Edmonton Oilers: One potential trade target to keep an eye on

It’s no secret that goaltending is the Achilles heel of the Edmonton Oilers right now.

Yes, Mike Smith had a great season last year, even garnering some Vezina votes. That’s not nothing. But, Smith is 39 years old. It’s not a stretch to say that he’s not a solution for the Edmonton Oilers long term. In the short term, for the next season or two, sure, but not in the long term.

Then there’s Mikko Koskinen, the 33-year-old who’s currently got the worst contract on the team is playing for a GM who didn’t sign him and had the second-worst season of his career last year and the worst season he’s had as an Oiler.

Now that’s not to say that this duo can’t cobble together goaltending that’s good enough to get the Oilers to a winning regular season and win at least one round in the playoffs, but there’s no question that the heat is on for both of these players because they both have warts to their games.

If either of these players falters or gets injured for long periods of time, the Oilers will be in trouble because neither player is capable of carrying the load on their own, and while Stuart Skinner is close to grabbing a spot in the NHL it’d be better for his development if he could stay down in Bakersfield and build on his breakout AHL season from last year.

Enter the Dallas Stars as trading partners

Dallas may provide the solution for the Oilers if Ken Holland ever decides to pull the trigger on a trade for a goalie.

For you see, Dallas is in an odd position of having not just a three-headed goaltending monster, but a four-headed goaltending monster.

First, there’s perpetually injured Ben Bishop, a goalie who’s great when he’s healthy but has spent significant time injured as of late – and this season is no exception as he’s actually started the season on LTIR. He’s also carrying a cap hit of just under $5 million a season for the next two seasons, which is a cap hit the Oilers neither have the cap space for (unless someone else trades for Koskinen at 100% cap hit, which is unlikely) nor would want considering his injury history as of late.

Then they’ve got Anton Khudobin, who’s spelled off Bishop pretty well save for last season when he finished with a pedestrian .905 sv%. Khudobin is also 35 years old, so there’s the age thing too working against him.

Then after the Vancouver Canucks bought out Braden Holtby and replaced him with Jaroslav Halak, the Stars inexplicably signed him as a free agent when they already had another three goalies in the organization. At least it was only for one year and $2 million.

Then the Stars have farmhand Jake Oettinger, who played 29 games for the Stars last season and had a .911 sv% and 2.36 GAA – pretty good numbers for a raw rookie. This created pretty good hype that Oettinger would be playing in Dallas full-time this season, but it wasn’t to be.

At the time of this writing, Oettinger is listed as their minor league goalie, per CapFriendly. Khudobin and Holtby are manning the pipes for Dallas at the moment.

However, once Bishop is healthy the Stars will have two problems with goaltending on their hands. One will be the short-term problem of trying to find starts for three guys. They could easily put Holtby on waivers, but if he clears then there’s a problem. They’ll be taking starts away from the three goalies in their farm system, which is counterproductive to the long term. They could loan him to Europe, but they have to find a team to agree to that first. There’s no telling how much time that would take, considering he’s Canadian and thus not a known entity in Europe as one of their own.

Then there’s the long-term issue. Oettinger is obviously very close to making the NHL, and he can easily be assigned to the minors for now, but keeping him longer than necessary in the minors is no good for him – not to mention this is a contract year for him. You don’t think other teams would be lining up to sign him as a free agent? NHL prospects can tell when there’s no room for them on the roster – that’s exactly why John Marino refused to sign a contract with the Oilers and instead asked Holland for a trade (his rights were later traded to Pittsburgh for a 6th round pick).

I’d say the Oilers are crazy if they don’t make a play for Oettinger in free agency next offseason, depending on how Stuart Skinner’s season goes in Bako.

The contracts for neither Khudobin nor Bishop are up after this season, they’re both signed for two more seasons. So this means if you want to bring Oettinger on full time, you have to get rid of one of them. Bishop will be a tall order to get rid of, while the cheaper Khudobin would be easier. Holtby’s contract is up after this season, so he’s a non-factor in that regard.

That’s a lotta moving parts for Dallas.

Enter the Oilers

Let’s say Koskinen falters in the early going (the most likely hypothetical). The Oilers could come in and trade, say, a 2023 third round pick to Dallas for Khudobin (their second and third-round picks this season are tied up in the Duncan Keith trade). Khudobin is older than Koskinen but even at his age is still a better goalie. I mean, he’s put up elite numbers two out of the last three seasons.

Koskinen came close one year, but that’s as close as he’s come.

Dallas isn’t a division rival, so they’re a plausible trading partner. The Oilers could then loan Koskinen out to an AHL team or to Europe for the season.

How would the cap space work? 

Whether they loan Koskinen to Europe or the AHL, they should be able to make the cap space work.

After all, as Josh Archibald and Alex Stalock have both been put on LTIR as expected, that frees up $2.285 million in cap space. Khudobin is signed at $3.3 million. If they loan Koskinen to Europe – and he’d be a huge hit going back to his native Finland – the Oilers would gain $1.095 million in cap space from that transaction. That’s $3.38 million, just barely enough to cover Khudobin’s cap hit for this season plus a tiny bit extra. If they loan him out to the AHL, that’s only $1.075 million. This would put the Oilers cap savings at $3.36 million, an even smaller hair but again just enough to pay for Khudobin’s cap hit for this season plus a tiny bit extra.

How they would pay for Khudobin next season once Stalock and Archibald’s contracts expire is another question entirely – especially if they plan to go after Oettinger in free agency – but for this season at least the cap space would work. Barely.

If Holland plays his cards right maybe he could even get Dallas to retain a small amount of salary in the deal – maybe $100-300K.

Could this trade actually happen?

It might. If Holland is smart – and I think he is – he’s already put in a call to Dallas GM Jim Nill on preliminary negotiations. Maybe something like “we might need a goalie in the near future. Let’s talk about what you want for Khudobin once Bishop is healthy again. If the other shoe drops here in Edmonton I’ll let you know later on in the season.”