Recapping free agency so far

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

Edmonton Oilers re-sign 30 year old Evander Kane to a four year, $20.5 million deal ($5.13 million per)

Now we’re getting somewhere. The Oilers pulled a rabbit out of their hat by bringing back Kane, who was rumoured to be testing the market to bring in as much money as possible to solve his financial woes.

However, Kane tested the market and found it wanting, and rumour had it that the suitors who liked him enough to give him both term and cash were a little scared away by how he had performed after signing big money contracts in Buffalo and Winnipeg. The amount of teams with cap space holes due to the flat cap after hurting for revenues at the peak of the pandemic likely played a part as well.

Since every team was going to pay him about the same, why not re-sign with the Edmonton Oilers, a team he had a lot of success with and knows he has chemistry with? Kane had a phenomenal half season (give or take) with the Oilers last season, scoring 22-17-39 in 43 regular season games with a whopping +25 and 60 PIMs in the regular season, while adding 13-4-17 in 15 playoff games – a career high for him – while tacking on another 37 PIMs in the playoffs.

People are talking about him cracking the 40 goal mark next year for the first time in his career, and why not if he can get 22 in just over half a season? There are exciting possibilities for how Kane will perform in his time going forward as an Oiler, especially early on in the contract.

Risk factor – some

There is a little bit of risk attached to this contract as Kane is 30 right now, and will be 34 by the time the contract finishes. For a finesse player, this wouldn’t be much of a factor, but folks who play a power forward, physical, pestilence type of game like Kane does (the modern day version of Esa Tikannen) tend to start seeing a dip in performance as their bodies begin to wear down at age 32.

Only time will tell if this happens in Kane’s case. The good news is Kane is widely acknowledged as the best power forward in the game, so if he does start to break down before the contract is up at least he’s got further to fall than any other power forward. Great signing of a player who we all thought wasn’t going to be back.

My overall take – I approve.  The price is right, and although the term is a bit much at least they didn’t sign him for the maximum of eight years. You have to expect some risk in free agency as in good faith negotiations the team will never get everything it wants, you have to give as well as take in these things. Overall a good contract for free agency.

Edmonton Oilers sign 30 year old goalie Jack Campbell to a five year, $25 million deal ($5 million cap hit per)

Remember last season when we snagged Zach Hyman in free agency, rescuing him from the toxic sludge of the NHL cesspool of Toronto?

Well, as it turns out Hyman paid dividends for us not only on the ice but off. How you ask? He’s good friends with what until July 13 was an ex-teammate, Jack Campbell, also a new UFA who played for TO the previous season.

He spoke to Campbell while he was making his decision in free agency after it turned out that Toronto didn’t even offer their starter last year a contract (wow……) and so he was going to hit the market and go somewhere. Hyman gave Edmonton a glowing recommendation, which no doubt played into Campbell’s decision to sign here.

And that helped to sell Campbell on playing here – of course their recent run of playoff success making it to the final four with half a starting goalie in Mike Smith, half a Darnell Nurse, and half a Leon Draisaitl certainly didn’t hurt either.

On the whole, this was one free agent signing I’m honestly not really a fan of. Personally I was hoping for Holland to trade for Mackenzie Blackwood from Jersey, as I wrote about here, but instead the Oilers went after an in-demand free agent in Campbell. That doesn’t mean he’ll necessarily have guaranteed success here – just because a player is in demand doesn’t necessarily mean you should back the Brinks truck up to him (Milan Lucic, *cough**cough*), but who knows with Campbell?

Risk factor – high

Many people are applauding the move to sign Campbell to be the starter and tandem with Stuart Skinner, but I’m not one of them.

The cold, hard truth is that Campbell comes with several red flags.

First of all, the man has played in eight seasons in the NHL yet has only 135 NHL games to his name. Typically you don’t know what you have with an NHL player until they reach the 200 game mark. This means that next season the Edmonton Oilers will be running with a tandem of two players between the pipes who are still works in progress. If one of them stumbles the Oilers will be in real trouble and it could torpedo their season, especially if Campbell is the one who struggles as he’s the one who’s slated to play the most games – and unlike with last season since Skinner will be making the jump to the NHL we no longer have a prospect who’s close to NHL ready to bring up (yes I’ll get to Pickard later on). Also yes I realize he may have been stuck behind Jonathan Quick in LA. Campbell is coming here from TO so we know he can play under great pressure, but he’ll be passing that 200 game mark this season so if he struggles that may not be a good omen for how the contract ages. You never know, of course, but it may not be a good omen.

Also, with a $5 million cap hit if Campbell struggles he’ll make Nikolai Khabibulin’s contract look like a good deal.

And that’s not even getting into his actual numbers – while is another red flag.

Campbell may have been the starter for the Leafs last season, but after his games played increased, his stats got worse.

Over his two full seasons in Toronto his games played increased from 22 to 49  – close to what he’s projected to be playing here – and as his games played increased his sv% went down from .921 to .914. This is a nosedive in stats that crosses over from elite to average in today’s NHL. GAA is a similar story, they increased from 2.15 to 2.64.

And so the question remains in my mind – did we just buy a lemon that is only a younger version of Mikko Koskinen – give him more responsibility and he falters? I sure hope not, but the stats from the last two seasons seem to say that.

In the playoffs it gets even worse. All of Campbell’s playoff experience came the last two seasons in TO – both with very mixed results. In the 2020-21 playoff series, he finished with a stingy 1.81 GAA and a sparkling .934 sv%.  Good start.

The problem is his followup postseason after that – a terrible 3.15 GAA and an awful .897 sv%.

So, when Campbell suits up for the Oilers and they almost inevitably make the playoffs, which version of Campbell will show up? Will it be the elite one from his first postseason or the dumpster fire from his second postseason?

Say what you want about Mike Smith, but one thing we could count on from him is he would elevate his play in the postseason – something that we have no guarantee of with Campbell.

Then there’s the persistent rumours of inconsistency that plagued him with TO last season. Will that follow him to Edmonton? Or will the element of a fresh start work in his favour and he raises his game both here and in the playoffs?

We got younger from last season as far as the starting goalie goes, but that’s not hard when your starter is 39 at the beginning of the season. Not exactly a high barometer.

My overall take – I disapprove but am willing to give Campbell a chance. Blackwood comes with much of the same red flags that Campbell does, but at least he would’ve been younger and cheaper. Backing the Brinks truck up to Campbell at this stage of his career means the pro scouts must’ve liked what they saw in him. We can only hope….in the meantime we’ll have to hope that Campbell works out – and honestly I’m willing to let his play win me over – if he can live up to the hype, and his contract, then I’ll be happy and may be singing a different tune at the end of next season. I’d love to be wrong on this one.

Edmonton Oilers re-sign Brett Kulak to a four year, $11 million contract ($2.75 million per)

Kulak was the feel-good story of the trade deadline. Local boy comes home to Edmonton at the trade deadline for a somewhat overpaid haul to bring veteran leadership and depth to the third pairing of the D corps. Having rescued him from the doldrums of a lottery pick team in Montreal, Kulak would go on to provide what was advertised and then some – 18 games, 2-6-8 and a sparkling +6.

When you tie in his stats with the Habs, Kulak finished the season 5-16-21 in 74 games. He continued this play in the postseason, putting up 0-5-5 in 16 games. Not bad for a guy whose game was said to be as a stay at home defensive blueliner.

Now Ken Holland has given Kulak a substantial raise and expected him to take over for the retired Duncan Keith on the left side of the second pairing – but good news, he’s the only NHL regular on the Oilers roster who can play both sides on D.

Can Kulak take on more responsibility? Hmm….

Risk factor – moderate

Kulak showed his ability so he’s a bonafide NHL player – the only question is how much of one is he? There is a little bit of a risk with this signing because Kulak has never regularly played the minutes or competition in the top four in his career – thus far he’s always been a bottom pairing D. A very good one, mind you, but a bottom pairing D.

Not every NHL blueliner can make this jump – remember we tried it with Matt Benning back when he was an Oiler and it failed. He remains a third pairing D in his career today.

Will Kulak falter like Benning? That’s the million dollar question with him – and if he does falter now you’re paying a guy $2.75 million to play with a guy who’s making $4.5 million on the other side. That’s a heck of an expensive bottom pairing, and a terrible use of cap space.

But the signs at this point show history in fact will NOT repeat itself and Kulak will succeed as the successor to Duncan Keith (see what I did there?). After all, take a look at Kulak’s game by game ice time last season. One commonality between his time in Montreal and his time here in Edmonton is that the coaches of both teams trusted Kulak with games here and there with 20 minutes of ice time plus – and he didn’t crack under the pressure. I didn’t see him play those games as a Hab but I did see him play some of those games as an Oiler – and I saw a guy who played spot duty in the top pairing and didn’t look out of place. NHL coaches don’t play guys 20 minutes a game unless they know for a fact they can handle it – because the NHL is a harsh mistress that chews up and spits out the guys who don’t belong. If he can handle that he should be able to handle the second pairing.

This is why I firmly believe Kulak will, in fact, turn out to be the younger and cheaper version of Duncan Keith next season. If he can score 20 points playing for two teams last season, I firmly believe he can put up the same amount of offence playing with the Oilers full time next season. It also helps that he’s already played with his partner on the right side Evan Bouchard before so the two are familiar with each other. Kulak will be the perfect stay at home yin to Bouchard’s puck moving yang – while at the same time mopping up Bouchard’s leftovers to produce some complementary offence.

To me, that’s a good solid use of $2.75 million on an NHL roster per year.

My overall take – I approve. I’m optimistic and bullish on Kulak going forward – especially in pairing him with Evan Bouchard.

Edmonton Oilers sign 29 year old C/LW Mattias Janmark to a one year, $1.25 million contract

Janmark is a veteran of 420 NHL games, and is a bottom six forward with decent offensive chops for a bottom six forward, as he put up 9-16-25 in 67 games with a +3 and 21 PIMs.

Expect him to play most of the year on the third line if they succeed in jettisoning Warren Foegele from the roster and the fourth line otherwise. Good for him that he’s versatile to play two different positions, since as the old saying goes when building an NHL roster – you can never have too many centers in the forward ranks.

I would expect Janmark should provide good veteran depth for the bottom six and provide more cover for guys like Dylan Holloway and Xavier Bourgault if they need more seasoning. I expect his main competition will be Tyler Benson.

Risk factor – none. This is a prototypical Holland move, who is always looking to tinker with his bottom six. If he doesn’t work out you can always stash most of his cap hit in the minors and just wait for the contract to expire. Good pick.

My overall take – I approve. What’s not to like about better bottom six depth? Also, Holland took a break from signing 30 years olds because that was becoming cliché. Like it.

I included these two together as well, to save time, because so much ink has been spilled already about these two what new takes is there on them?

Edmonton Oilers re-sign the 24 year old RW Bison King to a one year, $3 million contract

This is an overpayment, but what are you going to do when you’re under the gun of an arbitration hearing?  This is par for the course for this player.

Jesse Puljujarvi is an enigma of an NHL player. A first round pick was spent on him in 2016 at fourth overall but he has underperformed his draft position thus far. That being said, he set a career high in points last season with 36 points so he may be about the turn a corner.

But the Edmonton Oilers will have to face this same situation next offseason as well if they don’t trade him, so all they did was kick the can down a season.

They also have a looming cap shortage, especially if the rumours that Holland still wants to add a couple of depth pieces to the roster are true.

Also, for some odd reason Puljujarvi has played 259 games over five seasons and still hasn’t learned that NHL ice time is earned, not freely given. He spent the last half of the season mostly on the third line and then whined to his agent about the line he was playing on. Maybe if he finished more of the chances he had on net he would be.

His scoring skills have so far left a lot to be desired, but he’s a great defensive player and knows how to use his size so even in his current state he can still bring something to the Edmonton Oilers.

Holland was able to avoid arbitration with the player, but now he’s $1.5 million or so overpaid and he has to figure out what to do with him. He remains a top trade chip for the Edmonton Oilers since the rumour goes the only reason they signed him was so they could trade him. This is the biggest question of the offseason, so we’ll see what happens.

Edmonton Oilers re-sign 23 year old C/RW Kailer Yamamoto to a two year, $6.2 million contract ($3.1 million per)

The man in the picture above got a hearty raise for the same reason the Bison King did – a looming date with arbitration.

At least he’s not too overpaid. I would’ve preferred somewhere along the $2.5 million range, but somehow I doubt that would’ve gotten the deal done.

Yamamoto cracked the 20 goal mark and the 40 point mark (41 points) last season, both career highs. He also had by far his most productive post season, with 2-5-7 in 14 games. He previously only had a single assist in his first eight postseason games. He’s also well known for playing much more physical than a 5’8″ 153 lb player would normally be playing at.

A banner season for Mighty Mouse, the question now is can he build on it and do it again? Or improve on it?

If it came down to keeping the Bison King or Mighty Mouse, I’d keep Mighty Mouse and it’s not even a contest. He’s the more proven player and has a better attitude.

This one was done just three days ago at the time of this writing.

Just yesterday the Edmonton Oilers have inked 24 year old prospect LW Tyler Benson to a one year, $750,000 contract

I use the term “prospect” lightly because in this case Benson is more suspect than prospect. He was drafted in the second round of the 2016 draft and six years later has yet to earn a regular spot with the Edmonton Oilers. Meanwhile, many prospects have passed him by, including Yamamoto, Ryan Mcleod, Evan Bouchard, Stuart Skinner, and a few others who could join that list this year.

Benson got a long audition to start the season but fizzled out as he failed to take advantage of the opportunity, putting up 1-1-2 and a -5 in 29 games played before being sent back down to Bakersfield for the rest of the season where he did his usual stellar job at scoring in the AHL, with 12 points in 18 games.

The problem is, Benson has yet to translate that game to the NHL, and the book on him is his skating needs work too, although he’s been working on that if the scuttlebutt on the guy is true.

I have a feeling this is Benson’s last chance Texaco in the Edmonton Oilers organization as he’s taking a spot down on the farm from other prospects, not including his teammates that have leapfrogged him already.

After all, the AHL is not a place where guys are supposed to play long term unless they’re NHL failures. Sometimes you just have to look at a player and cut your losses. IMO Benson is at that crossroads now. Let’s see if he’s a late bloomer or a true blue draft bust.

Not so fun fact – it always stings looking at a draft in hindsight, but players of note who were still on the board when the Edmonton Oilers took Benson – Jordan Kyrou, Alex Debrincat, Samuel Girard, Filip Hronek, and Dillon Dube. Ouch. To think we could’ve had Alex Debrincat cleaning house with Connor Mcdavid…..oy.

– Congratulations to Mark Stuart, who was hired as an Oilers assistant coach to replace the departed Brian Wiseman

– Replacing Jay Woodcroft in Bakersfield was Colin Chalk. Now replacing Chalk as assistant coach and Manson as assistant coach as well will be Keith McCambridge and former Oiler Josh Green. Congratulations to both men as well

– Rumours now persist that Phil Kessel will be signing with the Edmonton Oilers now. Obviously at 36 this would be for more of a minor role for him. It would be great to have his veteran presence around – would he come back to Canada though is the big question? At least this time it would be well established that he wouldn’t have to carry the team on his back like he did in Toronto – that job is taken by Connor Mcdavid and Leon Draisaitl. He only scored 8 goals but had 52 points on a terrible team in Arizona last season – not to mention finished with a -24 – but consider the team he had to work with in Arizona….

– Rumours are a funny thing. Connor Brown was as good as an Oiler before he was traded to Washington as the Caps offered Ottawa a better trade package. Dylan Strome was also rumoured to be coming here before he signed in Washington.

– Expect Ryan Mcleod to be signed any day now.

– Evander Kane supposedly has his hearing with the Sharks terminating his contract coming up. This was a big risk in signing him too – let’s hope the arbitrator doesn’t lose his or her head and makes Kane go back to San Jose, which would be a death sentence for him at this point. Re-signing with the Edmonton Oilers has surely proven he doesn’t want to go back to that franchise. Give him some money from San Jose, shake hands, hug it out, and go your separate ways.  Done.

– Holland also took the interim title off head coach Jay Woodcroft now, we’ve heard the deal is a three year deal at $2 million per. Congrats Woody, you deserve it.