He was then traded to another organization with some development issues. The Oilers put him in the minors for half a season before bringing him up and he's been in the show since.
But not playing a helluva lot. Gilbert Brule missed exactly half of this season's games.
Gilbert Brule10-11
- 5x5 points per 60: 0.96 (11th among regular forwards)
- 5x4 points per 60: 1.17 (10th among regular forwards)
- Qual Comp: 4th toughest faced among regular forwards
- Qual Team: 6th best available teammates among regular forwards
- Corsi Rel: -4.1 (9th best among regular forwards)
- Zone Start: 49.3% (4th toughest among regular forwards)
- Zone Finish: 48.5% (12th best among regular forwards)
- Shots on goal/percentage: 72/9.72% (6th best among F's but DNQ)
- Boxcars: 41gp, 7-2-9
- Plus Minus: -7 on a team that was -52
- What do these numbers tell us? Brule played more difficult minutes (tougher opposition, tougher zone start) and his relCorsi and 5x5/60 numbers reflected it. Brule is 24 and he was coming off a solid offensive season one year ago. The entire thing was sidetracked by injury/illness but he was performing poorly based on facing 2nd line minutes with 3rd level teammates. 0.96/60 isn't going to get it done on a contending team.
- How could these numbers be better? Well when a player's health is such a big issue there's a high probability that said player wasn't 100% for games that he did play during the year. So I believe that last year's 5x5/60 (2.36) is likely closer to his current number. But he has to be healthy enough to perform or he isn't going to be on the roster.
- The Oilers should have given him the easy minutes instead of gifting the first round picks. Well, they didn't gift the rookies--Hall and Eberle faced the toughest opposition among the Oilers' wingers--and Brule had to play in front of people like Jacques and MacIntyre and Stortini (at the very least). It's perhaps a damning comment on Brule's development that no one thought of him as a reasonable option for the toughest available minutes.
- He can win faecoffs. Brule does seem to be good at it, but the organization rarely uses him in the middle. I have theories about it--center is a difficult position to play and despite his obvious toughness Brule is not a big man--but there's no real reason he can't take more faceoffs and then play wing.
- Where does the organization go from here? It depends on his health. Brule is signed for one more year at $1.85M so he'll be in camp and have a job if he's good to go. There's not a hope in hell that the Oilers are going to be able to trade him when he's missed 41 games and no one is talking specifics.
- What ARE Brule's injury problems? Could be concussions, could be flu, could be HS, could be mono. Tyler Dellow did an exceptional job tracking Brule's confusing season.
- Can he be a useful player? Brule has scored 17 goals in an NHL season and his 5x5/60 a year ago (2.36) showed he can contribute in the right circumstances.
- So he does have trade value? Not right now, not with the injury. He'll need to come back in the fall and play a complete schedule to establish some value.
- Can he help a team win? If he could play soft minutes with skilled men I think Brule could post some numbers. But if you're the Oilers those minutes would probably be better spent on Ales Hemsky, Jordan Eberle or Linus Omark.
- So where does he fit? Exactly.
- 08-09 5x5 per 60m: 1.74
- 09-10 5x5 per 60m: 2.36
- 10-11 5x5 per 60m: 0.96
- 08-09 5x4 per 60m: 0.00
- 09-10 5x4 per 60m: 1.99
- 10-11 5x4 per 60m: 1.17
Prediction 2010: 75gp, 18-22-40 (.533)
Actual 2010: 41gp, 7-2-9 (.220)
Brule's career path is being impacted heavily by his health
It's perhaps a damning comment on Eberle's development that no one thought of him as a reasonable option for the toughest available minutes.
ReplyDeleteDid you mean Brule instead of Eberle?
Ducey: You know it's funny. I posted it, saw the error and fixed it but blogger didn't change it. I gotta get off blogger.
ReplyDeleteIt sure seems there is something "more" healthwise with him this year. Aside from that, he seems like a good kid, but he also seems to keep repeating the same mistakes (ie. turnovers) which is maybe why Renney doesn't like him in the middle. On the face of it you think he should be able to PK and fill the 4C role better than Fraser did.
ReplyDeletemelman: Yeah, there's something funny going on. Quinn did the same thing (kept Brule away from all kinds of opportunities) and it just runs counter to what we think we're seeing.
ReplyDeleteI remember Potulny getting the push over Brule which made no sense but it happened and that's for sure.
One day we'll know.
...or not :)
ReplyDeleteIt'll take one helluva summer and TC for him to get up from under all the tire tracks. Hartikainen, Omark, etc.
Sorry for the aside, but how did the Bruins get Alex Trebek to sign the pre-game anthems?
ReplyDeleteLT, I'd be happy to build you a site for free as a fan of this blog.
Yeah, the curious case of Gilbert Brule is nicely detailed by Tyler. I hadn't noticed the home game connection. Well, I tried not to notice anything at all after Hall went down.
The time missed might be just a run of bad luck. Hard to say, but next year should show whether there's any long term health concern.
ReplyDeleteI also think the Oil might have taken advantage of Brule being on the IR a couple of times, to look at other players. Which doesn't bode well for him either.
Sounds like we are going to have an expensive 4RW next season. But if guys like Brule are getting pushed down the depth chart it bodes well for the increasing skill level of this team. In this case he wasn't so much pushed as slipped and fell. He might be gone for nothing (or a very low pick) this time next year.
LT:
ReplyDeleteSecond set of numbers at end of post should I assume be 5x4/60. Both sets say 5x5
Cheers
Buy him out.
ReplyDeleteAbney just took his spot on the 50-contract list.
lenuthn, a former Edmonton radio guy after a few drinks.
Can't blame blogger for that one lol.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see Montreal's referee assisted power play just get out of bed and execute, I think to myself, Self, someone should give that Perry Pearn kid a contract if an assistant's position with the Oil ever comes open and an obscure European guy isn't available.
ReplyDeleteCoca cola on the bench? Sugar and caffeine?
ReplyDeleteSomeday we will learn that Brule has no left lung or has Gilbert Brule disease or something like that. The org has just been too quiet for it to be a bad elbow or something.
ReplyDeletei couldn't hang out in one of those full body suits for 3 hours -- weird gig.
ReplyDeletegilbert brule disease would be cool in such a horrible way. The lack of discourse on it is perhaps the weirdest thing.
Announcers were pretty worked up about a guy who decided it would be cool to skate face first into some dude's shoulder.
ReplyDeleteSure I suppose it's dirty but you've gotta be a pretty dumb dude to have that happen to you.
ReplyDeletesometimes i think the onus needs to be put on the player getting hit. not excusing ference, but halpern has put himself in a bad position twice in this game by not paying attention.
ReplyDeleteMy best metaphor is "don't exceed your lights" ... this is a fast game, be aware a little or slow down. some combination of the two.
sphangst - that nervous feeling habs fans have right now.
lol. Yeah that too. I have no idea why Halpern made himself available (unless he had murder on his mind).
ReplyDeleteMontreal gets a PP. Sweet baby Jesus.
ReplyDeleteand they score. Hey look! It's 1979!
ReplyDeleteah ha refs help out the Montreal Diving Club. gg Bruins
ReplyDeleteSB: Those famous dives on high-sticking penalties.
ReplyDeleteWow. What an epic 1st round.
ReplyDeleteI kind of feel sorry for you that you're a habs fan that only posts on an Oilers blog.
ReplyDeleteI've heard you can't fake a high sticking. I know this because FPV said so.
ReplyDeleteSB: Well not like it would mean something, if there wasn't old grudges against the club here and there.
ReplyDeleteSB: Fake /=/ Dive.
ReplyDeleteUsually that won't work. More like hands on your face.
Guys flinch when a stick gets near them and they've taken to embellishing anything that comes within a foot of their face. Alex Burrows perfected it. Even saw a few Oilers do it.
ReplyDeleteIt's lame stuff but that's Bettman's NHL. Old dudes like me and Neely have a hard time accepting it.
Smarmy Boss : Well you can shake your face but if you plunge you'l look like a clown.
ReplyDeleteIt's shitty but it's so hard to know in the fire of the action.
It's time for:
SUPER SUDDEN DEATH!
LT
ReplyDeleteI took the liberty and registered lowetide dot ca with my domain registrant.
lowetide dot com is already registered(some boating supply store or some such)
I happily paid the $12 yearly fee and still feel I'm indebted to you for 3+ years of reading
and learning about hockey.When I found this site in the spring of 2008 I thought the soft parade
was a Doors album:)
I know you've received multiple offers from various regulars around here to build you a website and
you've got another offer this evening.If you ever decide to dump blogger and launch your own site
just post a note and I'll gladly release the DNS information to whoever is building your
site and away we go.I wanted to grab the name and keep it "inhouse" amongst the regulars before someone else poached it.
Randy
And re: Brule
ReplyDeleteWhere he fits is exactly the thing.He seems like a nice kid and all but he's just another
player whose skillset is replicated many times over the roster while glaring holes
go unfilled.With that contract though he'll be at training camp for sure.
on board for a quick rebuild as well.
ReplyDeleteIts alrright now Donny Marcotte.
ReplyDeleteWell as much as I don't like Montreal they played a solid series when you consider how banged up their back end was.
ReplyDeleteYEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH. BAAAAAAAAABBBBBYYYY!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete40 years of getting fucked in the ass by the Habs and their refs is finally over.
It's outrogra
Thank god. I just ran out of Sleemans, and all that's left is some other guys left behind local brewed stuff from the weekend gathering.
ReplyDeleteSo that Kings pick is officially 19th now.
ReplyDeleteMcguire's monster? WT*?
ReplyDeleteRoloson had the weird hair going but man it's nice to see him win that series. Beauty player.
ReplyDeleteMan, the Canadiens got jobbed on some bad luck calls and missed calls.
ReplyDeleteRolie still has it. It'll be interesting to see how far he can carry the Lightning.
Great first round overall.
Aside from that, he seems like a good kid, but he also seems to keep repeating the same mistakes (ie. turnovers) which is maybe why Renney doesn't like him in the middle.
ReplyDeleteI think another reason Renney doesn't like him in the middle is that he has only a nodding acquaintance with his Dzone coverage area and responsibilities.
11/12 is the last year he will be an Oiler, and he might not make it past the draft. He's reached "throw in" status I'd guess. Its not always the Oilers who think former high draft picks are worth salvaging (although Lowe has turned it into a religion)
Good thing we got rid of Roloson. The guy was clearly losing his stuff. Everyone knows that it's a steep dropoff after 40, right?
ReplyDeletepestsit: What I wish those idiots in the green bodysuits were doing.
OT, but I found this interesting.
ReplyDeleteBUF's leading scorer in the playoffs was Marc-Andre Gragnani.
7gp 1g 6a 7pts EVEN
6'2 Dman drafted 87th (3rd round) in 2005.
Total of 15 NHL games (9 this year) before this playoff.
This year in the AHL his stat line was:
66gp 12g 31a 43pts +2 for Portland
Looks like he was playing 2nd pairing minutes with Leopold.
Never heard of him, nice 1st impression.
He's and RFA, although offering him anything not ridiculous is likely to get matched by Pegula's deep pockets and BUF has about 20MM in cap space with 11 guys to sign and most key positions full already.
There's just nothing here. The Oilers refused to take everyone's advice and overpaid this kid. His career year was last season being carried by Penner.
ReplyDeleteJust let him go.
I still dont get where you were going in the reddox post, listing a 0.5 5x5 number for peterson..
ReplyDeleteis 0.5 5x5 good?.. every other legit player seems to kill that number..
I'm guessing he had mono - spleen, fatigue, catching every bug.
ReplyDeleteHe is still just 24 and has all the tools. I expect he might be a good candidate for a rebound.
Good for Roloson. I'm all for anything that highlights the ineptness of Oilers management and a deep run by TB in the playoffs would certainly do that.
ReplyDeleteBy this point, most people (the puppet excluded)realize what a disaster the Khabibulin contract has been and will be for another 2 years. But when you realize that Roloson wanted to resign here and was willing to do so for 2 years at approximately $2 million per year, it's absolutely baffling why they would give twice the money and twice the term to a busted up, broken down goalie with a less than stellar resume.
Clarity indeed.
Tend to agree with Ducey: suspect Brule is a candidate for a rebound. But he definitely had a litany of injuries/illnesses this year!
ReplyDeleteOnly concern is that some point Lowebellini has to ship out some of the smurfs and Brule is in that grouping
I'll give the Oilers a pass on letting Roloson go, if that bit is true about him not wanting to split duties with one of the young guys.
ReplyDeleteI will never, ever give anybody a pass for the Khabibulin contract, which was a fireable offense at the time and which has only gotten worse.
Signing Khabby despite everyone in hockey watching the Hawks spend four years trying to get rid of him was a brilliant move.
ReplyDeleteAs long as the goal was to finish last several years in a row and pile up No. 1 picks.
I mean, Oilers are 2-for-2 on that score, right?
With an above-average shot at running the table with Khabby in net, fair to say?
Unsurpassed brilliance, I'd say.
I tried to explain Roli to my squeeze. She asked "who's Methuselah?" Some ancient guy with Pine Bench syndrome who became a late bloomer. Reading his stat about his perfect 6-0 elimination record made me wince. Damn that should be 7-0 after a miraculous G7 recovery.
ReplyDeleteNote to JBE "Head on Platter" Zorg.
My bro says Toews had fallen at the blue line right beside the boards and was standing up right when that clunk-head should have been banging the puck up the boards; he probably hesitated about pasting Toews in the back of the head, began to feel the pressure, then failed to get wood on a bad decision.
By this point, most people (the puppet excluded)realize what a disaster the Khabibulin contract has been and will be for another 2 years. But when you realize that Roloson wanted to resign here and was willing to do so for 2 years at approximately $2 million per year, it's absolutely baffling why they would give twice the money and twice the term to a busted up, broken down goalie with a less than stellar resume.
ReplyDeleteYou mean other than Bulin's Stanley Cup, World Junior Gold, 4 All Star appearances and Olympic appearances, right?
Bulin is a '73 Bday, Roli a '69.
I know Roli personally. He had sold his house and moved his family out of Edmonton back to Ontario very early in his last season in EDM. He wanted to go somewhere down east closer to home in Ontario. He wound up taking $2.5 million a year with NYI.
There are reasons that signing Bulin was not a good idea (mostly that there were younger, cheaper options), but you have not hit on any of them.
lol Ducey, we get it, management is golden, they can do no wrong in your world
ReplyDeleteseriously, bringing up Khabibulin's history as a good reason to sign him? Should they sign Recchi to a four year deal after this season? Guy is a likely Hall of Famer and he has a long list of accolades as well.
Khabi was terrible in Chicago until that very last year when his contract was coming up. Signing him was a firing offence but I suspect that LT is right, that call came right from the very top. Can't fire the owner
BlackDog,
ReplyDeleteI specifically said there were reasons not to sign Bulin. Willis nailed most of them at the time. I don't give management a pass on that (or any of their attempts to chase a whale).
But to say the Oilers should have signed Roli instead ignores the fact that he likely wasn't coming here and that he wasn't that good of a bet to keep playing at a high level.
On a totally unrelated topic, apparently there are companies looking into whether a prospect's manner of speaking has predictive of future success
ReplyDeleteArticle
Interesting for those who had the gut feeling that Hall's interviews seperated him from Seguin.
Black Dog:
ReplyDeleteBulin had better stats than Roli for the three full years Roli was here for a team that was worse 2 of the 3 years.
If Bulin sucked, what was Roli?
1. Roloson at four years, $3.75 million per, would also have been a fireable offense.
ReplyDelete2. Roloson had a much less troubling injury history.
3. Saver percentage since the lockout (regular season and playoffs, prior to 2009-2010): Roloson - .911, Khabibulin - .903
As I said earlier, I'm not saying that the Oilers should definitely have kept Roloson, but I will hold him up as an example of the market making much better deals available than what the Oilers got.
So, in summary
ReplyDeleteIf Bulin sucked, what was Roli?
Considerably better.
Oilers sign Lander as per Terry Jones twitter.
ReplyDeleteHaven't seen anything on the Oiler site or anywhere else on this.
iirc, I thought Roli was asking for a 3 yr deal and the Oilers were offering a 2 year deal.
ReplyDeleteI was okay with letting Roli go as he is an aging netminder. When he was getting let up, you could see how slow he was to go post to post, scrambled to get up once he was down, etc. I understand the reasoning.
The part that I don't like is the 4 years on an aging netminder who will be older than Roli at the end of the term.
How can you use one age rule to let your current goalie walk as a UFA, but ignore it with your new signing. It is even worse given the lack of buyout available on Khabi.
Definitely a firing offense on all accounts for the Khabi signing.
WG:
ReplyDeleteCoppernblue has the Lander signing up as well.
Good news!
The only lesson we can learn about the Roli vs. Khabi debate is that goalies are witchcraft and even trying to predict what one will do based on past performance/age/team/SV% will be no guarantee. Just look at Jimmy Howard this season, or Tim Thomas last season or Bryzgalov in the playoffs.
ReplyDeleteBut paying a guy a ton for a long time is a bad, bad, bad idea. And hopefully that lesson has been learned. (making my pumping up of an RFA sheet to Crawford look like less of a sure thing - sorry WG).
dhiron - dhiron is for smoothing wrinkles in dclothes
CnB link on Lander Signing
ReplyDeleteIt's being reported in Sweden as well. Links to the swedish papers at CnB.
I think that this signing may shut Brule's window permanently.
I mean, who seriously could've predicted that Roloson would still be playing at age 40 two years ago? Let alone killing it in the playoffs? If you think you would've (or did), please point me to where you made your definitive prediction back then.
ReplyDelete*note - the above is not an exoneration of Oilers management or ownership, who deserve all the abuse and ridicule they accumulate for their ham-handed decisions over the preceding 3 seasons*
What's even better is that the reports say he is fully committed to staying in NA next year, even if it's in OKC.
ReplyDeletePaajarvi has a new best friend, which can't possibly hurt
Paajarvi has a new best friend, which can't possibly hurt
ReplyDeleteHaven't you seen that episode of Father Ted in which Father Dougal becomes friends with Father Damien? A new best friend can hurt plenty.
Paajarvi, Omark, Lander, Larsson (?) - we're the Prairie Canucks...wait a second that seems to be working out west.
ReplyDelete@Schitzo - VERY interesting article. With the $ thrown at 1st players, and the huge ramifications on whether or not your pick is successful. I can't imagine why a team wouldn't want as much predictive information as it could get. I recall in Oil Change Tambi noting that Hall was the only guy who stated his goal was to win a Cup
I wouldn't have signed Roli either. When he was up I said sign him for a year or not at all.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm with SS, I saw a lot of both and Roli was the better goalie.
Plus ... no injuries.
In any case I would not have signed either and the guy who did sign Khabi to this ridiculous contract should have been axed on the spot. There was a reason the Hawks signed Huet although that didn't work out either. Khabi was a joke when he was with the Hawks.
I was right the first 50 times I said this but 67 was done the day the Oilers decided to let the kids play and learn on the job.
ReplyDeleteat that point there was no way to coddle him as they did last year and the Oilers should have had the balls to walk away from him.
but the only guy they did that to was Souray.