The Edmonton Oilers have a lot of work to do in the offseason, which we will continue to look at here on Oil on Whyte throughout the entire offseason. However, today, I want to do something a little different.
Before we start, this is not an official NHL rumor, or something that I am making up. In no way am I saying that anything is going to happen; I am simply evaluating the scenario and seeing if a move like this is something that could happen.
There are many writers out there who love to speculate and create rumors, but only some really write posts about a hypothetical situation, one that surrounds an idea that may be impossible, but fun to discuss and think about. So without further ado, let’s discuss the “impossible” scenario of the Oilers signing star forward Steven Stamkos in the offseason.
NHL.com writer Dan Rosen recently discussed the latest news on Stamkos, who has suffered a blood clot in his arm. In surgery, he had the clot and a rib removed, and now, it will take him around 1-3 months to recover. He then wrote about the situation he has ahead of him, which is the decision to either re-sign with the Lightning or to test the waters of free agency.
“Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman continues to smartly say he hopes to get Stamkos signed, but it’s rare to find a player of his magnitude get this close to unrestricted free agency without being pulled into the feeding. The safer play is to bet against Stamkos playing again for the Lightning.” – Rosen
Stamkos is a player who possesses incredible scoring ability, as is obvious and should go without saying. He has won the Rocket Richard twice and has the potential to score at least 50-60 goals in a season, if he is healthy enough to get through the entire 82 games.
Imagine him playing alongside Connor McDavid. The two would be one of the most lethal tandems in the league that matches up to the likes of Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin, as well as Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. If McDavid can turn Jordan Eberle into an elite NHL goalscorer with the potential to net at least 60 goals, it only leaves you to reminisce about what he could do with a sniper like Stamkos.
He is not expected to resign with Tampa Bay as of right now, and if he were to enter free agency, many believe that the first place he would head is Toronto. I would disagree; he is going to look at all of his options and see what appeals the most to him. You cannot pull the “he will only go to a Cup-favorite team” excuse if he is most likely to go to Toronto. Keep in mind that he is from Unionville in Ontario, and that would be where he would go if he wanted to be closer to home.
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In Edmonton, there is a glorious rebuild going on. Chiarelli is fixing this team so that it can come back and really make a turnaround going forward. He is going to take this team sitting in the basement of the NHL and turn it into a hard-working team with a lot of potential when it comes to making the playoffs.
The appeal for that is something that could cause Stamkos to come to Edmonton. He could be a huge part of the rebuild in Edmonton, and if we are trading away core players and dumping a lot of unnecessary cap space, then I definitely think we could make a strong push for him and offer him somewaht of an impresive contract.
He would also be a good candidate to replace one of our core players if were to trade away players like Taylor Hall, Benoit Pouliot, Nail Yakupov or even Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. He could replace that forward space, and we would still have a defenseman on the backend. There’s a lot of ways to go with this, and it’s all hypothetical and pretty fun to think about.
It’s not completely irrational to think that Edmonton could have the potential to bring in a name like Stamkos. Is it likely? No, because I think that Chiarelli has tricks up his sleeve that involves bringing in more size and defense rather than some big-name forwards.
Next: Edmonton Oilers: Future of Pardy, Cracknell
However, if we were to get rid of some pieces and make some moves to get to a point where we could afford him and needed someone in that space, it could be a possibility. Again,