Edmonton Oilers 2023 Trade Deadline Recap

Bo Horvat was the first big domino to drop, and he’s already made a huge impact on Long Island putting up 5-3-8 with a +3 in 12 games, which has now pushed the Islanders into a wild card position.

The Rangers have loaded for bear in their forward group by bringing in first Vladimir Tarasenko and then Patrick Kane. The Rangers were the one and only choice of Kane, and with a NMC he calls the shots in terms of where he goes. Anyone hoping the Oilers were going to get him should know that like every other team we had no chance at him.

Ryan O’Reilly went to Toronto – only a few days after I wrote this. Seems like Toronto turned over half their roster this deadline, although mathematically it was only ~ 25%.

Vegas for some reason traded away Shea Weber’s contract to Arizona. Maybe Ken Holland can make a play for it in the offseason as a way to offset the LTIR losses of Klefbom and Smith’s contracts expiring after this season.

Ottawa set the boat anchor of Nikita Zaitsev free and then two days ago went and grabbed Jakob Chychrun. If he can stay healthy then that’s a great trade, but with his injury history, I’m actually very glad the Oilers stopped pursuing him.

Timo Meier went to New Jersey, and they swapped a ton of prospects with San Jose in the process.

The Oilers were rumoured to be in on Tanner Jeannot from Nashville, but he went to Tampa Bay instead.

LA got harder to play against as they traded away the cooked Jonathan Quick to Columbus for Vladislav Gavrikov and Joonas Korpisalo, while LA also sent a couple of draft picks Columbus’s way. Good move, their goaltending would’ve held them back in the playoffs if they went in there with a tandem of Quick and Peterson.

Shayne Gostisbehere ended up going to Carolina. I said here he would’ve been a decent target for the Oilers, but of course, they went after Ekholm instead.

Max Domi went to the Dallas Stars. I assumed Chicago would want to hang on to him…..I guess not.

San Jose traded for Vladislav Namestnikov and then immediately shipped him off to Winnipeg. Ended up with a fourth-round pick out of the deal.

The Oilers were rumoured to be in on John Klingberg but he ended up going to Minnesota instead.

Erik Karlsson went exactly……nowhere. He remains in San Jose. It remains a mystery as to why nobody traded for him….after all, he only has a huge cap hit, an injury history a mile long, and a GM in San Jose misreading the market and digging in his heels asking for a huge haul in trade back. Yup, quite the mystery as to why no one traded for Karlsson…../sarcasm.

Speaking of Nashville…..

The Predators announced that GM David Poile will be retiring on July 1 and he’ll be replaced by…..Barry Trotz? That’s an odd pick as Trotz has no GM experience whatsoever, not at lower levels and not NHL levels. He’s a great coach but is green as a GM. Huge risk there – they better hope that will work out otherwise he could leave the team a mess like so many bad GMs of other franchises before him.