Article content
Merrian-Webster defines the term journeyman as: “an experienced reliable worker, athlete, or performer especially as distinguished from one who is brilliant or colorful.”
Advertisement
Story continues below
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
The Edmonton Oilers have had a great number of players in the past in the journeyman category but there’s one group of them that sticks out for me: the Giants of Journeymen on the Oil blueline.
By this I mean defencemen who come to the Oilers with a fairly low acquisition cost, aged in their mid-20s, and having kicked around the NHL and AHL for years, players who have yet to establish themselves as solid NHLers but do so in memorable fashion on the Oilers.
The most memorable Giants of Journeymen?
- Craig Muni. He was a second round pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1980, but kicked around between New Brunswick, Cincinnati and St. Catherines of the CHL and AHL for five seasons, playing just 19 games for the Leafs in that time. In 1986, Oilers GM Glen Sather signed Muni as a free agent, which is rated as the 13th biggest player personnel mistake in Toronto Maple Leafs history by the Taylor Made blog. His signing was ranked as the second best ever free agent signing by the Edmonton Oilers by the Oil on Whyte blog. Arriving in Edmonton as a 24-year-old, the player known for his sound defence and nasty hits was a regular second-pairing d-man for seven years and part of three Stanley Cup-winning team.
- Jason Smith. Smith was 25 when the Oilers acquired him from Toronto for a second and a fourth round pick. He’d played part of five seasons in the NHL, but only became a big-time NHLer in Edmonton, where he had seven strong seasons and one brilliant playoffs, the 2005-06 Stanley Cup finals run. Like Muni, Smith was a defensive d-man who hit to hurt.
- Steve Staios. Staios was a second round pick of the St. Louis Blues in 1991. He arrived in Edmonton ten years later, coming in as a free agent for the 2001-02 season. By then Staios had played for one IHL team, two AHL teams, and three other NHL teams. He was 28-years-old, but played 7.5 good years for the Oilers. He, too, was a key member of that 2005-06 Stanley Cup-finalist team.
Advertisement
Story continues below
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
Now we come to Koekkoek. He was the 10th overall pick of the 2012 entry draft, the same year the Oilers took Nail Yakupov first overall. Koekkoek bounced from the AHL to the NHL, from Tampa to Chicago, before signing here as a 26-year-old free agent for the 2020-21 season. I didn’t know what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised with Koekkoek’s play last year. Mostly in a third-pairing role, he displayed OK passing, OK defence, OK skating and OK shooting. It all added up to one OK player for the Oilers, which isn’t bad at all for an NHL d-man. He rarely beat himself, rarely wandered out of position and generally moved the puck adeptly enough to keep his team out of trouble. He played just 18 regular season games for the Oilers before getting injured, but came back and played, well, OK in the playoffs, even as he was playing hurt.
Advertisement
Story continues below
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
That performance earned him a two-year deal at $925,000 per year.
Of course, it’s some way from being an OK third-pairing d-man to being a d-man of Muni, Smith or Staios’ stature. Koekkoek is never going to bring the nasty that Muni or Smith did, but it’s entirely possible he could have a career similar to the one Staios had in Edmonton. They’re somewhat similar players, better than the sum of their parts.
Koekkoek is behind Darnell Nurse and Duncan Keith in Edmonton’s depth chart, battling Kris Russell for the third-pairing job, with William Lagesson in the wings, and Philip Broberg and Dmitri Samorukov in the AHL. There’s plenty of competition, but Koekkoek sits in that sweet spot in his career, with plenty of hard knocks but also plenty of experience and motivation. He’s also got that two-year deal. If he can stay healthy he’ll have plenty of opportunity to demonstrate his quality in Edmonton, starting Saturday night against Calgary.
Here were the lines and pairings at Friday’s practice:
Draisaitl-McDavid-Puljujarvi
Hyman-RNH-Yamamoto
Foegele-Ryan-Kassian
Perlini-McLeod-Turris
Benson-Sceviour
Nurse-Barrie
Keith-Ceci
Koekkoek-Bouchard
Lagesson-Russell
Smith
Koskinen
Staples on politics
What we owe the unvaxxed — and what they owe us
At the Cult
STAPLES: Player grades from Oilers 3-2 shootout win over Canucks
