Around the Oilogosphere – May 4th Edition – Hurricanes’ #2 Overall Pick Available According to McKenzie, USA Downs Canada, Remenda on Oilers Fans, and Many NHL Rumors

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I hope you had a chance to take in that Canada/USA game World Championships game. Boy, it was a beauty! Connor McDavid and Matt Barzal were smiling like butcher’s dogs with so much room out there and they were electrifying!

Sadly Team Canada didn’t get much support from its goaltending and defense.

Darcy Kuemper looked like an AHL goalie and Darnell Nurse got caught out a couple of times on a bad pinch that resulted in goals against.

Canada plays Korea next on Sunday… What?! Korea?

BYE BYE AUVITU

Yohann Auvitu is off to Europe and that’s a shame. I really liked his game once he got comfortable. He moved the puck the right way and was a Coffey-like threat on the rush.

Unfortunately, Todd McLellan didn’t feel the same way. He never put Auvitu in a position to succeed (*cough* THE POWERPLAY *cough) and in my opinion didn’t allow himself to gain the trust in this player.

I truly feel that if McLellan had given Auvitu some more leash that the Frenchman would’ve been able to replace Andrej Sekera…

Everybody says the Oilers lacked a puck moving defenseman last year. No, they didn’t. They had one right under their noses…

HURRICANES MAKE #2 OVERALL AVAILABLE

On this week’s Bobcast, Bob McKenzie told us that the rumor was that after the 3 finalists for the 1,2,3 spots in the draft were drawn (at the draft lottery) during the break Carolina was very much interested in letting the league know that if they won the 1st overall pick it would be available for the right price.

Now once the draft lottery was over and the order had been said, Tom Dundon made it known that the no.2 was very much up for grabs and that they were going to consider all of their options according to McKenzie.

The kicker to all of this is Rick Dudley being hired away from the Montreal Canadiens, to be their VP of hockey ops.

In a 5-year span, Rick Dudley traded the 1st overall pick THREE TIMES according to Bob McKenzie. Between 1999 and 2003 Dudley moved that pick thricely.

1999: Tampa Bay had the #1 pick and traded it to Vancouver for the #4, #75, and #88. Was all part of the Sedinery as McKenzie calls it because Vancouver found a way to move it in order to be able to select both Sedin brothers. Atlanta ended up with the 1st overall and picked Patrik Stefan.
2002: Florida had the #1 but didn’t want to take Rick Nash, they wanted Bouwmeester, so they flipped picks and the option to swap 1st rounders in 2003 (that wasn’t exercised) with Columbus if Florida wanted. Interesting side note here is that Dudley sent two more picks to Atlanta (a 3rd rounder in 2002 and a 4th rounder in 2003) in order for them NOT to draft Bouwmeester at no.2.
2003: Florida had the #1 and traded it along with the #73 to Pittsburgh for #3, #55, and Mikael Samuelsson. FLA took Horton 3rd overall and PIT took MA Fleury 1st overall.

The Bobfather says that historically teams haven’t been willing to pay huge prices to move up because the teams further down the draft order aren’t willing to pay a massive premium to get up to no.2 because the player they take at no.2 isn’t all that different than the player they’ll get at 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th overall.

But is this year different? The Hurricanes are positioning themselves in way that hints to them moving that pick and as McKenzie tells us during the podcast, Rick Dudley was working very hard on the draft for the Canadiens before leaving for Carolina. So he’s going to have a deep knowledge of this year’s crop of players coming in. Moving down and pickup up more selections makes sense.

Now, how does this tie in with the Oilers?

Well, like it or not Oilers fans, Peter Chiarelli has been active at every draft he’s run for Edmonton. Be that talking about hockey trades or moving up in the draft, he’s had his nose in the thick of things every year and I don’t see this as any different.

IF Chiarelli wants to rid himself of some salary, he could do it here BUT it wouldn’t be a contract like Russell, Lucic, or Sekera. It’d be a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or a Leon Draisaitl in my opinion. I talked a bit about this yesterday (link).

I’m not saying I’d support a trade of that magnitude but the Hurricanes need a no.1 and I think that RNH or Leon would be that in the Eastern Conference. The Oilers could use to shed a few dollars and add depth on the wing. Svechnikov or Zadina will score 20 goals next year for sure. Would it be more on McDavid’s wing?

You can work out a trade proposal yourself but there are a few teams who are looking to shake their foundations, Carolina, Ottawa, and Buffalo. If the Oilers were smart, they’d be trying to fleece those guys.

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