Yesterday was a busy day for Edmonton Oilers rumors. Between Elliotte Friedman and Ryan Rishaug, Oilers Twitter was en Fuego with proposals! Couple that with a 7-2 shellacking of the Buffalo Sabres and it was an emotionally confusing time.
I got a message from two of my sources last night with regards to some potential moves the Oilers are looking at as well. Those will follow the Friedman and Rishaug segments.
We’ll try to make this a brief post to save you some time.
**Preface: Use your own judgment here. I’m only a guy who happens to know some people within, or very close to, a professional hockey organization. I’m not an insider per se, but I hear things and I’ve been given permission to pass them on to you. All of this could come true or none of it could. It’s more likely the latter because things change all of the time. My advice, treat this like water cooler banter and don’t take it too seriously. It’s all entertainment at the end of the day anyhow, right?**
Let’s start with Elliotte Friedman. He was on the NHL network and was asked about what’s going on with the Oilers, he had this to say,
I think a lot of these are business-driven decisions. The Oilers ticket season renewals are going out soon. They’re in the third year of the new arena and a number of their suites are three-year leases, so they’re up again and when you have decisions like this that you need to make about selling tickets, about selling suites, the idea of stepping back and missing the playoffs, I don’t think ownership is that interested in.
So I think they are looking for more scoring. They let it be known that Ryan Spooner is available. I think people know that Puljujarvi could be available. There was a report today that they’ve made their first round draft pick available and one of their goalies, Talbot or Koskinen available.
That says to me that that’s a team that is desperate to make the playoffs this year and they’re going to go out and see if they can find someone to play with McDavid.
Some reports on Twitter came up not long after this aired that said Friedman was saying Puljujarvi IS available. In that interview, he only said he “could” be available. This dovetails with what he said in the Jan. 2nd edition of 31 Thoughts when he wrote: “Jesse Puljujarvi’s future is uncertain”
What this says to me is that Puljujarvi’s name is coming up in talks and the Oilers are listening but there’s no urgency to move him per se.
Every team listens to offers on every player they have. It’s that simple and the reason for that is you never know when a GM is going to ring you up and offer you Taylor Hall, right?
I think you know my stance on Pulju, you don’t deal a 20-year-old who hasn’t quite panned out after you’ve screwed up his development path. You double down and do your best to put that player on the path to success and do what you can. 20-years-old is far too young to give up on a player in my opinion. Besides, he’s up for contract renewal this summer and he’s a good candidate for a value deal as he’s just about to turn the corner as a full-time NHLer.
If the Oilers deal him now, they’ll regret it. Just like they did with all the other kids they pilfered off. We’re not talking about Nail Yakupov here. We’re talking about a young man who spends extra time after practise to work on his game and has done nothing but listen to the instructions of his coach(es) since joining as a fresh 18-year-old.
Chiarelli has to stand firm here and throw his support behind Jesse.
Oilers organization is on a full court press to find help at forward. Scouts and staff deployed en masse.
Cap situation could make it tough, but first round pick, a goaltender, maybe a young developing forward likely all in play.
— Ryan Rishaug (@TSNRyanRishaug) January 14, 2019
That tweet had Oilers twitter running around with its head cut off. I don’t know why though. The assumed players (Talbot and Puljujarvi) have been in the rumor mill for over a year.
Rishaug also had this to say on Jason Gregor’s show yesterday afternoon,
I think they’re trying really hard and they’re looking for something that makes sense but when you’re talking about a first round pick, you’re talking about Jesse Puljujarvi, well you have to bring players back that you can control. You can’t do that for rentals possibly.
So those are hard deals to find and then you’ve got the money issue that all those players come with probably pretty good price tags.
So it’s not easy to do, if it was, they’d have done it already. And on top of it all, you’ve got a general manager who has misfired pretty badly recently. It’ll be interesting IF or WHAT he can pull off here but I know they are definitely trying and scouring all corners right now.
Leave it to Rishaug to name Puljujarvi but not Talbot or Koskinen.
Moving on, the messages I got from my sources were thus,
Oilers are in talks to get Ho-Sang from the Isles… Sounds like it might be Pulju going the other way. I hope not. I like Yamo and Pulju but I think one of them goes.
Chiarelli won’t go for Simmonds. Price is too high.
The Oilers need a winger for Connor and Ho-Sang isn’t that guy.
That was from Source A.
God forbid Chiarelli deal Jesse Puljujarvi to the Islanders straight across for Josh Ho-Sang. I will hop on board the #FireChiarelli bandwagon so fast it’ll feel like I was there the whole time.
Now if it’s Yamamoto on the other hand, I would be okay with that.
More realistically, the Oilers should just be sending over a prospect or one of their extra defensemen. Say, Matt Benning, Brandon Manning, or Kevin Gravel. Ryan Spooner would probably be most ideal.
Ho-Sang has 24 points in 27 games for the Islanders farm team in Bridgeport. Amazingly, only two of those 24 points are goals. I’m not sure I’ve seen that before.
He’s far too good for the AHL but what I’m worried about is another Ryan Spooner debacle. I simply don’t see Ho-Sang as the kind of player Ken Hitchcock is going to play a lot and two points in ten games playing good minutes for the Islanders doesn’t illicit optimism.
On the other hand, this is how the Islanders have controlled the shot share when Ho-Sang has been on the ice for them this season,
He only had the one goal and one assist in 10 games, but the Islanders had 60 percent of the shots on goal with Ho-Sang on the ice, along with 53.7 percent of the scoring chances and 57.6 percent of the high-danger chances, as measured by Natural Stat Trick. (source)
That is from The Athletic, if you need a subscription, click HERE.
What you can’t take away from the Islanders troubled winger is his high skill level. He’s very good with the puck but coaches like Ken Hitchcock, Barry Trotz, and the likes, can’t accept his effort on the other side of the puck.
But you have to ask yourself, is this the kind of trade that is going to get the Oilers over the hump and clear their path to the playoffs?
Source B had this to say,
I know Cam has been discussed but I have no direct knowledge of the team offering or being interested in trading Puljujarvi.
My feeling is that Mikko Koskinen is going to get four or five starts here before the 10-day break and that will determine if the Oilers keep him or Cam Talbot leading up to the trade deadline.
The Oilers can go a couple of different routes leading up to the trade deadline at the end of February here.
- Option #1: Deal away large contracts with picks and prospects and set themselves up for a clean slate going into the next season.
- Option #2: Deal away large contracts with picks and prospects and set themselves up for a good run at the playoffs.
The first option obviously means that Chiarelli would at some point be relieved of his duties as GM of the team. The second option would be the ultimate gamble but the payoff could be the largest.
I’m betting that Darryl Katz is tired of being the laughing stock of the NHL and he’d prefer to go with option #2 but man is that a waste if it fails. Not only that but the league, the media, and the fans of every team (including your own) continue to laugh heartily at the joke that is the Edmonton Oilers.
There is an option #3 and that is to leave things as they are and ride this roster to whatever place in the standings that may come. If the recent uptick in secondary scoring continues to climb, there’s a real chance that no trades would need to be made.
What do you think? Which option would you take? Let us know in the comments below!
