Roster moves involving current and former Edmonton Oilers
By Phil Gretzky
A look into some of the recent roster moves which have been made, involving both current and former Edmonton Oilers players.
Monster physical d-man Markus Niemeläinen, who plays on what is currently the crowded left side when he’s with the big club, sustained a minor injury during training camp – which was only going so-so for him to begin with – and thus was on the shelf for the short term. He wasn’t injured enough to go on LTIR, so it didn’t benefit the Oilers in any sort of financial sense.
What it did mean is the Oilers were roster-wise and financially obligated to place Niemeläinen as a day-to-day scratch on the opening night roster. With the Oilers’ cap situation being what it was, it meant that for opening night they had to go with the in-house solution of Brett Kulak on the second pairing and play a man short on the fourth line.
However, all of that changed after game one as Niemeläinen then became healthy enough that, as expected, he could be waived to Bakersfield to rejoin the Condors. Also not a surprise is that he cleared waivers since at this point he is nothing more than an AHL bubble player, and every NHL team has a handful of this type of player in their organizations.
With Niemeläinen and his $762,500 salary now in Bakersfield and not counting against the Oilers’ cap anymore, they then had the cap space to make a signing they had obviously wanted to make all along – converting Adam Erne’s PTO into an actual two-way contract at the NHL minimum of $775k, for one year.
Erne then suited up for the Oilers in games two and three to complete the fourth line. Before this, Philip Broberg was played at fourth-line RW for the stinker against the Flyers.
Erne is known as a defensive presence who can penalty kill and hit, all things the Oilers need on their roster at this point in time. However, what appears to be underrated is that he can produce some secondary offence as well – he finished with 18-20 points in three out of four previous seasons playing on some terrible Red Wings teams.
If Erne can bring his A-game to the Oilers this season, perhaps he could push for 25-30 points. That’s probably asking a little much of a fourth liner in reality, but we can dare to dream, right?