Toronto Maple Leafs’ Ilya Mikheyev (65) celebrates a goal with teammates against Edmonton Oilers goaltender Mike Smith at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Wednesday, March 3, 2021. Photo by Ian Kucerak /Postmedia
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Edmonton Oilers d-man Ethan Bear is struggling this year.
He’s missed a game with the coach sitting him in the pressbox. He’s been injured. While he was out, the team thrived. He’s fought his way back into the line-up, but he’s yet to consistently play his “A” game, the kind of smart, steady and tough hockey that saw him earn a place in Edmonton’s Top 4 on defence last season.
For the first time in many, many months, largely due to the glut of promising young defenders both on the Oilers and in the Oilers system, it’s not shockingly obvious that Bear deserves to be playing each night or that his future in Edmonton is secure, in particular with the Seattle expansion draft approaching where Edmonton seems likely to lose a young d-man, either Bear, Caleb Jones or William Lagesson.
I became a huge Bear fan last season, as did many of you, based on his sound defensive play, high hockey IQ, and deft passing and shooting.
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I measure players in part by how they do at the key moments in a game, when Grade A scoring chances and goals are created or given up, and Bear did well by that performance metric in 2019-20.
Bear and the heart of hockey, the Grade A scoring chance
Each night for ten seasons now I have reviewed video of each Oilers scoring chance and goal and have taken careful notes on the main contributors to each chance for and the main culprits on each chance against. I do the initial review, then my sharp-eyed Cult colleague Bruce McCurdy reviews my work. We discuss most plays, work through disagreements, and to control for my own bias in this process (and we all have bias), McCurdy has the final say. We code and compile our work so it’s easily searchable and transparent.
If anyone doubts our work, they can go over the scoring chances in a game and see if they agree or disagree with our assessments. Each scoring chance is time-stamped, so you can quickly find it and judge for yourself. We don’t get every call right, but that is certainly our goal. As fans of the team, we want to know who is helping the Oilers win and who is detracting from that goal. It’s as simple as that really.
In Ethan Bear’s case, you can search the code “74a,” which will tell you how many major mistakes he’s made on even strength Grade A chances against. It will also tell you the nature of each mistake, such as whether it’s a turnover (74at) or a missed assignment (74ama) or a lost battle (74al).
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In total, Bear has made 27 major mistakes on Grade A chances this year in 217 even strength minutes.
That’s a rate of 1.87 major mistakes on Grade A chances per game (15 min ES), the highest rate of major mistakes for an Oilers d-man this year, and significantly higher than his rate from last year, 1.57 per game.
All other Oilers d-men have been far steadier than Bear in their own zone so far this year, with promising Lagesson at just 0.84 major mistakes per game (in somewhat sheltered minutes), the warhorse Adam Larsson, just 0.93 per game, Slater Koekkoek, 1.05, Evan Bouchard, 1.21, Kris Russell, 1.32, Caleb Jones, 1.45, Darnell Nurse, 1.47 (in tough minutes), and Tyson Barrie at 1.75.
At the same time, Bear is making a lower rate of major contributions to Grade A chances for this year, just 0.62 per game as opposed to 0.87 per game last year.
Bottom line: Bear’s offence is weaker and his defence is somewhat worse.
Rebound?
Can he turn it around?
Of course he can. He played consistently well all last year, and he did so against tough competition.
The issue for him this year is that on the right side Larsson has been Edmonton’s best shut down d-man, Barrie has been useful on the attack and Bouchard has displayed immense passing and shooting ability, the kind of offensive spark that the Oilers need from the back end if they want to win in the playoffs.
Right now Bear isn’t playing as well as any of them.
With so many useful NHL-quality d-men, players are going to have to sit now and then, even good players. For example, if William Lagesson is healthy again on merit he should go in on the left side. Darnell Nurse is a lock there, which means Jones and Russell must battle it out for the final spot for now, with the possibility of Bouchard or Bear also being moved over to the left side.
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It’s a crowded situation for now, and it opens up the possibility of.the Oilers trading a d-man this year to help fix Edmonton’s forward or goalie depth.
Who should Edmonton move? Tough question, but if the return is right I can see any of the d-men other than Nurse being moved out, though I personally think it would be a grave error to trade away Larsson at this point. When Edmonton needs to shut down an opposing star, there is no better defender to get out on the ice.
At the Cult
McCURDY: Stalock gives the Oil a #3 in net
LEAVINS: Player grades from third straight shellacking by Leafs
STAPLES: The sad saga of the Edmonton Oilers “Dynamite Line”