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The Edmonton Oilers have signed Kailer Yamamoto to a one year deal, reports TSN’s Dustin Nielson on Twitter.
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My take
1. Excellent news that this did not drag on into the season. The Oilers had some solid candidates to try out in Yamamoto’s spot, namely Warren Foegele and Cooper Marody, but it’s better to have Yamamoto himself.
2. Yamamoto, who will be 23 in a few weeks, was an amazing major junior point scorer, a solid AHL point scorer and had an astonishing 26 points in 27 games after he was called up to the Oilers and placed on the DYNamite Line with Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in 2019-20. The DYNamite Line was inexplicably broken up last year. Yamamoto’s point scoring crashed. In 2020-21, he scored just 21 points in 52 games. His defensive play was still strong — he often slides down to play the centre role in his own zone, allowing Draisaitl to free-lance on defence — but his forechecking didn’t have quite the same bite as it had the previous season, and the new combo of Draisaitl, Yamo and Dominik Kahun never came close to cycling and working give-and-go plays like the DYNamites had done.
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3. Yamamoto’s offence crashed last year, but he still was involved in Edmonton’s top line when teamed for a small sample size of even strength minutes with Draisaitl and McDavid. Yamamoto’s solid defensive play was the glue to that line, as he often moved down to cover the defensive slot, allowing Draisaitl and McDavid to hunt pucks and take off on the attack. In that role, think of Yamamoto as a smaller version of Esa Tikkanen with Jari Kurri and Wayne Gretzky.
4. Would it have been better if the Oilers had found a way to sign Yamamoto to a two or three year deal? That’s a tricky question. Better for the fans, yes, as it would have locked down a promising young player for longer term. But with Yamamoto’s huge drop off in attacking play, was he not better off to take the lesser contract this year, get to camp on time, earn a spot again in the Top 6, have a big year and then negotiate a new longer term deal? Relatively unproven but highly promising attacking wingers like Drake Batherson and Joel Farabee just got six years deals at about $5.0 million per. Yamamoto has to have his eyes on that kind of deal. As for the Oilers, they had the hammer in this negotiation, with Yamamoto having not any real alternative but to take their offer or sit out. The Oilers get him at a cap-friendly salary for this season.
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5. The Oilers are pressed up against the cap and there’s going to be little cap space for years to come, what with the flat cap and big ticket and long-term contracts for Connor McDavid, Darnell Nurse, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman. Where will the Oilers find the money to pay players like Yamamoto and Jesse Puljujarvi, both on expiring contracts now, if they have big years? Good luck with that, Ken Holland. You will need it.
6. This coming summer, Mikko Koskinen’s $4.5 million per year contract ends, but the Oilers will need a goalie to replace him if he goes. Maybe Stuart Skinner or Ilya Konovalov will provide a low cost option. If not, that issue will be expensive to fix. Some of Koskinen’s money might go to Yamamoto or Puljujarvi (most of it will go to cover Nurse’s new deal when it kicks in next year), but it’s hard to imagine the Oilers will have the cap space to keep both of them, even if both turn out to be outstanding two-way players in Top 6 roles.
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7. Maybe the Oilers could move out Zack Kassian and his $3.2 million per deal, which has three more years, but maybe they can’t. Most likely, Edmonton will likely have to pick one of Yamamoto or Puljujarvi and move the other. Get ready for that controversy and that debate, Oilers fans, because it’s coming.
8. If there’s one piece of good news, the Oilers will not have to re-sign Evan Bouchard for two more years, at the same time as Duncan Keith’s $5.5 million per contract ends. Andrej Sekera’s $1.5 million per year buy-out also ends then. Looking even more down the road, Tyson Barrie and Zack Kassian’s big ticket deals end in three years, but Cody Ceci’s got four years on his contract. That is the deal I worry about most in the short term. If Ceci doesn’t perform as a 4/5 d-man, that’s an ugly opportunity cost for the Oilers. But we’ll leave those worries for another day. Right now, Yamamoto is back, giving the Oilers a chance to have the best top two lines in the NHL. That’s something to celebrate.
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P.S. Oilers rookies vs Flames rookies tonight at 5 p.m.
Oilers line-up:
Lavoie – Hamblin – Bourgault
Petrov – Rybinski – Tullio
Safin – Englot – Kambeitz
Soderlund – Brosseau – Burns
Broberg – Berglund
Samorukov – Kemp
Niemelainen – Kesselring
Kaldis
Rodrigue Konovalov
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2021-09-18 17:03:45Z
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