Edmonton Oilers: Key battles to watch going into training camp

Mikko Koskinen vs. Alex Stalock

Koskinen had a pretty bad season last year, but he’s rebounded from a bad season before, so I won’t count him out.

Nonetheless, with a black cloud and heat hanging over his head – with the franchise buying out James Neal his contract is now the worst on the team – this presents opportunity for Alex Stalock if he can seize it.

If the Oilers do end up going with Stalock, they’ll have to decide what to do with his contract, as it’s not likely to be moved unless he waives his modified NTC. They could always send him down to Bakersfield (he’s unlikely to be picked up on waivers, and if he does then great we save ourselves $4.5 million in cap space), but that would stunt the development of Skinner and Konovalov by throwing another guy into the mix. Unless they just never played him, I guess….

They could loan him out to Europe – I’m sure there would be some appeal to him to return to his native Finland for a season – but there would be a couple of hurdles to jump through on that one. A) The player has to agree to it, which may or may not happen and B) He has to clear waivers as well. I’m not worried about the latter for the same reason I’m not worried if they planned to send him down to Bakersfield – whether he does or doesn’t get picked up on waivers, the Oilers win.

Also, from what I can see according to the CBA if you loaned a player out to Europe you would only save $1.075 million against the cap – so we’d still have to pay Koski $3.425 million not to play for us. That’s not much better than the $900,000 you’d save by burying him in the minors, but it’s still a bit better.

At least his contract is up after this upcoming season, so this mess is done and over with.

If Koski succeeds in fending off Stalock, then you could put Stalock on waivers and another team will pick him up, guaranteed.

The darkhorse candidate is Stuart Skinner but I’d prefer to leave him in Bakersfield for one more season – at least to start – to see what he can do as an encore to last season. If he does just as well or better, give him a callup for a few games, see how he does, and tell Koski to hit the pine.