Edmonton Oilers Talk: “Whoever thinks this out there is incredibly naive…”

This is your TL/DR (too long, didn’t read) summary post where excerpts are taken from the best of the best when it comes to Edmonton Oilers blogs. BLH gives you his two cents on the latest posts being published in the Oilogosphere! Including those from Lowetide.ca, The Athletic, Oilersnation, The Cult of Hockey, Copper N Blue, Oil on Whyte, and more!

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The Hockey Writers

3 Ways Oilers Can Make Most Of $1M Increase to 2022-23 Salary Cap

Even if Koskinen were to get hot down the stretch and go on a strong playoff run, he’s shown over the course of the last three seasons that he’s not worth $4.5 million per season. If the Oilers give him another shot, his salary would go down at least $1 million. Add that to the $1 million in a salary cap increase and the Oilers have another $2 million to spend with their goaltending trio in place.
Should the Oilers move on from Koskinen (which they likely will), the Oilers have $5.5 million or less to spend on a starter. If they can find a way to move Mike Smith, they have $7.7 million to spend between Skinner and someone else.
If the Oilers want to sign Evander Kane, they’ll need to come up with at least $2 million more per season than they are spending now on the player. He comes in at just over $2 million on the team’s salary cap and speculation is that it will take at least $4 million by four years to get him to consider an extension. If you count the $1 million in increased salary cap money, Holland really only needs to find an extra $1-$1.5 million somewhere.
Edmonton may go bridge deal with Jesse Puljujarvi this summer. They may also be considering a long-term extension in an attempt to lock him into a better deal longer term and get the win if he explodes offensively. His underlying numbers suggest he has the potential to do so and if he figures out the consistency in his game, Edmonton getting Puljujarvi on a five-year deal or longer could wind up being a huge win if the price is right.

BLH’s Thoughts: The feeling I get is that Ken Holland is going to explore finding new homes for Tyson Barrie and Zack Kassian and hopefully not take much back in salary. If he can accomplish that somewhat challenging task, he’ll use the newfound cap room to re-sign his young RFAs, Evander Kane (his new Brendan Shanahan, btw), and bring in a goalie.

Keep in mind, somebody’s signing isn’t going to get announced until the first day of the season when Oscar Klefbom’s contract is put on LTIR. So don’t get too antsy if Pulju or Yamo’s deals aren’t announced right away.

Oh, and Koskinen isn’t coming back to Edmonton at a discount rate. Bob Stauffer put his range a $1.5M to $2.5M, and I’m thinking he might get a bit more than that yet. Maybe the Rangers would dole out some skrilla to reunite him with his old CSKA goaltending partner, Mr. Shesterkin.

Oil on Whyte

Going “all in”

I’ve seen a large contingent of Edmonton Oilers fans saying the Oilers need to go “all in” because it’s year seven of Connor McDavid‘s contract… This is an overly simplistic view of where the Edmonton Oilers are as a franchise and is exhibit A as to why fans don’t run the team and never will… Whoever thinks this out there is incredibly naive and unaware of how doing business in the NHL works.
…the Edmonton Oilers are not yet in a state where they can start going all in, mortgaging the future for the present to put them over the top… They still need the future to develop first because they’re not yet a cup contender. Playoff contender, absolutely, but not cup contender.
…if your GM doesn’t have a proper pulse on the franchise it can turn things sideways very quickly. We have multiple historical and current precedents to this.
- The San Jose Sharks at the beginning of the 2000s…
- None of the moves they made put them over the top, and they traded away a lot of draft picks in the process. To make things worse, San Jose bought into the myth that for sustained success you have to keep the band together.
- Now what they have for their efforts are decent forward pieces in Logan Couture and Timo Meier whose efforts will be undone by the fact that they haven’t drafted a decent goalie, and three boat anchor contracts on D in Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, and the pickle man Marc-Edward Vlasic.
- The Vegas Golden Knights, who came out of nowhere to get to the Stanley Cup finals in their first year of existence only to fall off the map after that.
- Since then, they’ve lost their grip on the division lead as of this season.
- Not to mention they’ve invested just under $20 million of cap space between the acquisition of Eichel and signing Alex Pietrangelo as a free agent. The latter’s contract is a bit worrisome as he’s 32 and signed until he’s 38.
- Meanwhile, for their efforts the Knights are going to be missing their own first, third, and fourth round picks this year, and one of their first or second round picks next year.
- They’re also limping along being over $11 million over the cap. If it weren’t for the fact that Mark Stone’s contract is taking up most of that they’d be in trouble. It’s not even a career ender so who knows what’ll happen when they have to pay him again?
- The Minnesota Wild also went all in with big money contracts to Zack Parise and Ryan Suter in the 2012 offseason, and in the last 10 years what did they get for their efforts? 0 Cup Finals appearances, never mind a winner. They were playoff contenders much like the Oilers are now, but they never did take the next step to Cup contenders.
So before declaring that the Edmonton Oilers should go “all in,” take a step back and remember what it means.
- It means high risk. It means big money. It means there’s no guaranteed chance of success.
- It means Cap hell whether you’re right or wrong, and that can delve into having to make salary dump moves that means an exit of valuable quality of player development.
- It means setting the franchise’s development back for years if you’re wrong.
Most of all, if you’re wrong it means guaranteed failure for the franchise for years to come.

BLH’s Thoughts: Thank you, Phil.

The weakest narrative in hockey is that a GM has wasted yet another year of Player X’s prime as if there said player is the only one in the league whose career is one year shorter because his team didn’t win. And aside from that, even if that club’s GM did go all-in and they didn’t win, the same folks that were bitching and moaning for him to make some blockbuster deadline moves would be the first ones complaining that he made the wrong moves… Give me a break.

The Oilers are finally on the brink of having a pipeline that is constantly developing 1-2 NHLers every season but isn’t quite there yet. I’d say starting next year when Tullio, Savoie, and Bourgault join Holloway and Lavoie, they organization will be in year one of that developmental revolution with regards to its forwards. The defense is there in my opinion and the goaltending is a short step behind the forwards but promising with the recent signing of Fanti.

So what that means is that next season Ken Holland can delve into that pool a tiny bit and move maybe one of his young forwards and/or one of his dmen. Any more than that and he’ll cull the herd a tad too much. Shrewd moves are required to keep the machine moving.

Trade Rumors

Spector’s Hockey: In a recent mailbag segment, Adam Vingan was asked what it would mean for the Nashville Predators’ salary cap if they signed Filip Forsberg to a new contract in the range of $9 million per season.
- Kurt Leavins recently pondered how the Oilers can hang onto Evander Kane… Making that happen could require some hard decisions about younger players such as Kailer Yamamoto and Jesse Puljujarvi, who will become restricted free agents this summer.
NHLRumors.com: From what has heard, it doesn’t seem like Philadelphia Flyers interim head coach Mike Yeo will be back next season.
- If the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to be looking at trading a defenseman this offseason, Brian Dumoulin is of some concern and he may be the guy they look to move and not John Marino or Marcus Pettersson.

BLH’s Thoughts: If he Oilers can move out Barrie’s and Kassian’s contracts, that will make re-signing Kane, Yamamoto, and Puljujarvi less complicated. Maybe there’s a way they’ll find a new home for Mike Smith, but I think that one’s up in the air and probably just wishful thinking for concerned fans.