The Edmonton Oilers are in a unique position come to this trade deadline – there’s a chance they could be both buying and selling.
Edmonton Oilers: Why is that? They have to get rid of some deadwood that Peter Chiarelli traded for – both to free up cap space and because there is just no future for them on the club.
We also have the opportunity to take advantage of some clubs that will probably start a rebuild or get rid of key players. The most notable clubs ripe for the taking might be the Philadephia Flyers and Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings, all of whom are rumored to be starting rebuilds/retoolings.
Teams like the Carolina Hurricanes, meanwhile, are rumored to be shopping around Dougie Hamilton – who IMO would be an excellent low risk bet for the Oilers provided the ‘Canes retain a liberal amount of cap space for the remainder of his contract (more on that in the piece that is merely waiting to be approved by our editors) – and Michael Ferland, who the Oilers have already been linked to in rumors.
There are a lot of players that would help the Oilers – and they need the most help on both wings. The Oilers are in a very interesting position in their top 6 – they have what is essentially 3 legit 1st line centers but the wingers surrounding them have 1-2 legit players and then they fall off significantly.
Contrary to popular belief, the Oilers D doesn’t really need anything more than minor tinkering right now as the D they have right now is sufficient and all their best prospects are defencemen who are well on their way to bubbling under – Caleb Jones, Evan Bouchard, and Ethan Bear have all looked like the real deal – despite the latter struggling in Bakersfield to start this season, but no matter 1 bad season does not define a career.
Notice how I said it’s sufficient for now, not elite. I will stipulate that it is not elite, but it is not as bad as a lot of fans believe. Organic growth from within is all that is needed at this point to make it stronger.
They could also use a cheap backup goaltender, but there’s always a lot of those available, so there’s no rush to get one at the trade deadline.
Anyway, here’s a list of who could go at the trade deadline – the trading chips, if you will.
1. Cam Talbot
It’s entirely possible the team brings back Talbot on the cheap next year as a backup, but right now he’s a veteran goalie on an expiring contract and right now he’s more valuable to the club in a trade as he has struggled for the past two seasons for us. He has for all intents and purposes, lost his starting spot to Mikko Koskinen, so really we might as well get something for him while we still can.
Projected haul in trade: Backup goaltender, 3-5th round draft pick or middling prospect
Assuming Petrovic gets healthy before the deadline, he could be a bottom pairing rental a playoff team might pursue. Veteran depth defencemen are always in demand at the trade deadline, and Petrovic is nothing if not that. It won’t be a significant trade, and the Oilers will appreciate the cap savings in getting him off the books more, but hey, the Brandon Davidson trade last year sometimes shows you get lucky with a bottom pairing guy at the deadline when the opposition likes the guy enough.
Projected haul in trade: 3-5th round draft pick
Is anyone on the Oilers more snakebit than Tobias Rieder? I mean, even Milan Lucic is outscoring him now….ouch (look it up if you don’t believe me).
Does it seem to anyone else like this guy has hit more posts than a fence building crew? Even Brandon Manning has a goal, and he sucks.
The only other players on this team without a goal are our 7th d-man and relative newcomers to the roster.
Playoff teams love to take a flyer on guys like Rieder, who don’t cost a lot and can easily be sat if his struggles follow him to his new home. Once the season is over, they merely let him walk by not giving him a QO. Problem solved.
He was a nice bet when he was signed, but he obviously hasn’t covered it. So many of Peter Chiarelli’s hires need to get off this roster ASAP, and Rieder is one of them.
Projected haul in trade: sweetener in a bigger trade, 5-7th round pick otherwise
4. Ty Rattie
See Tobias Rieder. Same projected haul in a trade, too.
5. Al Montoya
An unlikely scenario, but Montoya could be what the doc ordered for a team looking for goaltender depth for the playoffs. His career is on a downward trajectory as he struggled in Montreal in 4 games there last season and struggled here in 9 games last season, and those struggles have become worse in Bakersfield this year.
But, he’s on an expiring contract and can be had for a song. Maybe a team will pick him up and stash him in the AHL temporarily, then use him as an insurance guy in case of injury to their goaltenders. Hey, this is the NHL, stranger things have happened.
Projected haul in trade: 2020 7th round pick
Honorable mention: Alex Chiasson?
IMO it is not a good time to trade Chiasson. In theory, it sounds like a good idea, but in practice, the Oiler’s wing depth is brutal and trading away one of the only producing wingers is a really bad idea when you’re trying to win now. No one will give us a really good value for Chiasson because he’s a 28-year-old with 422 NHL games under his belt, this is a career year for him, and he’s riding a 27% shooting % which is outrageous and not sustainable over the long term.
All the tea leaves point to this season being an aberration for Chiasson, and no team will give us anything significant in trade for him when there’s a very high chance his boxcars come crashing back to earth going forward.
And honestly, Chiasson is the perfect player for the Oilers right now, because they can re-sign him for, say, $1.3 million a season for 2 years as a bridge contract – which works out perfectly for them because they need cheap depth scorers and they can tell his agent “show us he can do it again, and we’ll pay him more after this contract is done.”
That way, if he does regress offensively, they can either play him in the bottom 6 without issue or trade him without issue. At the same time, his paycheck doubles from this year, which is a pretty good deal.
The last thing this team needs is another albatross contract. If another team wants to dump dollars bills at Chiasson’s house and pay him $4-5 million a year, then they should do it, not us.
He has more value to the Oilers than he does in trade, so for that reason you keep him.
Two more Honourable mentions: Brandon Manning and Ryan Spooner
I’d like to know what Chiarelli was on when he traded for these two players and gave up valuable draft picks and a valuable bottom-six forward in Drake Caggiula to get them.
It will be very tough to get rid of both of these contracts, especially at full cap hits.
As much as we’d all like to see them gone at the deadline, it’s highly unlikely they will be. It will be the offseason at the absolute earliest, and getting rid of them period will be a hard enough task.