Edmonton Oilers Rumors: “I think someone will claim him…”

Coming from an Edmonton Oilers point of view, BLH provides you with excerpts from 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!

Give us a follow on the socials!

Oilersnation (Yaremchuk)

Weekly Rumours – Oilers Search for a Defenseman

(UPDATE: Slater Koekkoek has signed a 2yr deal with the Oilers)

Personally, I’d be a fan of bringing back Koekoek. He can play both sides of the ice, can kill penalties, and he’s familiar with Dave Tippett’s system.
As for Benn, he spent last season with the Vancouver Canucks and he was decent.
There has been a lot of talk about potentially bringing in Zdeno Chara and while he’s certainly a famous player, I would prefer that the Oilers bring in someone younger with a little bit of upside.
I also wouldn’t be stunned if he saw a forward or two brought into camp.
- We’ll see if Ken Holland decides to make some cheap bets on the free-agent market before training camp begins.

BLH’s Thoughts: PTOs baby! Expect to hear some names with connections to Ken Holland and/or Dave Tippett, the Detroit Red Wings, Dallas Stars, or Arizona Coyotes rumored to come in to Edmonton’s training camp on a professional tryout offer.

So, you get a choice of Slater Koekkoek, Jordie Benn, and Zdeno Chara and your choice isn’t Chara?! Right… The club has enough young legs on the left side of the blue line coming up, there’s no lack in that department. What it doesn’t have is the kind of experience and snarl that Chara would bring.

Chara was/is never going to come to Edmonton. He’s an East Coast guy and there are plenty of teams over there that’d be happy to have him. So the Oilers’ choice was between Koekkoek and Benn and I’m okay with KK coming back for another couple of years. He’s got that youth that Yaremchuk was speaking to and he’s as two-way as they come.

Lowetide.ca

BUCK DHARMA

Tyler Benson has some top flight skills, including great vision and passing ability. Wins battles, good coverage, but those seam passes are his calling card. Benson signed his second contract on Wednesday a one-year, two-way contract that pays him $750,000 NHL and $100,000 AHL. He also gets $150,000 guaranteed salary.
Benson’s competition for LW work has been less than Kurri-Anderson level, but he hasn’t been able to slide past names like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Milan Lucic, Tobias Rieder, James Neal and Joakim Nygard.
I think Devin Shore makes the team, so it comes down to Benson versus Brendan Perlini, with Dylan Holloway as an outsider who would need to make it as a top-9 forward to stay. That likely means a LW depth chart of Foegele-Nuge-Holloway-Shore-???? and the question marks are Benson and Perlini.
He didn’t get a job in 2020-21 because Nygard and Ennis played in the NHL previously and were better bets.
I think someone will claim him if he’s exposed. He has a solid offensive resume, despite the lack of goals. Benson’s passing is NHL quality, he can make plays that lead to goals.

BLH’s Thoughts: As I said previously, the boy needs a new set of tires on those wheels. If Benson upgrades the speed and quickness, all he has to do is to come into camp with a chip on his shoulder and a burning desire in his hard to do whatever it takes to beat out Devin Shore and Brendan Perlini for a spot on the squad.

I still think that he might have to pivot his game a bit and worry less about the playmaking at the start and more about becoming an elite grinder. Folks like to compare him to Chris Kunitz and one thing that he had was an innate ability to beat the opposition into the muck and come away with the puck. Benson has to become comfortable in the most uncomfortable situations and if he can do that, good things will follow.

NHLRumors.com

Harman Dayal: “There’s nothing wrong with Elias Pettersson saying he wants to be in a winning environment sooner rather than later. The onus is just on the #Canucks to keep improving.

Rick Dhaliwal: Both the Canucks and Pettersson’s camp continue to talk but there is lots of work for the sides to do. It’s not close as of right now.

Kevin Kurz of The Athletic: The San Jose Sharks knew that Evander Kane had been an issue throughout the season and that it would need to be addressed. Several key players said it was Kane or them.

“Guys were going into Doug’s office all year long,” according to one source, “saying Kane had to go. … All Doug would say is, ‘All teams have locker-room issues,’ which just isn’t true. Not the teams that win, anyway.”
“The Sharks ignored everything,” said an NHL agent who represents at least one player on the team. “Team turned a blind eye.”

BLH’s Thoughts: #Yikes…