Breadcrumb Trail Links
Cult of Hockey
Article content
There are no shortage of promising young attackers in the Edmonton Oilers prospect pipeline. There are as many in number as there’s been in years.
But it’s not known if any of them will turn out, and give the team what it’s going to desperately need in years to come, inexpensive forwards capable of playing on the wing with Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl or Ryan McLeod.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Article content
In Edmonton’s list of Top 20 prospects, all of them are forwards, which is tied with last season for the most forwards in the Top 20 since 2007. The list has one first round pick in Xavier Bourgault, and one second round pick in Raphael Lavoie. It’s got plenty of lower road picks who have shown real promise, including Matvey Petrov, Tyler Tullio, Maxim Berezkin and today’s profile prospect Carter Savoie.
Edmonton’s had other years with many promising young forward prospects which ended in disappointment, such as 2010, when all of Magnus Paajarvi, Curtis Hamilton, Linus Omark, Anton Lander, Teemu Hartikainen, Ryan Martindale and, to some extent, Tyler Pitlick failed to pan out as useful NHLers.
What isn’t known is if any of the new forward prospects can break through, with Lavoie being the latest top hopeful after scoring 25 goals in 61 AHL games last year. But Savoie is also a decent prospect, despite having taken a major step back in his rookie AHL season, his first iffy season as a player after four straight seasons of strong play and excellent point production.
In his draft year, Savoie put up 99 points in 54 Alberta Junior Hockey League games, which saw him taken 100th overall by the Oilers. In his final college season in 2021-22, he put up 45 points in 39 games for the University of Denver. His game was marked by offensive skill. As I noted in his evaluation last summer, Savoie doesn’t have the speed, size or checking ferocity to be an NHL role player. But he’s got the brilliant shot and playmaking skills that could have him find a home on the first or second line of an NHL team one day.
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
I had watched a handful of Savoie’s games in 2020-21 in Denver and came away impressed, noting that if someone had told me that Savoie had been the Oil’s first round pick in 2020, I would not have been disappointed. The kid was that good. His eyes were always up, always. When he got the puck he knew exactly what to do with it and he had the skill and co-ordination to make the right play
But in 2022-23, Savoie failed to live up to expectations. He failed to break into the Top 6 in Bakersfield, or get much power play time, and he failed to put up at least a point every second game. Instead he got 11 points in 44 games.
What went wrong? I didn’t watch AHL games last year, but Cult of Hockey contributor Ira Cooper did so regularly.
I asked Cooper to provide a report on Savoie’s play and here’s what he had to say:
Carter Savoie’s season certainly didn’t go as planned, not by the player, the organization nor the fans.
I mean no one planned on the player getting hurt to rookie camp and missing all of his first professional main camp and then starting the season late. Missing training camp is tough for any player let alone a rookie pro trying to make the jump from college to professional hockey.
Advertisement 4
Article content
Savoie started the season on the fourth line and, while he did get a few opportunities up the lineup, he never really took advantage of them and spent most of the season in the bottom six.
It seemed every time Savoie started to gain some traction, he would get hurt again – he missed time with injury twice more including a month plus.
There were good moments and stretches for Savoie – he was able to show the organization and the fans his top skill, that lethal shot, a few times and scored a couple nice goals but, unfortunately, he simply wasn’t able to work to get in to position to get that shot off with any sort of regularity – of course, he was playing with bottom six AHL linemates most of the time.
Savoie isn’t large in stature but he is also not a shrinking violet out there – he can bang the body and is able to compete on the boards where he is good at using his stick to win battles. With that said, his “compete level” has major inconsistencies and, to my eye, fitness remains an issue. While developing in college he often sagged later in shifts – he was able to work on that and it wasn’t an issue in his final college year but it seems to be once again in his rookie pro year. Savoie was even inconsistent within a shift let alone a game and from game to game
Advertisement 5
Article content
I think of this coming year as almost a full re-set for Savoie. The hope is he has had a good summer and comes to camp healthy and much stronger. A full training camp and health through the year is a key for Savoie and we can hope that he works his way up the lineup to the top six, with some PP1 time and shows us the elite ability to get off his shot from varying shooting positions, puck placements and angles and puts himself back in the conversation for a future job in the NHL.
Thanks to Cooper for that excellent summary of Savoie’s season.
As for this coming year, Savoie essentially needs to accomplish in his second season what he failed to accomplish in his first, namely avoie break into the Top 6 in Bakersfield, getting some power play time, and putting up at least a point every second game.
Staples on politics
Will Alberta choose Ontario or China when it comes to its energy future?
Comments
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.
Join the Conversation