Edmonton Oilers News

Home

Quizzes

Newsletter

John Mersits / USA TODAY NETWORK

Meet The Edmonton Oilers’ New Guy: Paul Fischer

Originally posted on Oilersnation | By Bruce Curlock | Last updated Aug 26, 2024 11:30 AM ET

There is no question that Paul Fischer’s name, whatever he does in his professional hockey career, will be burned into the memories of Edmonton Oilers fans.

Fischer became inextricably linked to the Edmonton Oilers when he was traded to them by the St. Louis Blues as part of additional compensation for the offer sheets signings of Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway. While it might be easy to dismiss the Fischer addition to the deal given the context of what happened, it should not be the case. Paul Fischer is a really good defensive prospect. Let’s look at Fischer and how he slots into the Edmonton Oilers prospect pool.

Fischer came to attention when he made the U.S. National Team Development Program at the U17 level. He progressed to play with the USTDP U18 program in the USHL. He played on a defence group that included notables such as Cole Hutson, Zeev Buium, and EJ Emory, so Fischer saw much of his duty in a shutdown role focusing on the penalty kill.

In his 78 games with the USNTDP, he went 6-21—27 and was a tidy plus 33. To give you some reference, though, Zeev Buium, a 12th overall pick of the Minnesota Wild this year, played 86 games that same year and went 7-45—52 in them. It should come as no surprise that Fischer was drafted later in the 2023 draft, selected in the fifth round by the Blues. While he has good tools and plays the game hard defensively, his ability to generate offensively held him back.

Here is a clip from his freshman year at Notre Dame accentuating what Fischer has mostly been about.

You can see that his skating is strong, but not dynamic. When he has the puck, he attacks mostly head-on and doesn’t have strong enough puck skills to change directions. He is a bulldozer of a player, though, and while a little on the shorter side, he is very strong on his skates.

In terms of his skating, he is a very composed and fluid skater. He makes nice transition turns and has no real weakness in a change of direction. His overall mechanics are very solid. He has excellent ankle and knee flex. His feet are well-spaced, and his stride is nice and low to the ice. It also returns quickly to centre underneath his body. His upper body is also in a very nice position.

Have a look at a couple of clips, one in a defensive posture and one in an offensive posture. You can see the fluidity of his stride and the ease with which he moves around the ice and changes directions.

For Fischer, the key is to improve on the offensive side of the ledger. He comes into an organization that lacks left-shot defensive prospects, and those that are there are really defensive defenders. If Fischer can increase his offensive presence, he can move up this organization quickly and help his cause in a professional career. The good news is there were some of those flashes this year.

Fischer had a very nice year as a freshman at Notre Dame. He registered 2-14—16 in 34 games. This was third in all of the NCAA for 18-year-old defencemen. He scored at a pace quite a bit ahead of former USNTDP teammates such as Drew Fortescue and Brady Cleveland, despite being drafted much later. This is a notable development.

Look at this one goal, and you can see there is something with Fischer on the offensive side of the puck.

His ability to improve his offensive capability will be critical to Fischer’s development. No matter the player, it is very hard to crack NHL linemates without showing the ability to score points in some manner. There are glimpses of offence with Fischer, and should this become more the rule than the exception, the Oilers will have a legitimate left-shot defence prospect. Given the turmoil of how he arrived, that would have been a very good outcome for the Oilers.

This article first appeared on Oilersnation and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: