Article content continued

Last year, when it came to his even strength scoring chances plus-minus, Maroon was +2.64 per game, quite easily the best performance of any pure winger on the team. This year he’s at +2.62 per game, again quite easily the best of any Oilers winger.

If we dig deeper and look only at the major contributions to Grade A chances vs the major mistakes on Grade A chances against, again Maroon is eerily consistent. Last year Maroon was +1.04 per game. This year he’s +1.03 per game. Those are, again, the best numbers for any pure winger (not Leon Draisaitl) on the team both years. They’re indicative of a winger who is getting the job done well in a Top 6 role.

In 2015-16, Taylor Hall was +1.26 on Grade A scoring chances per game, a strong number for a winger, and a cut above Maroon, but not a world away. Of course, Hall achieved that number driving his own line with Draisaitl and Purcell. That’s a crucial distinction. Maroon has achieved his various numbers most often playing on a line with Connor McDavid. That’s a huge factor in Maroon’s strong statistical showing. But other players have got that same chance with McDavid and not done nearly so well as Maroon. In the short-term at least, for the next few years when he’s 30, 31 and 32, he’s not a bad bet to be a decent Top 6 winger on a good NHL team.



So why isn’t Maroon a keeper on the Oilers? Well, there are those massive contracts with Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Milan Lucic, not to mention a big contract with Andrej Sekera, and significant deals with Kris Russell, Adam Larsson, Oscar Klefbom and Cam Talbot. Big deals are surely on the way for Darnell Nurse and, I would argue, Jesse Puljujarvi. The Oil have only so much cap space to go around and GM Peter Chiarelli has to question whether Maroon will be good value in the next three or four years. It’s a fair question, with no easy answer, despite Maroon being the model of consistency since he arrived here. The major issue is he’s heading out of his prime years, not into them, and there’s also that boost he’s received from playing with McDavid to factor in, the same boost some other winger could easily get.