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What Do We Expect From Ryan Strome This Year? |
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For the second off-season in a row Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli made a significant deal involving an offensive winger and longtime member of the club. A year ago it was Hall for Larsson and while I personally still hate that deal there’s no question that Larsson filled a position of great need for an Oiler team that neglected its defense for years. This season Chiarelli sent Jordan Eberle away for Ryan Strome.
What is not like the Hall/Larsson deal is that at the “balance” that Larsson clearly brought on paper and in practice is not so evident with Strome. He’s a right shot and a sometimes centerman. If he goes back to the middle as the 3C then that’s something he brings that helps diversify the lines. McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nugent-Hopkins are all lefties. Strome and Letestu are righties. That is one of the attributes that makes Mark Letestu an effective PP option. Having a mix of right shot and left shot pivots should provide more flexibility and effectiveness on the faceoffs, in theory.
In practice, Ryan Strome has a career 44.2% faceoff percentage. It’s better than Nuge or McDavid’s career numbers but only by a hair and still not anything for people who think this stuff matters much would get excited about. So the possible explanation that the move was to get a right shot center isn’t a particularly convincing one. It’s hard not to draw a direct line between Eberle’s epic failure to provide offense in the post-season and this move. Then you see how much money the Oilers saved downgrading to Strome and…well…
Whatever the reason the Oilers had to do it, the addition of Ryan Strome brings a new set of expectations for Oiler fans. With the team set to run a trio of McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nuge down the middle, it’s easy to see that the former 5th overall pick will likely find himself in a good situation to start camp. He may even get an early push with McDavid, much like Lucic did last season. There’s pretty much no better place you can ask to be than lining up on 97’s wing.
The danger fans of the team need to avoid is setting up Strome to fail by holding him to unreasonable expectations. It’s something that really stained the way we look at Jordan Eberle’s season. Let’s use Alexander Radulov as a comparison. Radulov scored 18-36-54 and was one of the most prized free agents of the summer. Eberle scored 20-31-51 and we questioned everything from his heart to his shot (and that shooting coach). The biggest difference: Eberle got to play 400+ minutes with McDavid.
Playing with McDavid, right or wrong, changes expectations. If Ryan Strome plays with McDavid then people will just naturally expect more from him. Unfortunately, as both Eberle and Lucic proved last year, it doesn’t work that way in real life. For all sorts of reasons that include but are not limited to luck, chemistry, and base talent, not everyone can play with virtuosos like McDavid and complement them.
Ryan Strome has 3.5 NHL seasons under his belt and in just 1 of them has he provided solid offense. We can forgive his rookie professional season for only producing 18 points though, since he played in just 37 NHL games. The other 37 games he played that year were in the AHL and he was well over a point per game and looked like he was tracking well as a prospect. He followed that with a 17-33-50 point sophomore campaign and we will call that the high water mark so far in Strome’s career.
There is clearly offensive ability inside Ryan Strome and that’s exactly why it’s very tempting to say he will easily climb back to that 50 point level again. The problem is that since that 50 point season, Strome has fallen back down to Earth in disappointing fashion to the tune of back to back 28 and 30 point seasons. We have some interesting splits between Strome years 1 & 2 and Strome years 3 & 4.
Strome 2013-2015: 118GP, 2.12 P/60, 8.90 Shots/60, 52.9% CF, 54.4% FF. Most common forward linemates: Anders Lee & Brock Nelson
Strome 2015-2017: 140 GP, 1.44 P/60, 6.62 Shots/60, 48.1% CF, 48.5% FF. Most common forward linemates: Brock Nelson & John Tavares
The most concerning part about the offensive decline is that it’s come while he’s had the opportunity to play with a talented (almost elite) offensive player in John Tavares. In fact, in 547:44 played 5v5 with Tavares, Ryan Strome has produced just 0.99 P/60 for 2-7-9 over the last 2 years. I don’t have the intel on this player to say anything definitely about why he struggled to produce with the Islanders’ best player but it’s a big red flag.
Instead of placing massive expectations on Strome we should consider that it’s much more likely he’s not the player everyone thought he would be after a great junior career and a solid entry into the NHL. Something happened to this kid and he really hasn’t been the same for two years. If he comes onto the Oilers and finds instant success with McDavid I won’t be shocked so much as I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
For me, I’ll be expecting Strome to sidle up on the wing beside a more established centerman and settle in the middle six. I think we can count on offense in the 30-35 point range and that’s about all. If the team gets more then it’s pure gravy. To expect more than that is wishful thinking and setting up the kid to fail in the eyes of a fanbase that will be looking for the team to improve yet again.
Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy
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