Here’s a breakdown of every single move the Edmonton Oilers made as Ken Holland made all sorts of interesting moves for this year’s NHL Trade Deadline.
Ken Holland just provided us with the best trade deadline we’ve seen since 2006. He managed to add some great pieces to the Edmonton Oilers without adding a lot of cap space or surrendering key pieces in trade like Jesse Puljujarvi or our 1st round pick this year.
Trade #1 – Andreas Athanasiou and Ryan Kuffner from Detroit in exchange for the Oilers 2nd round picks in 2020 and 2021 as well as Sam Gagner to even out the cap space with the Oilers retaining 315K of Gagner’s cap hit
Solution: Long term
Athanasiou is an RFA after this season, and at 25 has just entered his prime producing years. Now before the trade, Athanasiou was struggling being counted on to be a key cog in the gong-show purgatory of the Red Wings, and he was obviously feeling the pressure as he wasn’t succeeding, despite the fact he racked up 30 goals just last season. I’m not worried about the -45 he had tallied in Detroit – we can probably chalk that up to being on a terrible team.
For the record, in short sample size, he’s already +1 for the Oilers in 3 games, which just goes to show you how much being rescued from a terrible team can pump up a player’s stats. Is it logical that in his 5th NHL season he suddenly completely forgot how to play defense and became a human version of swiss cheese? No, that doesn’t make sense.
Here in Edmonton, expectations will be lower for him as well, which will only help him here. In Detroit, he was one of the key players on a bad team. Here, he’s only expected to complement Mcdavid and punt underachieving anchors like Joakim Nygard and Alex Chiasson out of the top 6.
After Kailer Yamamoto‘s emergence to cement the 2nd line, the Oilers were now down to 1 winger needed to ice a solid top 6. Athanasiou’s numbers should see a bump playing next to Mcdavid, and he is generally known as one of the speediest players in the league which helps to create chemistry with the elite speed of Connor Mcdavid, who along with Zack Kassian will be a formidable line now.
Athanasiou has already put up 1-1-2 in 3 games, creating instant chemistry with Mcdavid and covering the bet Holland made on him already – notwithstanding short sample size, of course.
Fun fact – Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman wanted a 1st round pick for Athanasiou, but Holland wouldn’t budge from his initial offer of 2 2nd rounders. Isn’t it nice to have a GM who’s a skilled negotiator who doesn’t give out NT/NM clauses like candy and chronic overpays in trades?
As for Kuffner, he doesn’t look like much at this point, but he’s only 23 so there’s still time for him to have an NHL career. He’ll go down to Bakersfield for now and let’s see what happens to him after that.
Meanwhile, the 315K of Gagner’s cap hit is nothing in the grand scheme of things and it’s only for the rest of this season.
Overall, great solid trade for the Oilers and I’d say we won this one handily without question.
Trade #2 – Mike Green from Detroit in exchange for Kyle Brodziak and a conditional 4th round pick – the condition being the 2020 4th round pick upgrades to a 2021 3rd round pick if Edmonton advances to the Conference Final, and Green plays in 50% of the games. Additionally, Detroit is retaining 50% of Green’s cap hit (just a shade under $2.7 million which is just over $1.5 million prorated for the rest of the season)
Solution: Rental
Mike Green is not the player he once was, but the Oilers didn’t acquire him to be the player he once was.
Look up the David Justice conversation on YouTube in the movie Moneyball and you’ll see a pretty good parallel to why the Oilers acquired Green.
Green was only acquired as a depth rental for the playoffs, nothing more. Green was acquired to be an upgrade to Matt Benning on the 3rd pairing, playing against the softest competition at even strength and playing the point on the 2nd unit PP, which could use a little extra juice as the Oilers have loaded for Bear on the 1st unit so the 2nd unit was a little lacking in firepower.
Fortunately, that hasn’t been a detriment to the team overall as the 1st unit is so good that we have the #1 PP in the league. Still, Green is a nice addition to the 2nd unit PP and even at 34 is still capable of playing on the bottom pairing at evens and on the PP – he’ll make a stellar PP even better.
No offense to Darnell Nurse, who’s having a solid season overall, but only 3 of his 26 points have come on the PP. Green is a much more experienced hand at playing the point on the PP and puts up significant points on the PP when his team is a playoff contender. He hasn’t done that the last few years but the key phrase there is a playoff contender. Hopefully, some of the younger guys like Ethan Bear and Nurse will take advantage of the 880 games Green has spent in the NHL and ask him for a few pointers.
Green gets rescued from a terrible team in Detroit, with 1 last shot at a cup with a playoff team. His NHL career is likely over after this season – all things considered – so why not acquire a guy like this to give him a chance to go out swinging in the playoffs? Maybe he’ll get lucky and win a cup. Just like AA, he’s also showing much improved +/- simply from being on a better team – he was -32 in Detroit which is terrible, but in short sample size is -2 here, which obviously is much better.
Meanwhile, the Oilers get a player with minimal cap hit who can immediately jump into the power play and limit his minutes at even strength to minimize the effects of the step he’s lost the last few seasons. Detroit gains another draft pick, and of course, lest we forget Brodziak has been nursing a career-ending injury all season so Detroit also gets a little more sorely needed LTIR cap space.
Not much of a surprise as Holland has publicly said he likes to carry 8 defensemen for the playoffs. Unfortunately, he’s been bitten by the injury bug so we won’t get to see as much of Green as we want, but he’ll be back just in time for the playoffs if his injury heals on the correct timeline.
Great pickup from Holland, this one seems a little more on the win-win side for both teams.