Could Nashville be a Destination for this Edmonton Oilers Winger?

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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Cult of Hockey

Can the off-season work of Ken Holland add up to an Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup

If it ends up the Oilers gave Colorado a better series than Tampa could, do we then view the 4-game sweep Edmonton suffered in the Western Conference Final in a different frame?
Andrei Kuzmenko was in Edmonton this past week. The free agent Russian interviewed with the Oilers. A few clubs are in on him… Expect some clarity by the end of this week.
I keep seeing some folks say that for Evander Kane money ($7+ million per), the Oilers could sign 2 or 3 players… When trading quality for volume, that kind of math rarely adds up to wins. In any deal, get the best player.
What will Duncan Keith’s decision be? Those in-the-know put the chances of him retiring at a slim 15-30%… it would be hard for anyone to just skate away from a $5.5m contract…
There are seemingly lots of people who would move on from Tyson Barrie to free up cap space. I get the math. But 40-point, right-shot D-men do not grow on trees..
I fully expect Jay Woodcroft to have a 3-year contract extension as Head Coach of the Edmonton Oilers before the month of June is out… I would think the money would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5m (U.S.) per. I would also be very surprised if Assistant Coach Dave Manson does not get the same length of deal as Woodcroft…
I would not be surprised if the G.M. is looking for some internal candidates to fill those blueline holes with their ELC salaries.
- Prime candidates for bottom-pairing NHL minutes in 2022-23: Philip Broberg, Vincent Desharnais, Dmitri Samorukov, Markus Niemelainen.
- And of note, if Barrie were to get shipped out, the only RHS of that bunch is the 6’7 230 LB Desharnais. Just sayin’…

BLH’s Thoughts: The Avs’ sweep of the Oilers wasn’t a true indicator of Colorado’s dominance in my eyes because so many of the Oilers major players were competing well under 100%. Draisaitl, Nuge, Smith, Nurse, Yamamoto, Puljujarvi, and Kane just to name a few. I know that series would’ve been a different story had those players been even close to healthy.

I don’t expect Kuzmenko to sign in Edmonton. It’s never been a location that the Russians have happily gone to. Vegas, Vancouver, the East coast or the West coast teams are more likely bets in my mind. But if he wants to win AND cash-in at the same time, the Oilers are probably his best bet. We’ll see though.

Leavins knows that Duncan Keith isn’t making $5.5M, right? His actual salary is $1.5M, isn’t it? So he wouldn’t actually be walking away from $5.5M, only $1.5M, but still, who walks away from that?

As for that bottom pairing spot on the right-side should Barrie get moved, Broberg and Samorukov have played their off-side and I don’t believe it would be a far-fetched idea that Holland would bring in another RS dman. Josh Brown, Matthew Benning, Mark Pysyk, and Jan Rutta are all slated to become UFAs this summer but with that said, none of those players are as good as Tyson Barrie either.

Copper and Blue

Where Does Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Fit In 2022-23?

…the argument could be made that Nugent-Hopkins has never been able to drive a line at even strength during his NHL career.
…using Nugent-Hopkins as a second line centre on a team with Stanley Cup aspirations in 2022-23 would most likely be a bad bet to make.
Over four of the last three seasons, he’s been a guy who could score goals on the power play but the one year in which that didn’t happen was this year, scoring one time in 63 games.
At this stage in his career, if he’s going to be used on a line with either McDavid or Draisaitl, putting the puck in the net is an absolute must.
Option two, would see using Nugent-Hopkins as the team’s third line centre but with due respect to the four-time 20-goal scorer, when given the opportunity during the playoffs, McLeod looked better suited for the role.

BLH’s Thoughts: As I wrote yesterday, Nuge’s shooting percentage was well under his career average. I think it was 7 or 8 percent at even strength and his career sh% is up around 11 I believe. So he’s due for a bounce back campaign should the Oilers fail in their attempts to bring Andrei Kuzmenko to town and are required to place RNH in their top-six.

Trade Rumors

Spector’s Hockey

Chris Johnston reports the Nashville Predators would like to bring back Filip Forsberg. However, it’s not clear at this point if they’ll be able to do that.
- They could attempt to sign Valeri Nichushkin if the Colorado Avalanche winger becomes an unrestricted free agent next month. Another option is acquiring Jesse Puljujarvi from the Edmonton Oilers as a reclamation project.
Pierre LeBrun reports the Montreal Canadiens are working on trading Jeff Petry though there’s no guarantee a deal will take place. Five or six teams have expressed an interest in the 34-year-old defenseman.
Andrew Gillis recently examined possible goaltending candidates for the Capitals if they part ways with Ilya Samsonov or Vitek Vanecek this summer. He suggested monitoring the New York Islanders’ Semyon Varlamov and Los Angeles Kings’ Jonathan Quick.
Sammi Silber recently cited Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos claiming the Florida Panthers are shopping starting goalie Sergei Bobrovsky hard, so much so they’re willing to retain as much as 50 percent of his $10 million annual cap hit.

NHLRumors.com

The coaches the Panthers have spoken with include Pete DeBoer, Travis Green, Rick Tocchet, Barry Trotz and potentially Paul Maurice.
Pierre LeBrun on Insider Trading said the Edmonton Oilers have met with the agent for pending UFA defenseman Brett Kulak. There hasn’t been an offer presented yet. It has to be a cap number that fits for the Oilers.
GM Ken Holland has told Evander Kane‘s agent they’d like to talk and there is a mutual interest.
- “I think Kane likes to fit there, but there are other teams circling. Kane is going to meet with his agent next week to formulate a game plan.” – Pierre LeBrun
Jeff Marek on The Jeff Marek Show yesterday on Josh Anderson: “As wild as this sounds, I’ve always wondered about Columbus trying to get him back. As I look at that team and what that team needs, I’ve always wondered about Columbus saying I wonder if we can get Josh Anderson back?”

BLH’s Thoughts: As far as a trade with Nashville that has Puljujarvi going to the Preds, there are only a few names I’d personally be interested in and those include Tanner Jeanot, Phil Tomasino, and Yaroslav Askarov.

I really liked Brett Kulak in the playoffs but I hold the young dmen Edmonton has coming up in high regard as well and they’re on the verge of breaking through. In addition to that, Kulak is going to be looking for term and if he signs three or four year deal with the Oilers anything over $2M (as he probably should), that’s going to block somebody from graduating for at least a year until Duncan Keith’s contract expires. I’d be willing to bet the Oilers could find another Kulak if needed, but Philip Broberg, Dmitri Samorukov, or Markus Niemelainen should be on the third pair next season to give Ken Holland some more cap flexibility.