Recapping free agency so far
By Phil Gretzky
Free agency began on July 13, rather than the usual July 1, which in my opinion is unfortunate as traditionally it allowed me to watch free agency like a hawk on a day off from work to see what moves the Edmonton Oilers would make or not make, and it was always exciting.
Not this year. Why the NHL would move free agency down I don’t know, the day works so well. Oh well, such is the way the NHL is run. It’s ability to shoot itself in the foot as an organization is as legendary as their decisions made for the league is questionable.
There are still questions to be answered, specifically when Ryan Mcleod will be re-signed as well as what moves the Oilers will make to free up cap space to get more depth pieces – at this point Warren Foegele, one of Puljujarvi and Yamamoto, and Tyson Barrie are all names that are mentioned in rumours to be on their way out. At the time of this writing the Oilers only have $336,000 of cap space and that’s LTIR cap space when Mike Smith and Oscar Klefbom’s contracts inevitably go on LTIR.
Also the Edmonton Oilers have the looming question of how they’re going to pay for the substantial raise Evan Bouchard will earn at this time next offseason – unless he completely implodes this next season, which somehow I doubt will happen.
Ken Holland is rumoured to want to bring in at least one more forward and a depth defender on the cheap, and he’ll need at least $1.5 million at absolute minimum to do it. I don’t think attracting the names will be an issue, deciding who to trade and what said trade will look is the million dollar question.
Well, on the plus side the dead cap space of Andrej Sekera’s buyout as well as the retained salary of Milan Lucic both expire after next season so the Oilers will gain $2.25 million in cap space just from that alone. They’ll need it, too.
Anyway, let’s get to the meat of the topic, shall we?
Edmonton Oilers sign Brad Malone to two year, two way $1.52 million deal ($762.500 per)
The Oilers started free agency not with a bang but with a whimper on June 13. Malone is a decent option as a callup for injury fill-in with the Oilers as well as a great leader who helps to bring the youngsters on the farm along.
If I had to guess this may be his retirement contract, as he’ll be 35 by the time it ends which is usually about when NHL players start to lose their skills. He played eight games on the fourth line last season and put up 1-1-2 in those eight games with a -2 in the regular season and even managed to get into two playoff games where he didn’t produce any offence but did produce 12 PIMs.
Not much to say, about what you’d expect for an AHL bubble player.
Risk factor – none
My overall take – meh