Roster moves involving current and former Edmonton Oilers

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?

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.