Oilers Note: Raphael Lavoie Reaches Breaking Point in Edmonton

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Raphael Lavoie, who turns 24 on Wednesday, has reached a tipping point: a player who, after scoring 50 goals in his last 127 games in Bakersfield, clearly knows the answers to the AHL questions but still can’t seem to get past the uncertainty of the NHL.

At what point does an Edmonton Oilers player reach the “intermediate” stage?

A first-team defenseman in the minor leagues, good enough for a short-term call-up but not good enough to become an NHL regular. He’s a point producer in the AHL (95 points in those 127 games), but he’s behind Zach Hyman and free agent Viktor Arvidsson on the right wing in the Oilers’ top six, and not a proven penalty killer like 3RW Connor Brown or 1,000-game RW Corey Perry on the fourth line.

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And the Oilers, the NHL’s oldest team, are harder to get than ever when the team was in win-now mode, losing in Game 7 of the Cup final in late June. Where would Lavoie fit in when the team realistically has no more than one open forward spot, 12 healthy guys on one-way contracts and Evander Kane has been out for months after having hernia/hip/abdominal surgery on Friday? They could start the season, because the cap space is only $946,000, with just 12 forwards and seven defensemen, along with Stu Skinner and Calvin Pickard in goal, or they could move on to a 13th forward (Lavoie makes $775,000) to seriously limit the cap space.

But that’s only possible.

Lavoie is not exempt from waivers. He went off waivers last October after allowing two goals in six preseason games when he was sent to the farm before a 28-goal season in Bakersfield.

Would he do it again?

Perhaps the Oilers will trade him for a draft pick, as Vancouver did with waiver-eligible winger Vasiliy Podkolzin before his trade here last month. Right now, Lavoie, who played in seven games for the Oilers last season but barely saw a whiff (averaging 7 1/2 minutes, ranging from a low of 4:11 to a high of 9:46), is a suspended right wing.

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“This is a Stanley Cup contender team, there are a lot of good players on this team,” Lavoie said before the Oilers’ preseason opener against the Winnipeg Jets at Rogers Place.

“I’m trying to get a spot, and obviously it’s not going to be easy because the Oilers are one of the best teams in the league. But that’s part of the business. It’s hard to get to the NHL,” Lavoie said.

What was he trying to take from the minor league teams that could have earned him a job in the NHL?

“I know you have to be reliable in the defensive zone and finish games when you win, playing 5-on-6 (goalie pulled down by the opposition),” he said. “You have to block shots, bring some physicality (he had 64 PIM in 66 games last season in Bakersfield). You have to round out your game, bring more and more to the table,” he admitted.

Players in lower leagues remain players in lower leagues until they no longer are.

“We didn’t have a lot of injuries last season, so he didn’t get to play a lot of games for us,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “But Raffi is a strong player, very difficult to take the puck off him. That’s a great asset, but we also look at his speed, things like getting into the forecheck … that’s a part of his game that needs to be added to the rest of his game.”

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An example from the past would be fellow forward Terry Purcell, but he didn’t get that love until he left the Los Angeles Kings for Tampa Bay and then found his way to scoring there. He was also a talented offensive player, but he was going around in circles.

Lavoie barely got a chance to play as a fourth-stringer after being called up last season, but at least he finally got to play in an NHL game after being selected in the second round of the 2019 draft.

“It’s part of the game (very little ice time as a call-up). You just grind away. Like in the minor leagues, I was sitting next to (Dylan) Holloway, and he didn’t play much in the NHL either, but he grinded away, came back and was a big part of the team’s Stanley Cup run,” Lavoie said.

“You keep pushing and pushing until you finally earn more (NHL) minutes. You can’t expect to play 20 minutes (right away) in the NHL. You have to earn it,” Lavoie said, but major league baseball teams will call up their best player on the farm because, say, the shortstop is injured and they’ll put that guy in left field.

Hockey is different.

After being drafted last year, does he consider himself an NHL player?

“That’s a good question. No, I’m not. You have to be there night in and night out. You have to be there (at games) all the time,” he said.

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You’re an NHL player when the coach says you’re an NHL player.

“Yeah, you’re not the cupping guy anymore,” Lavoie said.

Woodcroft at Flyers camp

Former Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft spent two days at Philadelphia training camp as an observer, sitting in the stands like fans rather than with Flyers executives. Flyers bench boss John Tortorella invited Woodcroft, who lost out to Dean Evans for the Columbus boss job earlier this summer.

No job offer from the organization, just a smart move on Torts’ part.

“I did that myself as a young coach, trying to figure out if I could just watch a practice and then sit down and talk a little bit. This is a young guy who’s out of work right now, trying to use his time to be better. I’m all for that,” Torts told The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz.

Woodcroft continues to receive salary from the Oilers after being replaced by Knoblauch last November.

This and that

• Great addition to the Oilers lineup on Saturday: Dominik Zrimco-founder of CapFriendly, a player/team compensation website that was founded in 2015 and acquired by the Washington Capitals this summer. Zrim’s official title is director of hockey strategy for the Oilers…
• Jesse Puljujarvme, perhaps fully recovered from double hip surgery, broke out in a big way, scoring all three of Pittsburgh’s goals Saturday in their 7-3 loss to Buffalo, two of them on the power play. “I thought he looked a lot stronger, he was able to keep his skate going in his shifts,” Pens coach Mike Sullivan said…
• Leafs send Czech imports Miroslaw Holinka (Toronto’s June draft pick) and playoff forward Marshall Finnie return to the undermanned WHL club, which opened the regular season with losses in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.

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