Philip Larsen is moving on in his Professional career to the KHL. He signed a 1 year deal with Yugra, which as far as I can tell from Google Maps is based out of probably the last place on Earth you would willingly live without the prospect of being paid Millions of Dollars. It marks the departure of yet another Defenseman from the group that the Oil ended the year with and also the only body (living or otherwise) the Oilers received for Shawn Horcoff unless that 2016 7th Round Pick pans out.
I liked the idea of Larsen more than the real thing, and I liked Pre-Season Larsen best of all. I had the chance to see him play live in the Pre-Season and his rushes up the ice were incredible. He was extremely mobile and creative with the puck, but it turned out (shockingly) that his 117 pound frame just wasn’t cut out for an 82 game NHL season. He was abused on several occasions by the heavy clubs in the Western Conference and his effectiveness with the puck just wasn’t enough to outweigh what he couldn’t do without it.
I think he’ll fare better in the KHL where the game has more open spaces and relies more on positioning rather than force. It’s not as if Larsen wasn’t capable of playing in the NHL, I think he can. The problem is he was on an Oiler team that didn’t have the puck enough for him to showcase his skills and didn’t have enough real NHL Defensemen to employ a specialist like Larsen. A good club, or at least a better one, might have been able to mask his deficiencies but on the Oilers they were front and center.
Despite his poor underlying numbers and obvious size issues his prowess with the puck was real. While only playing in 30 games for the Oilers he was 4th in Defenseman scoring for the club and scoring at a similar pace to “Young Star… Justin Schultz. At 24 years of age I would suggest he has a long and productive career in the KHL and I wish him all the best. The Oilers took a flyer on a guy who had potential to be an NHL regular but it just didn’t work out and I’m glad they tried it, however I am also glad the experiment is over.
It’s something I might go in depth with later but I think MacT tried to exploit some market deficiencies with European (Read: from European markets)and smaller Defensemen but it kind of blew up in his face. Grebeshkov, Larsen, and Belov were all brought in and less than a year later they have all flamed out of the league, some faster than others. That’s not intended as a shot towards Defensemen from European leagues or small Defensemen, there are many good hockey players who cant ride The Zipper at Klondike Days and who have foreign passports. The issue with Edmonton is that they loaded up on a group of players who could only get the job done if everything went right. There was room for 1 Grebeshkov, 1 Belov, or 1 Larsen, but not all 3.
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