On Thursday, The Athletic published part one of a series looking at where some of the top trade markets were going to end up at this year's deadline. Penned by a couple of respected NHL insiders in Pierre LeBrun and Chris Johnston (subscription required), the first article saw each of them predicting that one of the five players focused on, would go to the Edmonton Oilers.
In the case of Johnston, he picked Anaheim Ducks goalie John Gibson to end up in Edmonton. You can read here, to find out our arguments both for and against the Oilers making a move to trade for the three-time NHL All-Star.
This time around, we are going to focus in on LeBrun's selection to end up as a member of the Oilers by the Mar. 7 trade deadline. More specifically, we're talking about Montreal Canadiens defenceman David Savard.
It's no secret that the Canadiens are looking to sell of some assets, as a team struggling in the standings and aiming to rebuild for the future. However, is Savard what the Oilers are looking for to enhance their blue line?
Not quite the player he used to be
It's been suggested for quite a while now that a top-four defenceman is top of the agenda for the Oilers' bid to strengthen their roster, as they take aim at a second successive trip to the Stanley Cup Final. However, Savard is no longer at the peak of his 'powers'.
Along these lines, LeBrun believes the 34-year's value to the Oilers would be as a sixth of seventh defenceman, who can also play on the penalty kill. He's averaging 18:44 of ice time this season, which would be his lowest since his first full season as a regular back in the 2013-14 campaign.
On the positive side of Savard not being quite up to his previous level of play, he wouldn't command too much in the way of return assets by the Oilers. This is also further helped by him being in the final year of his current deal, thus making him a rental.
Not too much of a financial commitment
In this respect, the financial commitment is not too bad either, as the Oilers would be picking up the balance of his $3.5 million cap hit. For some context as per PuckPedia, they have a cap hit of just over $1.311 million at the time of writing, and are projected to have around $3.497 million of cap space at the trade deadline.
Just in case, let's not forget the potential to also have Evander Kane's cap hit of $5.125 million to play around with. As we previously wrote, if the Oilers keep Kane on long-term injured reserve until the playoffs, they won't need to account for this extra money.
As much as Savard might not be quite as good as he was previously, he's still one tough son of a gun, who is a reliable shutdown defenceman and knows what it takes to win the Stanley Cup. The trade-off is that he's not much of an offensive threat -- as evidenced by nine points in 32 games this season -- but this isn't exactly an issue on a team with the firepower of the Oilers.
Ultimately, the Oilers' defensive pairings are quite settled as things stand and the team as a whole has recovered from a tough start to be ranked tied-eighth best in the NHL in allowing 2.79 goals per game. However, you won't find any complaints from us if they do decide to pull the trigger on a trade for Savard.