Probably for PK duty.

I'm mildly surprised he has Russell on 3LD - Koekkoek was there in practice today.

Lagesson is on scratches not waiver squad. With the way defence prospects have been going he wouldn't make it there.

That 3rd pair is going to get lit up!

Why?

Barrie has been a first pairing guy at 5v5 against elite competition (>30%) for most of his entire career.

Lagesson, and Bouchard are both on the opening night roster. Holland confirmed to Stauffer today that they were going to open the season with 9D.

Your taxi squad is also off, but we don't know just yet exactly who'll be on it.

My guess is:

Lagesson
Lennstrom
Nygard
Benson
McLeod
Skinner

His taxi squad is correct heading into vancouver ken holland said this lineup on the radio today.

when haas and Neal come back It will change too.
Swap Lagesson and Bouchard and add Neal to Taxi. Ken holland also said they are keeping defensemen on the Roster. Koekkoek, lagesson and Haas will all stay on the roster either one would get claimed on waivers if they get put on the taxi. Nobody is claiming neal and Bouchard is waivers exempt so they go on taxi.

3rd pair goes up against weaker competition. Barrie could easily play 2nd pair if the LD with him was better.

I would wager you will not find any Av or Leaf fans who will confirm this. He was given 3rd pair responsibilities in TO because he is terrible defensively. That was what all Av fan said when he was traded.

Edmonton as a whole is really poor defensively. It's going to be bad at 5v5

Defensemen are a work in progress. Right side is pretty solid Left side Nurse is getting better and Caleb Jones is surprisingly good. They didn't have puck movers and skaters before so they got pinned in their own zone. They can move the puck up ice now so they are much improved. In about 2 years they will have solidified things.

I'll defer to the coaching deployment and his stats over the opinions of fans. You've seen some of the trades proposed around here by those fans, right?

http://puckiq.com/players/8475197

Typcial deployment vs elites ~30% over his career and he wins his 5v5 minutes aside from a historically bad season in COL and half a year in TOR when he didn't see eye to eye with Babcock (surprise surprise). In TOR if you look up his splits before and after the coaching change, you'll see his deployment reverted to the norm under O'Keefe.

Barrie is an underrated player 5v5.



I'm going to infer you don't watch a lot of the Oilers play. They've made strides on the back end and in the bottom six. @Zmach basically covered it.

Highly optimistic

Well they are winning the division so you will see.

They may not make the playoffs. They did nothing but shuffle the deck chairs

They added 3 good forwards and upgraded the defence.

Optimistic? Not make the playoffs?

They had the highest points and points % of any Canadian team last year. Then went out and improved the team by adding a bonafide 3C, a top-10 RD and some depth including one of the top players in Europe from last year.

Oh, and two of the last three MVP and Art Ross winners who are just entering their primes. Draisaitl is the most criminally underrated player in the entire League.

People like to **** on Koskinen, who had a SV% 0.01 less than Markstrom last year and is improving year over year since he entered the league full time. His adjusted stats were top-7 in the league according to Kevin Woodley. Also highly over looked.

You're going to be surprised, methinks.

*EDIT

I went and looked, just to confirm my intuition. Tyson Barrie is the 9th highest scoring defenseman at 5v5 over the last 10 years. Tyson Barrie entered the league eight seasons ago. That's good enough scoring for 131 overall in the league during that span. He's 2 points behind Alex Goligoski for 8th place... in 197 fewer games.

Barrie is not a top 10 RD. And Turris is a bonafide healthy scratch.

See above edit re: Barrie.

Turris, the guy who scored >0.5 ppg over his career, often against elite competition? Yeah. Healthy scratch. One bad season in NSH a career does not make.

I have time for earnest hockey discussion but now you're just wasting bandwidth.

It's just optimism. Edmonton was a bad team at 5v5 last season and had horrible depth. They added a defenceman who is really bad in his own end and are relying on cast offs from other teams to improve their depth. Ennis was a healthy scratch or 4th liner in TO and then bottom 6 in Ottawa. Turris was bought out because he is slow and really just not good anymore. Kahun is a wildcard but I think he could likely be another Rattie. Edmonton had the highest points out of Canadian teams but was in by far the worst division and also was only 1 point ahead of TO who had a tonne of major injuries, a coaching change and Andersen had a super bad year by his standards. What this shows is that when pretty much everything went wrong in TO and almost everything went right in Edmonton, the two teams were equal. So do you think TO is going to miss extended time from JT, Marner, Hyman, Rielly, Muzzin, Kerfoot, Mikheyev, Dermott and Andersen again? Probably not. Will Andersen who is called steady Freddie for a reason going to have another substandard season? Probably not. Will Hutchinson be the backup and let in 4 goals a game? Definitely not because they have Campbell and Dell ahead of him and both are much better.

So a likely healthier Leafs squad, that will have much better goaltending, a better defence (Brodie is way better defensively than Barrie, it's not remotely comparable). And a full year under Keefe who did coach them to the 8th best record in the league over his tenure. What is a reasonable assumption for the above variables?

What about Edmonton? Will Koskinen and Smith replicate their seasons? Both are older and one is less proven. Will the PP remain at nearly historic levels of effectiveness? (This is probably the most likely to continue). Will the PK be top 4 again? Will this team be able to mask their problems but outscoring them on the PP alone? Because there was I think one or two players on their entire roster who were on the ice for more goals for than against. News flash McDavid and Draisaitl were not among them. Edmonton is still a heavily flawed team and until the franchise understands this, they will be a team that won't get over the top.

Turris is a solid 3C

Last season that "horrible depth" (since bolstered) produced the best record among Canadian teams and second in their division points wise. They've improved.

Maybe we're looking at "really bad in his own end" differently. To me a defenseman who consistently outscores (often) elite opposition at 5v5 is a net positive player. Single mistakes in time are still just single events. At the end of the day your measure as a hockey player comes down to what you create minus what you give up. A player who has a career positive GF% is a quality player. One who's in the top 10 in 5v5 defenseman scoring over the last ten years while only having been in the league for 8/10 years is no fluke. Not to mention you can give TOR a pass for a coaching change (poor results early) and not give Barrie the benefit of the doubt at the same time. Look up the splits; his results after Babcock left are startling.

Ennis has scored at elite second line rates for years now, across multiple organizations. Not bad depth to have on your fourth line. For $1M. His versatility will come in handy.

Unlike Rattie, Kahun has likewise shown he can play up with skill in the top-6 and produce. With Towes in CHI and again with Malkin in PIT, as a recent for instance. From reading the press and blogs, guys like Geno and the fans seem to like him. I don't know a lot about him, but there are plenty of fancies that suggest there's a player. Another low risk bet, this time even cheaper at $975k for one year... and we retain his rights if it works out well. Oh, Draisaitl suggested him as a player to acquire so he's got that going for him. Chances are good he'll do well, beyond his established level of ability and relative risk.

Turris is slow and just not really not good anymore. Okay then. Agree to disagree. As I said earlier, one under performing season doesn't define a career. We'll know more about his decline or redemption this year, whether he's hit a cliff or a speed bump. He's a solid bet at 3C, and the price and term are (again) low risk bets for the upcoming season.

TOR had injuries? So did EDM. We were without core roster players for long stretches (Larsson, Klefbom, the irreplaceable Connor McDavid and others) and forced rookies (Bear, Jones, Yamamoto) into prominent positions, while integrating basically an entirely new bottom six and coaching staffs. Tough... that's pro sports. The Oilers had the best line in the NHL during 2020. That was our second line. But they were by far the worst in the division? Okay then. From a distance it would appear you've bought into a narrative instead of results/numbers.

The problems you allude to with outscoring largely stem from the cumulative effect of a disastrous December slump. We'll see how that works out going forward. Improvements in the bottom six -- really, a 35 GF% shouldn't be that hard to build on -- and consistency year over year with the bulk of the coaching staff and much of the roster will help. There's a cumulative effect of running your top two C 25 mins a game, where they know no matter how much they score the bottom-6 will just give it up. A lot of the guys we were breaking in were fringe guys last year who've graduated or will graduate this year. That goes a long way. Koskinen will be fine; he's improved each year and is still young. If Smith can keep doing what he did last year -- win more than he loses -- but in a reduced role, we'll be fine in net. VAN got worse in net. Koskinen = Markstrom so at a glance we're not giving up much compared to TOR or CGY, for instance.

And take a look around the Canadian division... hell the whole league, every team has deficiencies. And this year the Oilers have fewer. They'll improve. Again. So, tell me again about how TOR isn't flawed and how they'll get over the top. Provided, of course, they finally win a playoff round. Just like CGY, TOR is a one and done team.

Turris is dust.

Hopelessly optimistic.

As per Jason Gregor, the 3rd pairing is Koekkoek-Barrie.

Russell - Barrie is not a thing (at least to start), but I suggest you check your facts prior to making claims. Last year, among the 186 defensemen to play at least 550 minutes at 5v5, Russell ranked:

32nd in FA/60
15th in SA/60
3rd in GA/60
71st in xGA/60
58th in HDCA/60
10th in HDGA/60

while also being

159th in O-Zone Start%
166th in O-Zone Faceoff%
66th in D-Zone Faceoffs/60

That's the antithesis of getting "lit up".

@BornInAGretzkyJersey @Zmach