Without A First Round Pick, Why Should The Edmonton Oilers Care About The Draft?

The NHL entry draft is 10 days away. This year it will be done from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The Edmonton Oilers have a second, fifth and six-round pick to make this year. There is a very low likelihood that any player from this draft is going to make a difference on the NHL team for 2-3 if they do at all.

Why Should Edmonton Oilers Fans Even Watch The Draft?

With such a low chance of getting a really good NHL player in this draft, most Edmonton Oilers fans will not even watch the draft. For the most part, they are right, if you are watching to see who the Oilers pick it will be a long draft.

First of all, the Edmonton Oilers will not be drafting on the first day which is round one only. The Oilers gave up their first-round pick in the trade that brought in Mattias Ekholm. Then they don’t pick till near the end of the second round on the second day. Then after that, there will be a few rounds till they pick again.

For Edmonton Oilers fans I think the main reason they may want to tune into the draft is to see if the Edmonton Oilers make a trade. The Oilers are a team with cap issues. One way to fix this type of issue is to trade a player for almost nothing.

They have done this with Zack Kassian and more recently Jesse Puljujarvi. They made the Kassian trade at last year’s draft and moved Puljujarvi at the trade deadline dealing him to Carolina.

Who Is This Year’s Salary Dump?

If the Edmonton Oilers are going to try and improve their team this offseason they will need to open up cap space. This will likely result in moving one or more players to free up that space. The real question is who could they move?

Kailer Yamamoto- $3.1 Million/Year

Kailer Yamamoto is the number one player that I think will be shipped out this off-season. His $3.1 million cap hit is a bit too high for his production. Not only that I think that there will be a team out there that would be willing to take his whole contract without the Edmonton Oilers adding something on top to entice the team like they had to do with the Kassian trade last summer.

One team that may take him would be the Seattle Kraken. It would make sense for the Kraken as Yamamoto is from around that area so he would likely re-sign there at the end of his contract. That is a plus on a team that may want to trade for him.

Warren Foegele- $2.75 Million/Year

Warren Foegele is another option for the Edmonton Oilers to move on from to get some cap space. During the time before the trade deadline, his name was coming up a lot to be traded. He then got on a hot streak and the Edmonton Oilers kept him which was a good thing as he played well.

There will not be a huge line of teams to pick up Foegele, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any. I think a team will look at the upside of Foegele and be willing to take him on. The main issue with Foegele is his streakiness. Is he the player when he is hot or when he is cold? If he could stay hot the Oilers wouldn’t move on from him at all.

Expect At Least One Move Before July 1st

As I mentioned above the Edmonton Oilers are already going to be tight to the cap and there is a number of players that need to still be re-signed. This doesn’t include bringing in anyone to improve the team.

This is why there will be some sort of trade before free agency day. The team can’t just do nothing this offseason, they lost in the second round last year they have to make it further this season. The only way to do that is to improve your team.