Huska Challenges Oesterle to Optimize His Game at the NHL Level

It looks like the four-man derby for the sixth and final spot on the Flames blue line just got more interesting.

A two-month struggle for the sixth and final spot on the Flames blue line has been going on since the beginning of the 2023-2024 Regular Season. Dennis Gilbert leads the way with 13 games. The physically punishing defender is projected to play number 14 tonight. Nick DeSimone (8), Jordan Oesterle (4) and Ilya Soloyov (2) were the cars trailing Dennis’ lead as of Thursday morning. 

While it may irk Nikita Zadorov to have a revolving door of defence partners, it appears that the 27-year-old Gilbert’s lead is diminishing. Heads were turned Wednesday afternoon when the AHL Calgary Wranglers announced that NHL veteran Jordan Oesterle had been recalled after a 12 game, eight assist stint with the Flames affiliate.  

Flames Head Coach Ryan Huska had this to say of Oesterle’s time in the minors. 

“So he went down and he did a good job for the Wranglers. In talking to Trent (Cull), the last six-to-eight games he’s been their most consistent guy, so it’s not an easy thing to do for a guy that’s been in the NHL for a long period of time to go back to the American League, but he did it the right way, so it’s a credit to him.” 

Trent Cull joined the organization as the Wranglers head coach over the off season following Mitch Love’s departure.  

Huska believes that Oesterle’s strengths are yet to be utilized to their full potential.  

“The strength of Jordan is his speed, his foot speed. He can really skate. So, he can put himself in positions where he can get to pucks first. And that’s the one thing we want from him is to now make the right hard play with the puck.” 

MoneyPuck data modelling has high praise for the Zadorov-Oesterle pairing. Over roughly 16 minutes of ice time, the two posted an 84.6% expected goals percentage. Per 60 minutes on the ice together, MoneyPuck’s model had them on pace for 4.11 goals for and 0.75 goals against. 

While advanced stats are a useful tool for projection, it’s important to note actual goal differential. 0-0 over two games is clean and tidy for a third pairing.  

While playing together at 5v5, the pair out-attempted (Corsi) the opposition 17-10. In terms of high danger chances, the two generated five against the opposition and held attackers to zero.  

The Flames brain trust clearly has hopes to increase that sample size and see if those numbers hold up. Huska on the team’s plans for Jordan: 

‘Now it’s up to him to make sure that he’s competitive in those situations so that we can use him more so than we were before.”