Ryan McLeod Trade Clears Cap Space, But Not Enough For Oilers
With the move of Ryan McLeod to the Buffalo Sabres yesterday the Oilers have freed cap space, the problem is that it is still not enough.
The Edmonton Oilers made a trade yesterday, moving Ryan McLeod to the Buffalo Sabres for Matt Savoie. While it is unlikely that Savoie will be playing in the NHL for the Oilers this season, his addition does add depth to a team that does not have many prospects on the shelf. As for the loss of McLeod, while he plays a role for this team, his role could be played by another player.
The main point of this move was to move Ryan McLeod’s cap hit of $2.1 million. With that move the Oilers currently are around $350,000 over the cap and they still have to re-sign Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg. While both of those players will not be making a huge amount of money, the Oilers still need to find a way to get them signed and get under the salary cap by the start of the season.
While there are several different moves that the Oilers can do in order to clear the rest of the space it honestly doesn’t matter what they do I still think that this current Oilers roster is a better team than the one lost in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Even if they have to trade away a good player like Evander Kane or a depth defensemen in Cody Ceci, the moves made by Jeff Jackson have been nearly perfect so far this offseason.
Cap Space Is Important For The Future As Well
While the Edmonton Oilers will need to cap compliant this season, they also need to look down the road. Key players such as Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard are going to need to be extended by this time next year. While they can work on an extension right now, they still will need to be able to fit in the big paydays for both of those players. Draisaitl will be getting an around $5 million raise, Bouchard will be gettting a big bump as well.
The good and the bad of the Oilers trading Ryan McLeod to the Sabres. The good and the bad of the Oilers trading Ryan McLeod to the Sabres. dark. Next
The salary cap is supposed to be going up quite a bit this coming offseason, so hopefully that will be a good chunk of money that can help the Oilers become cap complient next year. That doesn’t help them this season though. With at least $2 million worth of space to clear the Oilers management team has their work cut out for them this season. I don’t know exactly how they are going to do it, but one thing is for sure they will and some players will be gone from this current roster on game one.
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