Taylor Hall coming back?
A less plausible possibility is Taylor Hall coming back to the Oilers at the trade deadline too (same article), if only as a rental. Never say never, but I think there are two key reasons why I just can't see Hall as a fit for another go-around with the Oilers, even as a rental.
First of all, if the Oilers do acquire Hall where does he play? Take a look at the LW depth for the Oilers right now. Neither Ryan Nugent-Hopkins nor Vasily Podkilzin are going anywhere right now, which automatically rules out the top six - and Hall can't play both sides so you can't just stash him at RW.
That leaves Jeff Skinner, who has a no-move clause, and I highly doubt he'd agree to a trade to a rebuilding team in Chicago, and Viktor Arvidsson (Mattias Janmark is centering the fourth line at the time of this writing), which is a possibility. However, Arvidsson is a step down talent-wise from Hall, and between his struggles on the ice and the injury off it, it's hard to say if the Blackhawks would bite on it. They may even ask the Oilers to retain salary.
Then there's Hall's injury history, which makes him look very much like Marion Gaborik used to be - great when healthy, but he's not healthy very much. His entire career he's played an entire season only once in 17 seasons, and 80+ games only twice. If you expand that to 70 games you still have only five seasons out of 17. Hall has played all games so far this season for the Blackhawks, but he only played 10 games all last season for them as he was out with a major injury at that time.
Acquiring a player with injury history, even one as dynamic as Hall, comes with major risk, especially when the trade would involve retaining salary or major assets going the other way. That could easily blow up in the team's face.
If they took on Arvidsson and didn't ask for salary retention, a pro-rated Hall would cost the Oilers only $1.2 million against the cap, so in theory they can make the cap space work. There's also the GM question here as well - Bowman was not the GM who acquired Hall with Chicago.
Ken Holland vs. Stan Bowman
If there's one thing we can see that Holland and Bowman have in common, it's a desire and ability to nibble around the edges of the roster. After the flurry of signings that Jeff Jackson did in free agency, there wasn't a lot of room for Bowman to maneuver when he came on the scene.
However, after we lost Desharnais to free agency, Holloway and Broberg to offer sheets, Warren Foegele to free agency, and the struggling Cody Ceci to a trade, Bowman had work to do, and at this point I'd say he's done it admirably.
Podkolzin has proven to do some of the physical lifting that Foegele and Evander Kane used to do, and while Podkolzin will never win a trophy for scoring, it appears he fits in much better here in Edmonton than he ever did in Vancouver. Grabbing Kasperi Kapanen on waivers during a time when three regular wingers (Kane, Arvidsson, Zach Hyman) were injured was a stroke of genius.
If Kapanen can maintain his current scoring rates he'll finish with 14 goals on the season, not bad for a guy who was cast off from the Blues. It lessens the sting of them stealing Holloway and Broberg from us with those offer sheets a bit. Important to note, however, that Kapenen currently sports a 17% shooting percentage when his career shooting percentage is a mere 10%, so don't expect that to last all season. The Oilers may be forced to cast off Kapanen once Kane is healthy, but perhaps they can trade him somewhere and get a good asset for him in return.
Meanwhile, Ceci gets to be a veteran presence sorely needed in San Jose, while Emberson has been able to carve out a role of his own on this team at a low cap hit. I'd say that the cap space works out so much better for both teams, as Ceci gets to play a bigger role with the Sharks and earn his much larger cap hit. Trading for, then re-upping Troy Stecher at less than 800K a season has paid many dividends - Stecher has played for spells next to Darnell Nurse on the second pairing and hasn't looked out of place.
Alec Regula hasn't played yet for the Oilers (he's in Bakersfield right now) since being claimed off waivers, but it'll be interesting to see what he can do when he does. Bowman hasn't made a bad move so far, IMO. It'll be interesting to see what he does with a full offseason at the helm. He's done so well, even despite the public baggage he brought with him from Chicago.