In the now six years he’s been in the organization, it’s been a roller coaster ride for Edmonton Oilers wing prospect Raphaël Lavoie. He’s bounced around our Cult of Hockey rankings since debuting in the summer of 2018 in the #13 position. Since then he’s bungee’d to #4 to #7 to #11 and all the way to #2 a year ago. Now here he is back at #7 again.
At least he’s still around. Which is more than can be said for Lavoie’s fellow 2023 wing prospects #1 Xavier Bourgault, #5 Ty Tullio, #7 Carter Savoie, or #15 Jake Chiasson. All four of these Ken Holland/Tyler Wright-era draft picks left the organization this summer, three by trade, one who wasn’t offered a contract. As colleague David Staples put it, a “mass fail” of the Oilers forward prospects.
An older prospect who was drafted by Peter Chiarelli back in 2018, Lavoie didn’t really take a step forward or backwards, mostly ran in place. He did however slide down the rankings as a handful of new hopefuls were added, a couple of them in the same trades that saw Tullio, Bougault and Chiasson head the other way as acting GM Jeff Jackson refreshed the system.
Lavoie was heralded as a goal scorer with possible first-round talent but consistency issues, who ultimately fell to #38 where the Oilers snapped him up. His scouting reports at the time (2019) back that up:
- A large and skilled player. Offensively, his release stands out which is very accurate and allows him to be a capable scorer. Furthermore, Lavoie reads the game fairly well and is good at distributing the puck. — Eliteprospects.com
- When he’s on, Lavoie is a threat. He has a big time shot and can score from almost anywhere in the offensive zone. — Hockeyprospect.com
- He has great strength and can protect his puck at all costs using his body and positioning when entering the zone. — Future Considerations
The phrase “when he’s on” may be crucial to all of that; other scouting agencies also mentioned inconsistency in their observations. That observation follows him around, as evidenced by this excerpt from Dobber Prospects in 2022:
- Big goal scoring winger that has the ability to take over games when he wants to. Consistency is a concern at this point but the tools are there for him to be a top six winger.
Lavoie has indeed shown tendencies to run hot and cold, even as he has been a pretty steady goal scorer on a year to year basis. In his six years in the system, he’s tallied seasons of 32, 38, 23, 13, 25 and 28 goals at various rungs of the development ladder. The last two of those years, he’s comfortably led the Bakersfield Condors in both goals and shots. In the season just past, his 28 tallies ranked tenth in the entire AHL.
He was on the verge of joining the NHL a year ago, but he didn’t help himself by accepting his qualifying offer rather than the NHL minimum, which is now the accepted norm for prospects in this position. The approximately $100,000 disparity between the two probably cost him chances. In his prospect review from last summer, my colleague Kurt Leavins from Cult of Hockey stated:
- More than a few people (me included) thought it would have been in his and the team’s best interests to recognize the club’s cap struggles. Sign a league-minimum contract instead, with a little more dough if he ends up in the AHL. It would have, after all, made it easier for Ken Holland to fit him into the lineup.
A sore spot Kurt revisited in reaching his conclusions to that post:
- Expectations for 2023-24: Unless something gives on the cap side of things, I see it as a long shot for Lavoie to crack the NHL roster out of camp. That will mean waivers, although I am not at all sure he would get claimed. And if not, he would continue to work on his game in AHL Bakersfield as an early candidate to be recalled.
I thought it a tough assessment at the time but Kurt’s forecast proved prescient. Raph Lavoie did not crack the NHL roster out of camp, was indeed placed on waivers, and 31 teams passed on him. That’s a lot of second opinions, un.
He remained an early candidate to be recalled, and got a two-week stint on the big club in early November when Connor Brown got hurt. Alas, he failed to move the needle with under 10 minutes of opportunity in each game, no goals or points and just 3 shots on net to show for it. And with cheaper options available, Lavoie found himself the odd man out. He would play just one more NHL game as an injury replacement when Evander Kane was unable to go in Los Angeles just after Christmas, played OK, but was optioned back to Bakersfield after the game.
After that, he was left to watch from afar as lower-priced alternatives like Sam Gagner, Adam Erne and James Hamblin got NHL games while he didn’t. Instead, still more time to “work on his game in AHL Bakersfield”. At that, his 7 NHL games ranked second behind only Hamblin’s 31 in a fallow year for Oilers rookies.
Our resident AHL-watcher, Ira Cooper, had these observations about Lavoie’s most recent campaign:
- When Lavoie cleared waivers and started the season in Bako, he played the best hockey of his pro career – he was bullying the AHL for a handful of games. He was a force on the boards, winning battles, taking the puck hard to the net and scoring goals. He earned his call-up.
I don’t think he ever found that same game upon his return. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a very good AHL player, and his shot is a weapon, but he never found that “bullying the opponent” form.
He also had a meh year as far as 5 on 5 goal scoring goes – he was more reliant on the PP this past season in the AHL. He also asked coach Chaulk to be on the PK which is great but Chaulk pulled him after a few games citing the extra minutes were affecting the rest of his game. His PK work itself was fine but the drop in his overall game was not worth it.
The thing is, Lavoie is a shooter and goal-scorer first – yes, he’s a big body and can muck and grind but the Oilers telling him he needs to finish hits, and win all board battles and be responsible first, etc., etc. is changing his game. See Tyler Benson.
Lavoie needs to do what Klim Kostin did – find a way to make (and finish) plays from the depth of the lineup. Truth be told, playing with Henrique and Brown would provide a better opportunity than Kostin had.
There is an NHL job on the Oilers third line waiting for Lavoie to grab. If he can find the soft ice at the NHL level, and get that shot away a couple of times a game, he has a chance.
To his credit, Lavoie learned a hard lesson and re-upped for NHL minimum in the season to come, meaning that to beat him out a player will have to be better, not merely cheaper. For the big forward who turns 24 during the preseason, the time is now.
Expectations for 2024-25: A right-hand shot who can play either wing but prefers the port side, Lavoie has seen some of his potential competition leave the organization. Not just the minor-league prospects named above, but guys like Warren Foegele, Ryan McLeod and Dylan Holloway who all played a lot of left wing for the Oil last season. It’s likely that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jeff Skinner have the top six covered, but with Kane battling with health issues, there’s potentially a spot on the third line for a big, ornery, shoot-first winger. His other window of opportunity is on his natural right side, where bottom-sixers Corey Perry and Derek Ryan are long in the tooth, not to mention pricier than Lavoie. Perhaps the same salary cap economies that locked him out a season ago might be his pathway to the roster in 2024-25.
