There’s still a case for optimism around Jake Walman, but the early returns this season have not looked like the bounce-back Edmonton needed.
That matters because Walman is no ordinary depth piece. Before last season, the Oilers handed him a seven-year, $49 million extension that carries a $7 million cap hit per season, a major commitment for a player who had only spent a short time in Edmonton.
Instead of settling in and taking off, he went through a difficult year marked by injuries and uneven play. Now, in the first season of that new deal, he was supposed to reset the story.
So far, that hasn’t happened.
Through seven games, Walman has appeared in just four. The injury explains some of that absence, but the situation still raises eyebrows.
When he has been available, the results have been rough. He’s averaging only 14:47 of ice time and sits at minus-3.
His most common pairings, with Ty Emberson and Connor Murphy, have not produced much success, posting expected goals marks of 35.7% and 41.7%, respectively, according to Moneypuck.com.
Still, the deeper numbers offer a different angle. Using evolving-hockey.com’s expected goals model, Walman has actually stacked up reasonably well in a few key puck-possession categories. Among Oilers defenders, he ranks third in corsi for percentage at 50.98% and third in fenwick for percentage at 51.62%, trailing only Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard.
The picture gets less flattering from there. Walman is fourth among Oilers blue-liners in expected goals percentage at 42.53% and fifth in goals for percentage at 19.5%.
That gap suggests two things at once: some bad puck luck, and some trouble handling the puck cleanly. It also lines up with the fact that he ranks last on the team’s defense corps in expected goals against per 60, which points to a heavy volume of dangerous chances against when he’s on the ice.
What comes next depends a lot on usage. If he gets the right role, some of those numbers could swing back in a better direction, especially with his shot-attempt metrics already looking positive. In theory, the actual scoring results should follow.
But this is where the caution comes in. This is now the second straight season Walman has struggled with Edmonton, so it may not be as simple as waiting for the percentages to even out. His defensive partners may need to change, because the pairings so far have produced poor results and Babcock may have to keep moving him around the lineup.
Even with the rough start, Walman still brings traits that matter. He has shown he can be a serviceable middle-pairing puck-moving defenseman, and that sort of player can still help this Oilers group.
Stan Bowman’s decision to move longtime Oiler Darnell Nurse this past summer was supposed to create more room for Walman. The bigger role is there for the taking now - but he still has to earn it.
In Other News...
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The catch is the usual one for Edmonton at this stage: money and assets. Any serious pursuit would likely force the Oilers to move salary back the other way, and they are not exactly sitting on a deep reserve of prospect capital either. So while the link is real enough to keep an eye on, it also feels like the sort of idea that tests how creative Edmonton can get before the market and the cap start closing in. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Forward Depth Suddenly Has A New Jason Dickinson Problem
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Oilers Still Have One Lineup Problem Better Defense Hasn't Hidden
The early numbers have given Edmonton a reason to feel better about its own end of the ice. Through a small sample of games, the Oilers have been defending more cleanly at five-on-five than they did a year ago, and the overall structure has looked sturdier even while the lineup continues to shuffle around its biggest names. Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid spending time together has been part of that discussion, since any look at the forward groups eventually circles back to how much offense the club wants to stack on one line and how that affects the rest of the bench.
Still, better team defense has not solved every wrinkle. The pairings below the top four remain under the microscope, and there is a sense that the Oilers are still searching for the right balance between security and upside on the back end. It is the sort of issue that can hide in a good stretch of results for a while, but it does not disappear, and Edmonton will keep hearing about it as the conversation shifts from one game to the next. [Read more 🡒]