Coming from an Edmonton Oilers point of view, BLH provides you with the latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation from all of the internet’s best sites including Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, Sportsnet, The Athletic, TSN and more!
In his most recent notebook post, The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek took a look at some of the challenges that the Edmonton Oilers could face going into the offseason,
Tyson Barrie is going to be an interesting offseason case study. The Oilers signed Barrie to a one-year bargain-basement contract last offseason for $3.75 million and the idea was that it would give him time to get his career back on track after a bump in the road with the Toronto Maple Leafs. It worked too. In the end, Barrie led all NHL defencemen in points with 48, a reasonable development considering he got to be the power-play quarterback on a team that also boasted Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Over the past three seasons, Barrie has had a chance to play with elite NHL centers in three different locales: Colorado, Toronto and now Edmonton. It worked well in two — with Nathan MacKinnon and with McDavid. But it also means Barrie, at age 29, knows first-hand that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the hill.
Fit is so important. Like so many teams, Edmonton will be juggling to make the cap numbers work and for Barrie, it’s hard to imagine they can afford anything more than $5 to $5.5 million on a three, or maybe a four-year term. Could Barrie get more on the open market? Sure, probably. Based on his departure interview, it sounds as if he’ll at least want to explore the security of a long-term deal. Now, if you stripped away the financial part of the equation, Boston would make some sense for Barrie. He could effectively go in there and replace what Torey Krug gave the Bruins all the years he was there. Eventually, Boston is going to have to find the dollars to extend Charlie McAvoy (one year remaining on a $4.9 million AAV), but Barrie, at the right price, might look attractive.
Presumably, Barrie would look also at the contracts signed by Krug in St. Louis and Justin Faulk before him and think he too should get around six years at $6.5 million. Is it doable in a flat-cap world? Logically, you’d think no — but then logic rarely ever enters the free-agent sweepstakes.
BLH’s Thoughts: The feeling I get is that Barrie is going to be looking at those contracts signed by Krug and Faulk like Duhatschek wrote. It makes perfect sense for him to seek a long-term deal worth $6.5M per year and for Boston to be one of the teams where he’d fit. I wonder if Carolina or Vegas would be other a couple of other options. Personally, I like Seattle a bit more, but what does the player want at this point in his career, money or success? Would it be worth more to Barrie to stay in Edmonton for something around $5M-$5.5M, though? Would that be a good deal for the Oilers knowing that they have Ethan Bear and Evan Bouchard making far less and possibly having the potential to be better players over the course of whatever term Barrie would want on a new deal?
Oilers’ GM Ken Holland acknowledged that perhaps the greatest offseason unknown revolves around defenceman Oscar Klefbom who missed the entire season because of a chronic shoulder problem. Holland is hoping to get a progress report on Klefbom before the Oilers have to file their protected lists for the Seattle expansion draft. In his last full NHL season, Klefbom played a crucial role for the Oilers, gobbling up 25:25 minutes per game, contributing 34 points in 62 games and effectively playing as a No. 1 defenceman — all for a very reasonable $4.167 million per season, a contract which has two years to run.
If the Oilers sign Adam Larsson to a contract extension before the expansion draft, they could decide to leave Klefbom unprotected and then force Seattle to make a decision on whether to choose him or a safer option. Philosophically speaking, Seattle should be prepared to take a handful of big swings in the expansion draft, and this is one situation where a big swing would defensible if Klefbom were available. There’ll be all kinds of third-pair defencemen and minor-league forwards available to the Kraken. If Klefbom can play, he’s someone that would land on their first pair. That’s no small feat …
BLH’s Thoughts: My belief is that there are some questions as to if Klefbom’s contract can be covered by insurance should he be unable to play and if it can’t be, that could scare off potential suitors like the Kraken.
Now, if he can play, the Oilers would probably love him to be their 2nd pair LD as opposed to watching him play for another team in the Pacific Division. It would also mean one less thing to shop for this summer.
What about Ryan Nugent-Hopkins? Currently, Nugent-Hopkins is set to become an unrestricted free agent and he’ll be one of the more desirable players if he doesn’t re-sign with Edmonton. Gabe Landeskog tops the charts of wingers approaching UFA status, but it’s hard to imagine any scenario under which Landeskog leaves Colorado.
BLH’s Thoughts: The Landeskog scenario is an interesting one. Could the Avs decide to turn the team over to Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon this summer? Makar is going to get a massive raise this summer, right? I’d have to think something north of $7M is on the horizon for him and they’ve got to sign two more goalies in addition to Connor Timmins. That will all eat into the $19M worth of cap room they have slated going into the offseason plus they’ll have a couple of fine prospects in Martin Kaut and Alex Newhook on ELCs next year.
A great story would be if RNH and Landeskog swapped cities.
Nugent-Hopkins is part of the Oilers’ leadership group and that matters internally — to coach Dave Tippett and also to McDavid and Draisaitl. Considering how and why the Oilers lost to Winnipeg in the opening round — little secondary support for the Big 2 — it doesn’t make any sense to lose your third-best forward if you can at all help it. They need to add quality up front, not subtract it. But there is a price point for every player and it’s hard to imagine any scenario under which Nugent-Hopkins gets a raise in Edmonton – he’s a $6 million player now and you’d have to think the organization would actually like to get him done for something a little under that, a number that begins with a five rather than a six. That negotiation will be interesting …
BLH’s Thoughts: I do think it’s a little crazy that the Oilers are looking to sign Nuge for less than what he’s made over the last seven years. He deserves a raise for all that he’s put up with in Edmonton with zero complaining.
The one thing with Nugent-Hopkins though is that he’s basically an elite special teams artist now. His 5×5 production has floundered in recent years and the three goals in 21 playoff games is nothing to brag about. To this day he still has trouble on the faceoff but one of the great things about this player is his positional flexibility. Having him on the roster allows the coach to throw Draisaitl up on the first line from time to time (or all of the time when it comes to the post-season).
If Edmonton can’t get a deal done, and I’m a little skeptical that’ll happen thanks to Bob Stauffer describing the potential contract as something that will “hurt for both sides”, are there any available forwards that can play both the wing and center for Ken Holland to pluck off the rack?
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