Oilers: 3 Bold and Way Too Early NHL Trade Deadline Predictions

With the NHL trade deadline on March 21st, we only have a couple of weeks for the Edmonton Oilers to improve their team. I am unsure what Ken Holland and the Edmonton Oilers are planning on doing over the next few weeks.

I have made 3 early bold predictions on what will happen from now till the end of deadline day. Hopefully we will see Holland be active this year, cause everyone likes a trade. We just hope the Oilers make good trades this year.

1. The Edmonton Oilers will be top 3 in the Pacific on deadline day

Right now the Edmonton Oilers are 2 points behind the Vegas Golden Knights for 3rd and 5 points behind the Los Angeles Kings for 2nd in the Pacific Division. The Oilers have 4, Kings 6 and Knights 6 games till the March 21 trade deadline.

Oilers Schedule

March 12- Vs Tampa Bay Lightning

March 15- Vs Detroit Red Wings

March 17- Vs Buffalo Sabres

March 19- Vs New Jersey Devils

Kings Schedule

March 10- Vs San Jose Sharks

March 12- @ San Jose Sharks

March 13- Vs Florida Panthers

March 15- Vs Colorado Avalanche

March 17- Vs San Jose Sharks

March 19- @ Vegas Golden Knights

Golden Knights Schedule

March 10- @ Buffalo Sabres

March 11- @ Pittsburg Penguins

March 13- @ Columbus Blue Jackets

March 15- @ Winnipeg Jets

March 17- Vs Florida Panthers

March 19- Vs Los Angeles Kings

Of all the teams I think the Oilers have the easiest schedule till deadline day. I expect the Oilers to go at least 3-1 in the remaining 4 games, and if they can beat Tampa it wouldn’t surprise me if they went 4-0.

On the other hand the LA Kings and Golden Knights play 2 more games each. One of the extra games is against each other, so hopefully it doesn’t go to extra time. Then after that the rest of the Golden Knights games are against difficult opponents.

The Kings do have a slightly easier path as they play the Sharks 3 of their 6 games and the Sharks aren’t playing very good right now, but it looks like Karlsson will be coming back to the San Jose lineup, which will give them a boost. So those games aren’t easy wins anymore now.

Let’s say the Oilers win 3 of 4, the Kings win 2 of 6 and the Knights win 1 of 6 that would make the Oilers in the top 3. Oilers would have 72 points, Kings 75 and the Knights 70. This isn’t too crazy too see happening.

2. They will NOT add a goalie

All season Edmonton has had questions in the net. In the last couple games Mikko Koskinen has played good enough to get wins. Is there more room for improvement for him? Of course there is.

I think at this point the Edmonton Oilers are going to look at improving other areas. Getting a goalie that improves your teams save percentage by 0.1% has less of an impact than a defenseman that reduces chances against.

I think the Oilers need at least one more stay at home defenseman. I don’t expect it to be one of the bigger, more pretty names out there, but it will be a solid player. The Oilers don’t need a dman to put up massive stats, they need one the lowers the opponent’s stats.

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3. They add a winger

As much as scoring is not high on the Edmonton Oilers issue list, it never hurts to add more scoring. On or before the deadline I think that the Oilers will be adding some scoring depth. I don’t think it will be a for sure 1st line player though.

I think they will look at a player that can play 3rd line, but can be bumped up if they need to. I picture a player with a similar skill set as Josh Archibald. Archibald would work himself, but the fact that he can’t travel makes him fairly useless as the season starts to wind down.

In a perfect world you can trade Josh Archibald to a team for another player with the exact skill set as Archibald. It would be unlikely that another team would do that as they would really have nothing to gain in the trade, but if Holland can pull it off that would be a good move to make.