Even with the turnaround we’ve seen in the Edmonton Oilers since the coaching change, a number of guys are still slated for departure, either at the trade deadline or the offseason when the team lets them walk in free agency or trades them.
Let’s start with the guys who are on the hottest of seats
1. G Mikko Koskinen
I already wrote about this a month ago, so I’m not going to go too in depth on Mikko Koskinen too much.
He’s gone through a bout of COVID since then and his game seems to have improved but key issues from throughout his career still plague him – his age, his inconsistency, the fact that he is incapable of handling a starter’s workload.
It’s absolutely crucial going forward that the Edmonton Oilers have adequate coverage in case Mike Smith goes down, because although he’s getting back up to speed after spending most of the first half of the season out of the lineup due to injury, Smith is still 39 years old, which means that he’s more brittle than he used to be.
Could an Alexandar Georgiev trade happen sooner rather than later? Maybe. We’ve been hearing that Ken Holland has been looking for goaltending help for some time now, which means that while Holland will never actually say it publicly, it seems he doesn’t have confidence in either the inconsistent play of Mikko Koskinen or the ability of Mike Smith to stay healthy, and it seems he sees Stuart Skinner as still more of a third string option at this point so he doesn’t want to give him a full time roster spot just yet.
He could wait until the offseason, but it appears he needs help sooner rather than later. Maybe he’ll get a rental for now and pursue a longer term option in the offseason.
Koskinen’s contract is up after this season, and his play as of late has been better which is only increasing his trade value. Considering the Edmonton Oilers’ cap situation, I’m guessing a trade deadline deal (or sooner) trade for a goalie will include Mikko Koskinen going the other way.
If indeed a deal for Koskinen is made at the deadline, it will have to be within the confines of his Modified NTC (15 team trade list), which will complicate matters. For the record if a deal is made at the deadline, the trade partner would only have to pay Koskinen $900,000 for the rest of the season.
2. C/RW Kyle Turris
Turris was signed in the 2020 offseason close to training camp to be the Oiler’s third line center.
He’s been a dismal failure in every area of his game except for faceoff wins, something he was known for excelling at.
Even when he was moved to the wing he never really caught on anywhere. The Oilers have been paying him $1.65 million a season to be playing 27 and 22 games in his two seasons.
He was even placed on waivers, but immediately taken off waivers when they needed him as an injury fill-in.
To be fair, he’s injured right now and I can’t find information for when he’ll be back. But, you can bet that if Turris is back from injury prior to the trade deadline a month from now, Holland will try to unload him as a throw-in in a trade.
Turris’s contract would only add $330,000 of cap space to any team that trades for him.
3. RW Zack Kassian
Zack Kassian has arguably the worst contract on the Edmonton Oilers right now. Yeah, Koskinen’s contract has a bigger cap hit but at least it’s off the books after this season. Kassian’s has another two more seasons to go after this one.
He was a brilliant addition to the lineup when he first became an Oiler in the 2015-16 season, kicking in secondary scoring on Connor McDavid’s line as well as using physical play to create room on the ice for McDavid to weave his magic.
However, it appears that Kassian’s time as a player may have run out of gas or at least the slow march towards that. He’s only 31 years old so he should have lots of gas left in the tank but it seems as if he’s become the second coming of Dustin Penner – he’ll perform great for a one or two game stretch, then completely disappear from view for long stretches. Even his trademark physical play has been missing from his game the last two seasons.
He’s showing more issues with injury (and is injured right now) and due to the Oilers increased depth has only played 27 and 35 games the past two seasons.
With the recent addition of Evander Kane to the lineup – who plays the same power forward game as Kassian but is proving to be abundantly better at both the physical play and scoring parts of his game – and the increased depth of the Oilers it might spell the end of his time here in Edmonton, either at the trade deadline if the Edmonton Oilers can pull off a trade for him or in the offseason.
Did I mention Kane is better than Kassian defensively, too? +6 vs. -2, yeah no contest whatsoever there.
If the Edmonton Oilers want to hang onto Kane for longer than past this season, they’ll need most or all of Kassian’s cap hit to depart the organization to make room to sign Kane long term.
Anyone who trades for Kassian at the deadline will only have to pay him $640,000 for the rest of the season but $3.2 million for the next two seasons after that.
Unless Kassian shows more when he comes back, I have to believe that Holland will be looking to unload him in the offseason, or at the trade deadline if he becomes healthy by then. They might have to bite the bullet and retain $1 million in salary or so for the remaining two seasons of his contract, but they’ll do it if it helps to get rid of him. A buyout might work, too, as the numbers do seem to work. Although, with the buyouts of Andrej Sekera and James Neal still on the books, not to mention the retained salary of Milan Lucic as well, I’m sure the Edmonton Oilers would rather not have Kassian on the books as well.
4. L/RD Slater Koekkoek
Last season Koekkoek was a mainstay on the Edmonton Oilers left side of the third pairing, but this season with other prospects equaling or eclipsing his performance, he’s played so few games that he’s been sent down to Bakersfield.
He did an admirable job last season in 18 games plus playoffs but this year has been so vanilla he’s played himself off the roster.
Not much more you can say about Koekkoek, at this point the organization can take him or leave him. He won’t garner much in trade but I’m sure the Edmonton Oilers would love to be rid of him.
At least his contract isn’t a big deal, with most of his cap hit being taken care of with the $900K cushion you get when you send players with one way contracts down to the AHL.
Any team that trades for him at the deadline will be paying him a mere $185,000 in cap space for the rest of this season plus $925,000 next season.