Why Your NHL Team Can Add Nail Yakupov for Almost Nothing

Nail Yakupov was the first overall pick in the 2012 NHL entry draft. He’s only 23 years old, has 252 NHL games under his belt and, despite some injury problems, has hit double digits in goals in three of the last four seasons.

And in all likelihood, your favourite NHL team could acquire him in exchange for very little. The question is less whether he’s available and more whether he’s worth acquiring.

It’s no secret that the market for Yakupov is soft. In June, Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal predicted the winger would be moved at the draft and noted there wasn’t a lot of interest at last year’s trade deadline:

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We keep forgetting that the Oilers will almost surely trade Yakupov at the draft, and here’s what was proposed at the trade deadline: Yak to New Jersey for their No. 7 D-man Eric Gelinas. Gelinas was subsequently traded to Colorado for a third-round draft pick. Yak’s a good kid, works hard. Is that all he’s worth?

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It isn’t hard to figure out why interest in the player is so low, either. Yakupov scored just 23 points last season and has become something of a punching bag for his two-way play. He’s a good skater, has decent offensive tools and doesn’t lack for effort on the ice, but his hockey sense is often criticized.

Broadcaster Ray Ferraro relayed one comment he’d heard on the player that neatly summed up the situation (via HabsLinks):

Nevertheless, there are encouraging signs.

One of the big problems for Yakupov in Edmonton is that he and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are just not a good combination, and in past years, Nugent-Hopkins was the team’s only true skill centre. The centre Yakupov plays with obviously has a big impact on his performance, and that stands out as true when we look at last season’s numbers:

Centre	TOI	CF/60	CA/60	Corsi%	Points	Points/60
Mark Letestu	239	49	57	46.3	1	0.25
Connor McDavid	205	58	54	51.9	9	2.63
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	83	45	65	40.8	2	1.45
Leon Draisaitl	78	62	54	53.3	2	1.54

It’s probably unfair to say that Yakupov’s biggest problem last season was Mark Letestu, but he sure didn’t help. Letestu’s scoring rate ranked 340th of the 352 forwards to play at least 500 minutes at five-on-five last year; he was literally half as likely to score a point as Matt Martin on any given shift.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

With Leon Draisaitl or Connor McDavid, Yakupov not only scored at a reasonable clip but was also part of a forward line that outshot the opposition. The average middle-six forward in the league scores about 1.5 points/hour at five-on-five, and Yakupov managed that with every non-Letestu pivot he played with last season.

The fact that Yakupov now seems to be capable of playing on a line that outshoots the opposition is worthy of further mention, too.

His development over the years has been criticized because his scoring totals have been a little erratic, but as a two-way player, he has progressed each and every season. His shot metrics have steadily increased year over year, and his growth by expected goals (xGF%) has been even better, rising from 39 percent as a rookie to 50 percent last season.

If Yakupov finally looks capable of being a contributing member of a supporting offensive line, why are the Oilers looking to move him now? Bob McKenzie offered insight in a Friday interview on TSN’s Leafs Lunch:

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I don’t think there’s any question the Oilers are trying to trade him. They hope to trade him, and maybe expect to trade him, before the season begins. I think his time in Edmonton is up, as near as I can tell. ... Everybody wants to move on. I think Nail wants to move on from Edmonton. I think the Oilers would like to move on without him.

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Yakupov has spent four difficult seasons in Edmonton, with his struggles being part and parcel of the struggles of the team as a whole. He’s been through three head coaches with the Oilers and told Russian hockey writer Igor Eronko of Sport-Express he had asked the team for a trade at last year’s deadline:

Yakupov is something of a reclamation project at this point, and landing with a more stable franchise is likely to be to his benefit. There’s a risk that he’ll fall between the cracks in Edmonton, a team that is trying to simultaneously address so many different weaknesses. The Oilers, with some justification, may see Yakupov as one of those weaknesses.

There’s risk in trading for Yakupov. Last season can be interpreted either as another weak campaign or as a big step forward that was obscured by his struggles with Letestu. If the latter is true, though, there could be an impressive payoff for a team willing to take a chance.

Statistical information courtesy Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com, Corsica and Hockey-Reference.com. 

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.