have a legitimate shot at the highest level. Has moved around a ton, played for three OHL teams, then had injury issues, then bounced between AHL and ECHL in the Panthers system, played in Finland for a year, then Switzerland. Very hard to get a read on the guy, besides that he was a legit junior talent who didn't take his boxcars with him when he turned pro.
2011-12 OHL NHLe - 13.39
2015-16 AHL NHLe - 14.90
Patrick Russell - The fifth college guy in this group, the fourth to play a 20-21 year old season in the USHL, the third to have below point-per-game production in junior. His sole substantial season offensively as an amateur player offers a red flag - he skated alongside a potential offensive prospect Kalle Kossila, man of 54 points in 55 games for the San Diego Gulls a year ago.
2015-16 NCAA NHLe - 13.94
2017-18 AHL NHLe - 13.80 AHL NHLe
…
Well, then. In terms of acquisition, there's not a lot of aiming high going on, when it comes to scoring. I've talked about why I don't like this philosophically, and now we're going to show the effects of player personnel strategy like this - in terms of what elite systems are doing.
The Bakersfield Condors' forward scoring rates against Syracuse, Toronto and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton
Now, to apply the lessons above: What is the results of Edmonton's bias towards checking, 'two-way' players in terms of who they're recruiting to surround their prospects on their farm team?
I've chosen teams known for their forward-thinking, skill and speed based scouting programs, who focus on creating offense through their systems on the ice, and providing their coaching staffs with offensive players to nurture their system's prospects.
Below is the 5v5 points-per-hour rates of each forward who played more than 200 estimated minutes 5v5, via prospect-stats.com.
This is a more top-heavy team, but still six players above 2.00/60. It's the same story: the less draft picks you trade away, the more young scoring forwards you have on your farm. It sounds silly typed out like that, but the difference really is massive, and it's not just about having players arrive to the NHL - every step of the way having skill in your system benefits you. Playing with skill breeds skill. Look at their 'outside' guys: Soshnikov and Aaltonen were a scoring forward in the KHL. Ben Smith had a history hovering around point-per-game rates in the AHL.
Dominik Simon was drafted overage out of the Czech league, he was a scorer there, put up 25 goals in his rookie NA pro season. Dea was signed after 45 and 49 goal seasons in the QMJHL at age 18.5 and 19.5 and has been a scorer for them at this level ever since. Daniel Sprong is a driver on this team after they kept their 2nd round pick in 2015. Aston-Reese's senior year was a 63-point campaign. Blueger was a long-shot draft-for-skill selection out of Shattuck St-Mary's. There's also some players in here that are clearly getting elevated by an offensive-minded team that puts a couple skilled guys on every line.
Is it better or worse than you were expecting?
I imagine someone could say, "they're a worse team so of course they score less".
The thing is, the way they got here is pathological.
It's like what the other team's forward corps look like if you had chopped off the top six (in the case of the Marlies) and the top nine (in the case of the other two) most productive players.
Which is exactly the process in acquisition.
They don't look for scorers at all, so they don't score.
The near-entirety of the pool they sign from?
"Two-way" players who didn't crack PPG at 20 in the USHL and then went to the NCAA and delivered average late round pick offense - despite advanced age.
"Two-way" players who had triple their points in penalty minutes in the WHL at 21 years old.
There's a massive difference between the player personnel management styles of the group of three winning teams I've outlined, and the Bakersfield Condors - and where the Oilers farm and theirs diverge, the winning teams all share similar methods.
For every Cameron Hebig and John McFarland, there's five or more offense-less acquisitions.
This is part of the reason why Puljujarvi couldn't do much - and part of the reason Benson and Marody might need a Kailer Yamamoto to score properly. There's no skill to play with on this team, and the only way it's going to change is if the Oilers keep their draft picks. They can also speed up the process by drafting older players from across the pond in later rounds, and re-examining the way their pro scouting operates. All three of the winning teams and productive farms sign free agents with offense - European scorers, CHL stars, and NCAA players who score more, younger.
Drafting has been turned around since Peter Chiarelli, and later Keith Gretzky arrived. But the former has signed many of the players filling out the farm today and the man sitting in the GM's chair for the franchise has been there since 2014 too - Bill Scott.
And good drafting will not save an AHL team by itself. Some drafted prospects will stay in European leagues, some will be in the NCAA, some will be in their junior leagues for two years after drafting. You only get seven draft picks a year - it's not enough to have 9 skilled, scoring forwards on your minor-league team at all times. You must be able to fill in roster spots with players who can nurture your drafted talent, and help them see the playoffs.
The Edmonton Oilers do several things differently than teams with productive pipelines, and you can draw a straight line between those decisions, the floundering farm team, and the holes all over the NHL roster.
Taking steps towards solving these problems may be the highest-yield action the current organisation can take.
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