Another Oilers Tyson Barrie Trade
By Phil Gretzky
Well, first of all the Oilers would be saving $3.05 million in vital cap space and would instantly become much more cap compliant. Now they’d have $3.35 million in LTIR cap space instead of a mere $300K. They could instantly re-sign Ryan Mcleod, plus add one or two more depth pieces if they wanted to. Now Ken Holland has options where he didn’t before.
Not to mention he’d be gaining a mid-range first round pick – which he can use in a blockbuster trade or he can keep it and draft an additional first round pick. The scuttlebutt is that the 2023 draft is supposed to be pretty strong, so that’s definitely a good draft to have two first round picks in. I don’t think the Islanders are so bad that the pick would be a lottery pick or anything, but it could be in the 15-20 range depending on how the Isles do next season. I’m guessing the Oilers own first rounder will be somewhere in the 28-32 range in 2023, so that would certainly be better.
What would the Oilers be getting in Mayfield himself? Well, Mayfield is a guy whose career best in boxcars is 19 points, so it goes without saying that the Oilers would be employing an inferior puck mover in the same position. However, reality hits you hard as the saying goes and it’s safe to say that Barrie is simply a luxury the Oilers cannot afford at this point. When you’re up against the cap, every dollar counts and wasting a guy’s talents by playing him on the third pairing when he’s capable of more and paying him $4.5 million a season to do so is not good asset management.
Mayfield is a physical player with size – he’s 6’5″ and 220 lbs. He finished 13th on the Isles in hits last season with 77, and fifth in blocked shots with 109. I like the idea of a younger Kris Russell who can play as a regular in the third pairing and throw down some hits too. He was also fifth in PIMs on the Islanders last season with 55 – hands up kids how many of you think the Oilers could use a guy with a nasty streak on the D corps? Yeah, me too. He can do special teams too – he’s not much of a PP guy as you’d expect as he only played 0:04 per game on the PP, but is a PK dynamo as he finished second on the Islanders in PK TOI with 2:18 per game on average.
Considering that the Oilers had the #3 PP in the league last season but a PK at #17, I’d say they could use Mayfield on the PK.
Compare all of this with Barrie – Barrie was 24th on the Oilers in hits last season with a mere 27, and although surprisingly he’s pretty good in blocked shots with 73 (fifth on the Oilers last season), Mayfield should be able to make up for that himself. Barrie doesn’t play a physical game, which is why he only finished with 18 PIMs, good for 14th on the Oilers. On special teams he’s the polar opposite of Mayfield – only 23 seconds a game on average on the PK for 20th on the team, while 4th on the team on the PP with 2:51 per game on average.
It’s also worth nothing that Mayfield is two years younger than Barrie, so the Oilers would be getting younger with this move as well.
The beauty of that is Mayfield has played over 300 NHL games, so you know exactly what you’re getting with him.
Oh, and did I mention that Mayfield has finished on the good side of the +/- ledger in three of the last four seasons? He only finished -5 last season but I’m willing to bet Dave Manson can help clean him up as he was well known as the Tyson Barrie whisperer. If he can help a guy who was as sloppy defensively as Barrie, surely he can help Mayfield who doesn’t have as high a hill to climb in that regard. Not to mention Mayfield would be coming to a better team which should instantly help him defensively.