Bringing back Evander Kane Part 2
By Phil Gretzky
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.