Edmonton Oilers: Krug for Klefbom Trade Rumors Heating Up Again
By Pelle
There have been rumors floating around that the Edmonton Oilers might be looking to trade with the Boston Bruins. We’ll be tackling that issue head-on.
Edmonton Oilers: Joe Haggerty of NBC Sports out of Boston is the latest Boston scribe to throw out the idea of a Torey Krug for Oscar Klefbom trade. And that brings the total of sports writers out of Beantown to three that have been writing about this as both Jimmy Murphy and Fluto Shinzawa have done so in the past four months as well.
Is this a case of coincidence? I would argue no. There’s a fire, and this is the smoke.
That said, the hard feelings that were present when the Bruins sent Dougie Hamilton to the Flames instead of accepting a better trade with the Oilers, are those feelings gone now all of a sudden?
So getting back to the trade rumor, there will be a portion of the Oilers fanbase that loathes the idea of trading Oscar Klefbom. He’s young, he’s signed to an excellent contract, and when he is healthy, he’s a top pairing defender. He adds value at even strength AND on special teams.
Looking at the trade pieces
On the other hand, the caveat to Oscar Klefbom’s entire career to date has been his ability to stay healthy, and we’re not talking about a superstar like Peter Forsberg or Wendel Clark, men who were absolute game breakers WHEN they played. Klefbom isn’t at that point, and he may never get to that point. In my opinion, we saw his ceiling two years ago. A 40 point defender two-way defender.
As for Torey Krug, this is a player who has stayed healthy his whole career minus the playoffs where he’s been hurt the last two playoff runs (but was nearly a point-per-game player when he played) according to Haggerty’s article (linked above). He’s missed a total of 15 games since joining Boston in 2013/14.
The other thing that the small Bruins defender does well is producing points. In 398 games he has 52 goals, and 183 assists for a total of 235 points and of that total 102 of those points have come with the man advantage. 20 goals and 82 assists with the man advantage.
Contrast that with Oscar Klefbom who also joined the NHL in 2013/14; the Swede has only managed to play 255 games and accrue 24 goals and 70 assists for 94 points total (4 goals and 23 assists on the PP).
Looking at the numbers.
If you’re the fancy stats type, Torey Krug has a career CF% of 54.6, an FF% of 54.4, and a GF% of 54.7. He has a career pts/60 of 1.01 and a shots/60 of 6.26.
Oscar Klefbom has a career CF% of 50.7, an FF% of 51.4, and a GF% of 43.5. He has a career pts/60 of .82 and a shots/60 of 5.2.
Stats took from Naturalstattrick.com and hockey-reference.com. All 5×5 by the way.
So from an offensive point of view, Krug is by far the better defender. Even by the possession metrics, Krug is better. By the tradition statistics, Krug is better.
Peter Chiarelli has stated that he is after a defenseman for the PP and Torey Krug fits that description perfectly. He’s signed for two further seasons at $5.25M, and I think part of the reason that Chiarelli might be comfortable making this trade will depend on who they draft.
If the Oilers take one of Quinn Hughes, Adam Boqvist, or Ty Smith with their first-round pick, all three of them, in theory, should be ready by the time Torey Krug turns UFA in 2020. Also, that’s around the same time the next expansion draft could take place.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments section!
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