Empty Netters Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cIf you want to f*cking win, that is not the guy you\u2019re gonna sign to go to the next level,\u201d Wisniewski said. \u201cYou need a power-play dude, but he\u2019s not that good other than that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not taking credit away from him by being like a really good offensive defenceman, but he\u2019s eating up $10.5 million of your salary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Co-host Dan Powers went even further to suggest that the Oilers should have traded Bouchard instead of signing him this offseason.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that Bouchard is one of the league\u2019s best offensive defencemen and that his defensive game could use improvement, but Wisniewski seemed to think more than that. He stated that the Oilers would have been better off ditching the big Bouchard contract in exchange for signing two defencemen at $5 million apiece, with one working the PP while the other is more defensive-minded.<\/p>\n
Yet, it doesn\u2019t appear that the former Columbus Blue Jackets defenceman has watched Bouchard all that much. Is he prone to making a big mistake in his end from time to time? Absolutely, but his overall defensive numbers are sparkling.<\/p>\n
In the playoffs last season, Bouchard was fifth among playoff defencemen (with at least 200 minutes of TOI) in expected goals-for percentage (xGF%) and fourth in high-danger chances-for percentage (HDCF%) at five-on-five. That seems to suggest that he was one of the best five-on-five defenders in the entire playoffs, contrary to Wisniewski\u2019s assessment that he was a one-trick PP pony.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a bit ignorant to leave out just how productive he has been from the blueline. It\u2019s not easy to outscore your mistakes as an NHL defenceman, but Bouchard manages to do just that.<\/p>\n
At the age of 25, Bouchard already has 81 points in 75 career playoff games. He ranks behind only Bobby Orr in playoff pts\/g by an NHL defender and is already the 25th highest scoring defenceman in the playoffs. That isn\u2019t something any $5-million offensive defenceman could accomplish, even if they got PP minutes with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.<\/p>\n
Bouchard is a top-five defenceman in the league and has shown that he can elevate his game in the playoffs to absurd levels. He manages to be an excellent defenceman by making sure that the puck is always in the offensive zone, thus limiting the Oilers\u2019 time in the defensive zone.<\/p>\n
With the cap exploding to over $110 million over the next few seasons, paying a guy like Bouchard $10.5 million will eventually be a steal for this team. You can\u2019t replace what he brings, and trading him would have been a colossal mistake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-NHL defenceman James Wisniewski is not a fan of the Edmonton Oilers signing Evan Bouchard to a big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-53337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}