Yesterday the Edmonton Oilers traded for Mattias Ekholm while trading away Tyson Barrie. While the Edmonton Oilers improved the team’s defense they may have hurt the offensive side. Considering that Barrie was excellent offensively, is now the time for the Edmonton Oilers to bring in John Klingberg?
Why Would The Edmonton Oilers Want John Klingberg?
If you look at the stat line of John Klingberg you may wonder why would the Edmonton Oilers want to bring him in. I think for the Edmonton Oilers this could be just the type of player that could really help out this team.
Not only will this help out the Oilers, but it will also help out the Anaheim Ducks and John Klingberg himself. Anaheim Ducks would want to do this because they don’t want to pay his full salary for the rest of the season. John Klingberg will get a chance to prove that he still has what it takes to have success in the NHL.
What Would A Trade Look Like?
The main issue in a John Klingberg trade for the Edmonton Oilers is obviously the money required to pay him just isn’t in place for the Oilers. According to PuckPedia the Oilers still have an available $1.3M in cap space they could spend.
John Klingberg currently has a cap hit of $7M. This deal is going to be really hard to make work unless there is a 3rd team involved. For example, if the Anaheim Ducks retained 50% of the hit and a third team retained another 25% that would mean the Oilers would only have to pay 25% of the $7M which is $1.75M.
This means the Oilers would likely need to move a couple of things around within the organization or send a player back the other way, but in a perfect world, there are likely some players you could shuffle around to make less than half a million work with this roster. The move would likely be sending either Broberg or Desharnais to the minors.
Pairings With John Klingberg
If the Edmonton Oilers were to make this trade this is what I think they will look like.
Nures- Ceci
Ekholm- Bouchard
Kulak- Klingberg
Broberg/Desharnais-Whichever one they don’t send down
I don’t know if this is a move that Ken Holland is exploring as I am pretty sure he is probably looking for a right-shot bottom-six forward, but if he is looking for a right-shot defenseman there isn’t a much better option available than John Klingberg.