Just before the start of free agency GM Ken Holland and the Edmotnon Oilers made a trade with Detroit, sending Klim Kostin and Kailer Yamamoto off to Detroit in exchange for……future considerations, which is basically NHL code for nothing.
Let’s go through the two exports that went to Detroit:
Kailer Yamamoto
It always amazes me how short the memories of Oilers fans, bloggers, and paid media types are. Everyone was crapping on Yamo for his performance last season but conveniently seem to forget that he went through two major injuries which not only kept him out of the lineup for long stretches of time but also created two periods of recovery time, which is always necessary after injuries and can only be achieved by playing NHL games.
Did everyone forget this is the exact same player who scored 20 goals just two seasons ago? Why does everyone conveniently forget his injuries? Don’t you think that would’ve played a role in his performance last season?
Stop being a bunch of tools and use your brains, Oilersnation.
It’s also worth noting that Yamo hasn’t even hit his prime producing years (PPY) yet, but he’s right on the cusp of it – he’s turning 25 in September which is right when it usually kicks in.
By making this trade we’re at risk of seeing whether we’ve repeated the colossal mistake of Miroslav Satan.
Remember Miroslav Satan? This was a player the Oilers drafted in 1993 and was on track to become one of the best fifth-round picks of all time that the Oilers made, but GM of the day Glen Sather made the boneheaded mistake of giving up way too soon on the player and traded him to Buffalo in exchange for two prospects who would go on to play a mere 40 NHL games combined and would be out of the NHL in short order.
And what becomes of Satan, you ask? Well, he played seven full seasons in Buffalo along with the time after the trade deadline in the 1996-97 season.
During those seven full seasons, Satan put up seven seasons of 20 goals, two seasons of 30 goals, and one season of 40 goals.
The Sabres traded him to the Islanders where he put up another season each of 20 and 30 goals before bouncing around to Pittsburgh (where he won a cup in 2009) and Boston before finishing up his career in Russia and his native Slovakia.
Could the Oilers have used him in the 90s? You better believe it. Imagine if they had Satan to go along with the firepower of Ryan Smyth, Bill Guerin, and Doug Weight in the top six…..that would’ve been legendary, or at the very least the Oilers could’ve traded Satan for a return that wasn’t so lopsided in the other team’s favour.
Worst Oilers Trade Ever?
In my books, this was hands down Glen Sather’s worst trade as Oilers GM – yes, even worse than the Gretzky trade.
Satan went on to play 1050 NHL games, scoring 363 goals and 735 points, a very solid career, but he only played a mere 126 of those games for the Oilers – it should’ve been a lot more.
Is Yamo the same guy? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s a good illustration of what happens when you give up on a player too soon.
If Holland was looking to save cap space he should’ve traded away Warren Foegele or Brett Kulak. Both would’ve saved the Oilers almost as much cap space and Foegele would be much easier to replace at a lower cap hit while Kulak’s replacement at third pairing left D is arguably already on the roster in Philip Broberg.
Yamo may have spent most of last season in the bottom six but there’s no doubt in my mind that when healthy he’s a legitimate top-six forward, and the Oilers threw him away for literally nothing.
Klim Kostin
Holland’s first choice was to re-sign this player but the agent was putting enormous pressure on him to sign him for between $1.75-2 million and was digging his heels, as the Oilers rightly would’ve rather signed Kostin for $1-1.5 million at the absolute most. I mean, putting that much cap space on a player in your bottom six is just not a good use of cap space – especially when you’re a cap team already and you need to save money wherever you can at the bottom of the roster. It also didn’t help that Kostin and his agent were talking to teams in the KHL as well who were willing to pay Kostin what he wanted, which is why they dug in their heels so much.
I know Kostin is from Russia, but for the life of me, I don’t know why he’d want to go back there now. Russia’s war with Ukraine has thrown the country into chaos – they’re cut off from the global financial system due to economic sanctions, there’s mass unemployment, rumours of a renegade general currently making his way to Moscow to overthrow Putin, and the Russian people are growing angrier with Vladimir Putin every day for a war they see as unnecessary. Even Putin’s closest supporters have either fled the country or cut off financial support for him.
Here in Edmonton – or anywhere in North America, for that matter – he’s safe from all of that. If he was going to go back to Russia it would be safer to bide his time here and then go back to Russia when the political temperature has been turned back down to normal.
But then Holland’s former mentor Steve Yzerman came to his rescue. He was very interested in Kostin as he sees him as a top-six forward – which I personally don’t know where he’s getting that from. He can do well enough defensively in the top six but scored the bulk of last season’s offence in the bottom six against easier competition – and bolstered by a gaudy 19.6% shooting % that he is unlikely to replicate, especially since Detroit’s top-six forward group is vastly inferior to Edmonton’s at this point.
But Yzerman sees him that way, for whatever reason only he knows. It’s a risk that’s unlikely to yield the reward he’s looking for, but good on him I guess.
Not soon after the transaction Yzerman inked Kostin to a two-year, $4 million deal ($2 million per).
Yamo Re-signs
Yamamoto has since signed a deal with the Seattle Kraken. Yamamoto is from Spokane which is also located in Washington State. This signing will make his home team a lot closer to where he grew up.
Jayden Grubbe takes part in the Rangers Prospect Development Camp at the Rangers Training facility in Tarrytown July 12, 2022.Rangers Development Camp /
At the end of May Holland pulled off another sneaky trade to increase the Oiler’s prospect pool by trading away a fifth-round pick in this recent draft in exchange for the signing rights to right-shooting center Jayden Grubbe.
Holland immediately signed Grubbe to a two-way, three-year contract with the Oilers that’s worth $867,500 at the NHL level with the potential for another $57,500 if he hits his performance bonuses – but don’t count on him achieving those because he’d have to jump straight away from junior to the NHL, which nine times out of 10 only the Connor Mcdavids and Taylor Halls of the prospect pool can pull off.
Grubbe is an intriguing prospect not just because he’s a right shot, but because he spent his junior career with the Red Deer Rebels and absolutely lit the Rebels on fire as he put up 18 goals and 67 points in 64 games Red Deer, and improving to a sparkling +10 in the process, all of which are far and way career highs for Grubbe in his junior career.
This is the Rangers finding a prospect who is looking like a diamond in the rough, and Holland taking advantage of a bad situation after Grubbe backed the Rangers into a corner.
Grubbe is 20 years old, so he’s old enough that he can make the jump to Bakersfield now (CHL rules state you must be 20 years old to play in the AHL, so any 18 or 19-year-old prospects have to either be reassigned back to their junior team or play in the NHL with a nine-game tryout option for the NHL team if they think the guy can handle it without burning a year off the player’s contract, although 18 or 19-year-olds are free to play in the AHL if they haven’t played in the CHL the year prior).
Expect Grubbe to start his pro career in Bakersfield next season with an outside chance he goes back to junior as an overager if he struggles big time in training camp as he still technically has one more year of junior eligibility.
Fantastic find by Holland, and if he can translate his offence from junior to the AHL in short order, expect him to get his first NHL call-up sooner rather than later. I suspect Holland sees Grubbe as a potential fourth-line center, maybe as soon as the latter half of next season, at least to start his career anyway. Where he goes from there is up to him.
The 2023 NHL draft just concluded, and the Oilers, being a team in win-now mode, only had three picks the entire draft, their own second-round pick, their own sixth-round pick, and their own seventh-round pick.
The draft was highlighted by picking right-shooting D-man Beau Akey from the Barrie Colts in the second round. The young man is a bit undersized for an NHL player (6 feet tall on the nose and only 173 lbs) but 18-year-olds will grow into their bodies, especially as their offseason fitness regimen evolves with input from their drafting club.
Akey just finished his second season of junior with the Colts, putting up 11-36-47 in 66 games for Barrie with 39 PIMs and a -4 to boot, adding a further 2-3-5 in 13 playoff games for the Colts. Those are some solid numbers for a player his age.
Akey was slated to go further up in the second round, possibly even as a lower portion of the first round, so the Oilers were delighted when he was still available at 56th overall, and we all know Ken Holland loves his defenceman in the draft because he prefers to build his teams from the blueline out.
Expect him to play out two more seasons in Barrie before starting his pro career with Bakersfield. I’m willing to bet by that time he’ll have put on some more muscle on that frame of his too.
In the sixth round, the Oilers took goalie Nathaniel Day, which truly is the epitome of a flyer pick as this is a goalie with size (6’2″ and 181 lbs) but a guy whose two seasons in junior have been unimpressive, both seasons with sv%s below .900 and GAAs just below 4.00. Those are terrible stats, especially for a prospect goalie.
In the seventh round, the Oilers took undersized right shooting center Matthew Copponi (5’11” and 167 lbs…..ouch), largely because he’s another player in the Kailer Yamamoto mould who just put up 14 goals and 29 points in 37 games, along with 30 PIMs and a +8 for his US College hockey team at Merrimack College. This will be a great pick if it works out.
The Oilers first-round pick went to Nashville (Mattias Ekholm trade at last season’s deadline), their third-round pick went to Arizona (Zack Kassian trade last offseason), their fourth-round pick went to Philadephia (Derick Brassard trade from two trade deadlines ago) while their fifth-round pick went to the Rangers in the aforementioned Jayden Grubbe trade.
In 2024 barring any more transactions, the Oilers will be going into that draft with their first, second, fifth, and two sixth-round picks (their own and Nashville’s [also the Mattias Ekholm trade]). Their third-round pick in that draft is also going to Arizona from the Kassian trade, the fourth-round pick is also going to Nashville from the Ekholm trade, and their seventh-round pick went to Montreal in the Brett Kulak trade.
