isles future vs oilers future
 

isles have a ridiculous amount of players projected to be 2nd liners and number 3 dmen along with the best player of the group, tavares while the oilers have the 3 next best players in eberle hall and rnh and a couple elite prospects but not nearly as much depth in prospects as the isles have


who is projected to be better

What is easier to get through Free Agency? Second liners or First liners?
Top pairing defenders or second pairing defenders?

The Wild, obviously. :sarcasm:

Gotta say the Oilers. It's hard to screw up three #1 picks in a row.

what is it easier to win a stanley cup with 1 absolutely elite player and then quality depth or an awesome first line and than crap depth because of cap hits because there is 18 million invested in your first line alone?

The problem with this post is it ignores Wang is your owner and depth or no he will find a way to screw it up

Yeah one elite player > four, because four costs more. Brilliant point.

It's still too early to say conclusively that Tavares will stay the best player out of the group. He certainly is the best player out of them now though.

Perhaps it's just the homer in me, but I think the three 1st overalls + Eberle + Schultz trumps the best 5 players the Isle can put up. And secondary talent is easier to find than primary talent.

My vote is Edmonton.

The Los Angeles Kings had $18 million tied up in their 3 highest paid forwards last season.

The Islanders have the best player on either team and some excellent defensive prospects to work with (not to mention Hamonic already there). Unfortunately, it's the Isles. They'll find a way to **** it up.

I'm going with the Oilers here, they have too many elite talents to lose out.

Be Patient.

http://oilersnation.com/uploads/Imag...le_12218_2.jpg

I think I'd have to go with the potential of Edmonton's roster, even though I think Tavares is the best player in either franchise.

I would say that 4 elite players is better than 1 even if the 1 is the best of the bunch.
Also, it's not like the Isles have much more depth than the Oilers on their current roster and in the pipeline so i'm not sure what makes the Isles depth quality and the Oilers crap.
Who knows about best future. There are way more question marks on both rosters than answers at this point so it's a crapshoot. It's possible that neither team ever reaches their potential.
I would say that on paper that the Oilers have the edge, i guess we'll see if the NHL ever comes back.

so people are hating on the isles for a ****** owner that has finally got something he could work with just now yet the oilers management has made no attempts to improve since drafting hall via free agency or trades? while the isles have made legitimate attempts and injuries always mess that up

Not once in my post did i hate on the Isles. In fact, they are one of my favorite teams outside of the Oilers.
I just don't see how the Islanders depth is quality but the Oilers is crap.
I don't see how Snow made so many more moves than Tambellini.
The Islanders similar to the Oilers are building with mostly homegrown talent. Both teams have similar strengths and weaknesses and both teams are huge question marks with a lot of potential going forward.

Isles, easily. Lets stop talking about it now. :sarcasm:

My first reaction was Edmonton, but I think the Isles are actually a lot closer than I first thought.

They have some pretty tremendous center depth, even if they move Strome to the wing. If they do, I think their top-9 would look something like this:

Moulson - Tavares - Strome
Bailey - Nelson - Okposo
Niederreiter - Nielsen - Grabner

As good as the talent in Edmonton's top-6 would be, I don't know if they could match that considering: Regardless of the upside a Hall-RNH-Eberle first line would have, I don't see how anyone could say that it would outproduce that Isles 1st line for sure. Especially considering what Tavares and Moulson have already accomplished, and the fact that Strome is a top-10 prospect with elite offensive talent.

The Oilers 2nd line would be better just by having Yakupov on it, but after that I don't see any 3rd line combo they could throw out there that would match that Islanders 3rd line.

Defensively I think both team's prospects are close. I honestly couldn't say who is better right now, but I think Hamonic breaks the tie in the Isles' favor.

Goaltending is probably a wash for me. Slight edge to Edmonton since Dubnyk has had some success already in the NHL(although I think Poulin and Nilsson will be similar goalies).

On top of this, the Islanders should end up with a better pick in this upcoming draft(as far as the odds are concerned). If it ends up being top-10, that would be another huge chip in the Isles favor.

I don't know... Like I said, my gut told me Edmonton in the beginning, but I think it will end up being pretty close.

Probably the Flames since the have Jankowski

Oilers.

I guess we're combining current and future rosters?

Hall-RNH-Eberle
Hemsky-Gagner-Yakupov
Hartikainen-Lander-Paajarvi
Smyth-Horcoff-Jones

Prospects who could make the cut: Pitlick

Rieder, Moroz and Zharkov are longshots.

J. Schultz-Whitney
Petry-Smid
N. Schultz-Klefbom

Prospects who could make the cut: Marincin, Musil

Longshots: Gernat, Fedun, LaLeggia, Simpson

Dubnyk
Khabibulin

Prospects who could make the cut: Bunz, Roy


vs.

Moulson - Tavares - Strome
Bailey - Nelson - Okposo
Niederreiter - Nielsen - Grabner
Martin-Reasoner-???

Kabanov, Petrov, Lee..... Feel free to add.

MacDonald-Streit
Visnovsky-Hamonic
Reinhart-De Haan

Donovan, Mayfield.....Feel free to add.

Nabokov
Poulin
Nilsson
DiPietro

The Isles are deeper at center, Nelson is a stud.
The Oilers have far more elite talents at forward but lack 2 way forwards outside of Hartikainen. I don't see much of a difference in depth.

Tavares - RNH
Moulson - Hall
Strome - Eberle
Nielsen - Gagner
Grabner - Hemsky
Okposo - Yakupov
Nino - Paajarvi
Nelson - Lander
Bailey - Hartikainen

The defensive depth looks fairly similar to me....

Streit - Whitney
MacDonald - Petry
Hamonic - Smid
Visnovsky - N. Schultz
Reinhart - J. Schultz
De Haan - Klefbom
Donovan - Marincin
Mayfield - Musil


Goaltending depth looks fairly similar to me as well, slight edge to the Isles.

Nabakov - Khabibulin
Poulin - Dubnyk
Nilsson - Bunz

Overall, the depth looks fairly equal. The Oilers have more elite level players, the Isles have the best player.

Somewhat. I can't speak for the Oilers, but as an Isles fan there are several guys on the team who are relatively young that I expect to be a part of the team going forward. Guys like Moulson, Nielsen, Bailey, Okposo, Grabner, Hamonic, MacDonald. While I think Streit will re-sign, I wouldn't include him in this. By the time the Islanders are competitive again he'll probably be 38 years old. Visnovsky and Nabokov will also probably be gone.

Granted, if this were a "which team has better players that are 22 and under" the Oilers would win. If this is about each team's future peak, I expect the guys I mentioned to be a part of it, making things a lot closer IMO.

Oilers, though I'm slightly biased. More top-end talent.

The Oilers have 4 forwards who should be elite (RNH, Eberle, Hall and Yakupov), with some decent trades/signings for supporting players that should be enough to build an absolutely deadly group of forwards. I prefer that to what the Isles have to offer, where there's a massive drop off after Tavares (Moulson is pretty good, and Strome is a pretty good prospect, but I easily build around all Oilers forwards than all Isles forwards). In net I think the Oilers have the best young-ish talent on either team in Dubnyk. In terms of young-ish d, the Isles might have the edge, but the Oilers getting Schultz narrowed that gap a lot. I think Schultz, Smid, Petry, Klefbom, Marcinin, Musil, etc. is at least reasonably close to Hamonic, Reinhart, MacDonald, Donovan, De Haan, etc. Overall I'm definitely taking the Oilers, mostly because they have way more elite talent.

FWIW, I think the Isles have **** the bed with their drafting since Tavares. In the last 3 drafts they've had the 4th, 5th and 5th overall picks, and they've taken Reinhart, Strome and Nino. Obviously it's very early to say how these guys turn out, but I'm personally not a big fan of these prospects, I think they easily could have done SO much better with 3 straight top 5 picks. In 2010 guys like Skinner, Granlund, Tarasenko, Fowler, Burmistrov etc. would all have been great options at 5th overall, but they went with Nino. In 2011 I don't like the Strome pick when guys like Couturier and Hamilton were right there. In 2012 I'm not a fan of the Reinhart pick either, I think he'll be a decent dman, but I don't see the star upside that's there with someone like Rielly. With smart drafting I might be very seriously considering the Isles over the Oilers, but I just don't love a lot of their top prospects.

You have to look at who is a UFA soon if you looking long term. I could be wrong here but Whitney is a UFA this summer and I see him bolting out of Edmonton. On the islanders side I don't see Visnovsky playing for us in 2013(which will be pretty crappy if we have a lockout since we gave up a 2nd rounder for nothing). Streit is a UFA in 2014, but I actually see him staying(although he is getting up in years)

I get what you are saying, but all 3 of these guys look promising at the moment. Nino was one of the youngest draftees in 2010, and while he had a terrible NHL season as a 19 year old, he is now a PPG player in the AHL as a 20 year old. I still see a ton of upside with him, especially if they leave Strome at center and use Nino as Tavares' RW.

Strome is easily a top-10 prospect right now. He's the CHL's leading scorer and has improved his overall game as well. He's a complete player. Whether or not he turns into an NHL star is the only question, but aside from RNH, Landeskog and Larsson(none of which the Isles could have picked), no one from that draft class has proven anything. Hard to get on the Isles for this pick, especially when Strome is playing as well as he is right now.

As far as Reinhart goes, the only knock on him to this point are his offensive numbers. Defensively, he's probably been better than the Islanders expected he'd be. He was generally considered one of, if not the best Canadian defenseman in the Subway Series, and will most likely be a part of Canada's WJC team this year(considering how stacked that group is, I'd say that is pretty impressive in its own right). If his offensive game never comes around, it could end up looking like a bad pick. That said, Washington took Karl Alzner 5th overall in '07, and they seem to be very pleased with how he's turned out. Obviously Isles fans would like for a more complete defenseman, but if he ends up being strictly a top-pairing shutdown defender, I'll be fine with it as long as he helps this team contend.

I'm fine with the drafting thus far. It's the lack of signs and trades made to compliment these prospects that bothers me.

Tavares isn't even that much better than Eberle according to the stats. While Eberle is a little older than Tavares and was drafted earlier, Johnny has played three seasons in the NHL to Jordan's two.

Tavares
11-12 GP82 G31 A50 P81 .99PPG
10-11 GP79 G29 A38 P67 .85PPG
09-10 GP82 G24 A30 P54 .65PPG

Eberle
11-12 GP78 G34 A42 P76 .97PPG
10-11 GP69 G18 A25 P43 .62PPG