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Bouchard Signs Entry Level Deal. Will He Make Team?

July 18, 2018, 3:51 PM ET [55 Comments]
Sean Maloughney
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT

Hey everyone, while I was out hiking the mountains there was a bit of Oilers news that occurred. Evan Bouchard signed his 3 year entry level with the Oilers. Obviously this was going to happen at some point and now that it has we can look forward to training camp.

In case you've been living under a rock the Oilers drafted Bouchard 10th overall at the draft in June. Bouchard at 6'2 193lbs is the right shot defenseman the Oilers have coveted for years. I originally wrote >this about Bouchard.

Bouchard in my opinion was the 2nd most ready defenseman in this draft behind Rasmus Dahlin. Quinton Hughes and Adam Boqvist were both selected ahead of Bouchard. Why?

For starters Hughes is arguably the best skater in the entire draft... no not behind Dahlin, I mean the best skater. While a small player Hughes is a playmaker and the Canucks will be over the moon to have him transporting the puck from the back-end.

Boqvist surprised me to be selected ahead of Bouchard. I would like to call it the Swedish Factor. Boqvist was born just 5 hours north of Erik Karlsson and due to the comparison to his game as well as Brent Seabrook, the Blackhawks felt he was too good to pass up. Out of all of these players, Boqvist might have the biggest difficulty adapting to the North American game and like all offense minded defenders, his ability to actually play defense is a concern.

Which brings us to Bouchard. His production last season was absolutely unreal. His 87 points, broken down into 50 EV points and 33 on the PP were the most of any OHL defenseman since Ryan Ellis who turned into a pretty good player with Nashville. Unlike Ellis, Bouchard didn't have a Taylor Hall to play with. Bouchard outscored his next highest teammate by 33 points.

Time on ice isn't documented but our best guess is that Bouchard was averaging a whopping 30 minutes or more a game. Obviously that number helped increase his scoring but at the same time the fact he was able to produce at that level while consistently logging those minutes shows his constitution.

Back to the Ryan Ellis comparison. The year after Ellis was drafted he returned to the Spitfires where he played 9 fewer games that season due to injury and his production went from 89 points to 61. Part of that was due to injury but another reason was that some of his workload was reduced thanks to newcomer Cam Fowler. The year after that Fowler was fast tracked to the NHL and Ellis played one more full season for the Spitfires scoring a massive 101 points.

The reason I brought this up is next season there is a chance we see Bouchard in a similar situation. The London Knights signed Adam Boqvist to an OHL deal and the two drafted players may be teammates next season. This would likely reduce Bouchard's production but give him the advantage of playing with another skilled defenseman. Another advantage would be reducing the risk of injury by logging over half a game of minutes.

These are the pros to playing in the OHL next year. Unfortunately Bouchard is not allowed to play in the AHL, a rule which I hope is changed before too long. Bouchard is a man amongst boys and will dominate another full season in the OHL.

The only other option for Bouchard is to make the Oilers. At this point it seems almost guaranteed that he will be on the opening night roster. Whether he plays more than 9 games will be entirely up to him.

The locked in players on Edmonton's back end are as followed; Klefbom, Larsson, Sekera, Russell, Nurse, Benning. Some might question Benning being here but he is no longer waiver exempt and would have to clear waivers in order to play in the AHL.

The most likely scenario if all the above mentioned names are here to start the season is this: Bouchard gets a 9 game look in the NHL while players like Benning and Russell sit in the press box. Bouchard is then sent back to the London Knights with specific notes from his coaches on what to work on for next season.

Unless a trade is figured out and another player is moved it makes no sense to have Bouchard on the team as a 7th or healthy scratch on some nights. Bouchard needs to blow the doors off the barn in order to claim his spot. If he does.... that is an excellent problem for this team to have.
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