Roster moves involving current and former Edmonton Oilers

Sam Gagner

If you scroll down closer to the bottom of this article in the Edmonton Journal, you’ll see that the Oilers are likely looking to sign Sam Gagner as well, but he was still too banged up to sign for the big club just yet. He was still suffering the effects of double hip surgery from an injury suffered playing for Winnipeg last season, so much so that he was restricted to practices in the preseason.

By all accounts, it will be a two-way contract for a short term, likely a single season. Gagner is 34 years old and thus by NHL standards is an elder statesman now.

Gagner only has Canadian citizenship, and thus to go down to Bakersfield he needs a US work visa, something the Oilers are trying to get him now.

Expect the Oilers to sign Gagner and then send him down to Bakersfield, letting him get back to up speed and health in the minors before calling him up in the latter half of the season to bring a consistent body to the fourth line. He’ll need the slower speed of the AHL to do so, before coming up here.

A lot of fans will be feeling the tingles when this happens, as they will enjoy the retro feels of a guy who will by that time be on his third tour of duty with the Oilers. I get it, but don’t expect him to go anywhere near the top six forward groups anytime soon. Anyone who thinks otherwise will be disappointed, you read it here first.

Moving pieces on the proverbial defensive chessboard

Unsurprisingly, with the combination of the team’s poor performance as a whole and Mattias Ekholm getting back to health by game two, head coach Jay Woodcroft has effectively abandoned his experiment in playing Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard together. The pairing lasted but a single game, as by game two, Bouchard was paired up with his usual partner in Ekholm again and Nurse was paired once more with Cody Ceci.

However, there is one twist to this story – Nurse and Ceci were moved down to the second pairing while Bouchard and Ekholm were then promoted up to the top pairing. This is not super unusual, as Ekholm is widely regarded as the defensive conscience of that pairing and played the top pairing in Nashville for years before his trade deadline move to the Oilers.

Woodcroft continues to surprise me by thinking outside the box. We’ll see if those pairs switch again later on in the season in the spots we’re more used to seeing them at, or if for Bouchard’s sake that pairing goes back down to second pairing competition. Bouchard has done spot duty in the top pairing earlier on in his career and didn’t seem out of place, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Ekholm-Bouchard was the new top pairing for the Oilers.

Meanwhile, now that the roster is healthy again I remain wondering when Ken Holland to going to trade Kulak for cap space. It still annoys me that he’s being paid $2.75 million to play on the third pairing, such a waste of good cap space.

I get that he has veteranosity but come on…..surely you can by now give Broberg a chance to run with it and call up Niemeläinen to compete with him. Not to mention the Oilers could probably use the mid-range draft pick they’d get in return.