Dealing Down at the Draft

I’ve been talking about the Oilers standing pat this summer and not doing a whole lot with regards to dealing out a big core piece but I haven’t talked about the Oilers trading down in the draft as much yet.

Today I’d like to present a scenario to you and you let me know in the comments below if you think that it is a realistic possibility. So here goes nothing!

You might’ve read Jonathan Willis’ latest post over at Oilersnation wherein he goes into depth framing a picture where the Oilers and Sabres could very well be excellent trade partners for each other. Read it here.

Basically he talks about the Oilers having too many LHD and the Buffalo Sabres having too many RHD. Willis also hypothesizes at a possible swap that could include the 8th overall pick and Zach Bogosian to the Oilers for Griffin Reinhart and the 4th overall.

To me that sounds fine. It could give the Sabres some reprieve cap-wise and a top 5 pick to which they could use to draft Matthew Tkachuk. It would alleviate some of the logjam the Oilers have on the left side of their defense and it would give them a legitimate shut-down defender at a great age (25yrs).

So for me it wouldn’t just stop there. I’d take that 8th overall pick and move it to the Avalanche plus Eberle or Yakupov for the rights to Tyson Barrie and the 10th overall pick. Elliotte Friedman talked about the Avs wanting a dman in return for any deal including Barrie on Friday’s Oilers Now but I have to wonder how much the relationship between Barrie and the Avs has deteriorated. Perhaps other pieces are included to make a deal work.

I think the Avs would love to get their hands on the left-shooting right-sided dman from Russia, Mikhail Sergachev and Edmonton could very well use that pick to take the gigantic Logan Brown, swift skating Jakob Chychrun, Johnny Gaudreau 2.0 Clayton Keller, or uber-intellect Tyson Jost. Patrick Roy loves his Russians but it’d open up a major hole on their D but is Sergachev NHL-ready? If so, that might ease the Avs’ worries.

If you really wanted to go all blue sky, they could use that pick (#10) and deal it to Anaheim for Sami Vatanen…

Imagine that. Peter Chiarelli picking up Barrie, Bogosian, and Vatanen and thus solidifying the Oilers defense for the next 5-7 years. Wouldn’t that be something.

Klefbom-Barrie
Sekera-Bogosian
Davidson/Nurse-Vatanen

Now THAT is some serious wishing.

What do you think? Do any of those scenarios make sense to you?

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