Bringing back Evander Kane Part 2

It should be pretty obvious by now that Evan Bouchard has usurped Barrie’s spot on the second pairing for the Oilers.

Barrie accepted his demotion to the third pairing without publicly complaining and that’s all well and good but now that the season’s over that makes him a luxury the Oilers simply can’t afford going forward.  You shouldn’t be paying a bottom pairing guy $4.5 million a season no matter how good he is.

There’s all kinds of possibilities for where Barrie can go – but I’m going to suggest Ottawa in exchange for either their first round pick or both their second round picks this year (they have two of them, their own and Tampa Bay’s after trading for Brayden Coburn and Cedric Paquette) and Nikita Zaitsev (provided Ottawa retains 50% of Zaitsev’s cap hit – otherwise this trade is rendered pointless as Zaitsev has the same $4.5 million cap hit as Barrie and is an inferior puck mover).  Alternately, if Holland likes the internal options at third pairing left D better than anything from the outside, he can simply re-sign Kulak, move him to the right side (he plays both sides) and then play him with either Broberg or Niemelainen (whoever makes the team out of training camp).

In that case, he could simply trade Barrie to a number of teams for a first rounder or two second rounders and a solid prospect.

I can’t remember where I heard this and for the life of me I can’t find a link online, but Arizona Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong said he’s open to any and all trades, even for bad contracts.

The reason why? The Coyotes might be the only team in the league who will have trouble getting to the cap floor, which would be projected to be $61.2 million. The Coyotes right now are at $49.3 million.

That means they have to spend just over $12 million just to get to the cap floor!

Well, the Oilers could certainly help them with that by trading away two slightly overpaid bottom six players in Warren Foegele and Zack Kassian.

Foegele had a solid regular season, putting up 12-14-26 with a -9 to boot (not great but outside his normal +/- rating so we’ll take it for this past season), but disappointed in the playoffs, putting up just a single assist in 13 playoff games for the Oilers. Although his +/- got better as he finished with a -5, that’s not enough to save him from those bad boxcars.

This puts Foegele on the hot seat. Who knows if Arizona will have trouble getting to the cap floor again so the Oilers should strike while the iron’s hot on this one and jettison Foegele as they are in win now mode and need everyone playing their game in the playoffs. Will Ken Holland think differently and give him a second chance next season? Maybe, but since they’re hurting for cap space Foegele and his $2.75 million cap hit becomes a target.

Kassian, meanwhile, has not been the same player he once was since signing his $3.2 million extension – in fact it’s actually quite rare to see him play in the top six period these days – he normally languishes on the fourth line which is no place for a man of his cap hit.

Sending both of these players to Arizona would save the Oilers $5.95 million against the cap, and go a long way towards solving that pesky cap floor problem for the Coyotes.

What could the Oilers get in return for them? I’m going to say Arizona’s third and fifth round picks this year (they don’t have a fourth round pick this year as they traded it away to Winnipeg).

Arizona is a much more compelling trading partner now that they’re not in the same division as us (they were moved to the central division once the Seattle Kraken came on the scene).

They should easily be able to replace those two with players who cost about $1 million apiece, which still saves them a nice chunk of cap.

Soon to be ex-Oiler goaltending prospect Ilya Konovalov has reportedly wanted to go back to Russia, and already signed a contract to play in the KHL next season, so the Oilers have terminated his contract.

Much like with Mikko Koskinen, the timing of this is rather odd. After all, it’s a well known fact that Skinner basically looks like he’s punched his ticket to the NHL next year – between what he’s accomplished in the AHL and how he’s looked in callups to the NHL, it’s looking like he’s going to make the jump full time next season.

That would’ve put Konovalov as next in line to be the starter in Bakersfield. Now granted, Konovalov didn’t exactly have the greatest stats in his rookie season in North America, but to give up on his NHL dream after only one season in the minors? Especially right as he’s poised to get more starts? Both things that make this a very odd timing on Konovalov’s part.

Well, this puts the Oilers as primed to take a goalie in the draft at some point this summer.

It also leaves the Oilers with a tandem in the minors of second round pick from 2018 Olivier Rodrigue and college free agent signing from earlier in the season Ryan Fanti who will be making his pro debut next season – notwithstanding of course another college free agent signing or a draft pick that’s ready to make the jump to the minors.

So, in goal it’s looking pretty shallow in Bakersfield next season. Not that Konovalov would’ve moved the needle that much based on last season, but at least there would’ve been more competition that would make everyone in the organization feel better in case of injury on the big club.