Jake Walman and the Edmonton Oilers blue line took a shot Tuesday, and it came from an unlikely source.
Sheng Peng, appearing on the DLLS Stars Podcast, went after Edmonton's defense corps directly.
His point? Half of that blue line looks like a recycled version of a Sharks group from two years ago.
He named names. Jake Walman, Ty Emberson and Shakir Mukhamadullin, all mentioned in the same breath as San Jose's old roster.
That's not a throwaway line on a random pod. That lands different when Edmonton is 41-30-11 and sitting second in its division.
Walman is making $3,300,000 this season. His underlying numbers on the back end tell a rougher story, a minus-17 rating over 53 games played.
Emberson and Mukhamadullin cost far less against the cap, each combining for 12 points on the year, but neither profiles as a difference-maker on a contender's third pairing.
Why the Sharks comparison actually stings
Here's the thing about that jab. It's not really about talent evaluation. It's about roster fit.
San Jose spent years cycling through cheap, replaceable defensemen while the Sharks rebuilt from the bottom up. Nobody confused that group for a Cup contender.
Edmonton isn't rebuilding. The Oilers just posted a 6-2-2 mark over their last ten games and rode a one-game win streak into this stretch.
So when a national voice on a Stars-focused podcast starts connecting Walman, Emberson and Mukhamadullin to a bottom-feeder blueprint, that's a real question about depth.
Does a team built around Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have enough support to win playoff games from the back end? Nobody in Edmonton wants to answer that honestly.
Ty Emberson has posted just one point over his last ten games. Mukhamadullin has been even quieter, a single point across the same stretch.
Those numbers won't silence the critics. If anything, they hand ammunition straight to guys like Peng who are already circling.
Mike Babcock and Stan Bowman haven't addressed the comments publicly, and there's no indication a roster move is coming.
But the perception problem is already out there, and perception has a way of becoming reality once the games start mattering more.
Edmonton has the stars to cover for a lot. Whether that blue line holds up when it counts is a different conversation entirely.
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Is the Oilers blue line good enough to win a Cup?
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