Edmonton Oilers Rumors: “Oilers Now host Bob Stauffer has mentioned that…”

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!

The latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation comes from all of the internet’s top sites like Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, and The Daily Goal Horn just to name a few!

If you’re short on time but want to keep up with the day’s Oilers news, you’ve come to the right place!

Give us a follow on the socials!

Oilersnation

Things that Ken Holland should and shouldn’t do, as Free Agency Day approaches

Barrie is also redundant on the roster due to the presence of Evan Bouchard…That $4.5M in cap space could be utilized on other roster needs and a much cheaper and affordable 3RD.
Especially with Keith’s retirement, it should be an obvious decision to re-sign Kulak. $2.5M is a perfectly reasonable price for a defenceman that should be able to reliably rotate between 2LD and 3LD.
…for Edmonton to achieve a cup-contending roster, limiting goals against should be the most significant priority. This begins with good goaltending.
Kuemper’s discouraging injury history is a concern, but he remains a fine target nevertheless. Jack Campbell is inconsistent, and an inferior goaltender to Kuemper, but he’s younger, likely cheaper, and less injury-prone. I still lean towards Kuemper, but both him and Campbell come with various risks.
Edmonton should also utilize their cap space to acquire a strong finisher.
Considering the Zack Kassian trade, Holland may feel the urge to target big physical players. He shouldn’t feel any requirement to do so.
Some physical players that have been mentioned on OilersNow include Nicolas Deslauriers, Nikita Zadorov, and Erik Gudbranson. On the bright side, Zadorov is a solid asset.
[On Zadorov] He utilizes his physicality to effectively deny the blue-line, as he’s a solid entry defender. I’m fine with him as a 3LD option, although he shouldn’t be a 2LD replacement for Keith.
[On Deslauriers] Deslauriers posts a large number of hits, and dumps the puck at a high rate, but he’s an offensive liability that doesn’t score, forecheck, skate, or defend well at 5v5 or on the PK. Acquiring him won’t massively weigh down the team, but Edmonton should simply not target replacement-level assets for the sake of inconsequential physicality. His hits just don’t accomplish much with respect to winning hockey games.
OilersNow host Bob Stauffer has mentioned that Deslauriers could obtain a four-year contract worth $2M in free-agency, which would be an immense error.
[Erik] Gudbranson is also a fairly ineffective two-way player at 5v5, and is abysmal at suppressing quality in-zone chances. I’m not a fan.
Signing Kane to an exceedingly lofty contract is the exact same type of decision-making and thought process that resulted in the Zack Kassian contract; over-paying for a heater alongside Connor McDavid. Kane also turns 31 in August, an age at which many forwards tend to decline.
Puljujarvi isn’t perfect, but he brings more value to the Oilers than counting stats indicate.
In fairness, most of Puljujarvi’s critics state that Puljujarvi is an awful finisher, and quite poor with the puck on his stick in the offensive zone; they would certainly be correct here.
Puljujarvi doesn’t make a high volume of quality passes in the offensive zone, largely due to the fact that his puck skills are poor. The creativity and skill are simply absent. Relative to the chances he obtains, he’s also an abysmal finisher. These are highly unpreferable traits for a player who consistently rides shotgun with Connor McDavid.
…he still achieves elite on-ice results due to his excellent play without the puck.
- Puljujarvi ranked eighth in the league last season in forecheck pressures per hour, as he excels at disrupting zone exits and forcing turnovers.
- Puljujarvi also ranks high among Edmonton’s roster in successful zone exits, puck recoveries, and defensive-zone retrievals.
- In the post-season, he ranked first among all Edmonton forwards in defensive-zone breakups.
If Edmonton desires to improve overall defensive play and limit goals against, trading Puljujarvi is completely contradictory to that objective.

BLH’s Thoughts: It’s gonna be a busy offseason but I don’t know if it will all happen at once. I’m thinking there’ll be a little burst of signings and then other moves will trickle in as the summer progresses. I’m not sure if there’s a lot of pressure on Holland to trade Puljujarvi or Barrie right now either.

The one thing I am curious about is who will be this year’s Cody Ceci? I feel like he came out of left field last year. Could Holland target Ben Chiarot seeing as his value might’ve dropped considering Florida got bounced in the first round? Will the Oilers walk away from Evander Kane to sign Dylan Strome and/or Dominik Kubalik? Can Edmonton compete with the likes of Colorado or Ottawa for Claude Giroux?

Now, as for avoiding players with a physical element to their game, I don’t think that’s happening at all and if Nic Deslauriers is only asking for Josh Archibald money, I’ve all over that every day of the week. I also like Nikita Zadorov but rumor has it he’s asking for around $4.5×4 and while he’s still in his mid-20s, that’s a bit of scratch.

That said, this team needs some bite. You can’t have all skill players and you can’t have all grinders. You’ve got to have diversity within the roster.

Another thing, is Connor Brown coming to Edmonton? Will Warren Foegele get moved? Is a Foegele-Brown trade something that might wait until the trade deadline?

On the goaltending, am I the only guy that’s a tad underwhelmed by what’s out there this year? No disrespect to Jack Campbell, who the Oilers are probably signing, and Darcy Kuemper, but man this crop of FA netminders is full of question marks.

Now with that in mind, IF Campbell does come to Edmonton, Ken Holland HAS to upgrade that blueline. He can’t have a group on defense who leak chances like the Oilers have done for years and years and years. If they try to go with the same game plan in 2022/23, Soupy is gonna get shellacked.

I like the idea of bringing back Kulak, but as a 3rd pairing skater. I want the Oilers to add skaters to their roster who have the ability to play up a line, do you know what I mean? So would it make sense to bring in a Chiarot to replace Keith and then have Kulak on the 3rd pair?

The Tyson Barrie thing is a tricky one. He wants to stay in Edmonton and there’s nobody saying that he couldn’t play on the 2nd unit PP as the Oilers transition Evan Bouchard into their PP QB on the first group. While at the same time, like Sid says, you don’t really want a $4.5M dman on your 3rd pairing either, but the conundrum comes when you are deciding who you’d like to replace Barrie with? Is it Philip Broberg you’d have playing his off side as a rookie or would you go shopping for somebody? The internal option right now is 6’8″ behemoth Vincent Desharnais and last I checked he’s not much of a puck mover and as I said earlier, there needs to be diversity all throughout the lineup.

Edmonton Sun

Keith, Kassian departures free up serious cash for Edmonton Oilers

One day after freeing up $3.2 million in salary cap space in a Zack Kassian trade, the Oilers now have an additional $5.5 million to work with in the wake of Duncan Keith’s impending retirement.
With the departures of Kassian and Keith freeing up $8.7 million in cap space, and goaltender Mike Smith ($2.2 million) and defenceman Oscar Klefbom ($4.1 million) expected to spend next season on long-term injured reserve, the Oilers could have as much as $22 million to work with this summer.
Holland also has an expensive shopping list. He needs a starting goalie, someone to replace Evander Kane if he can’t be re-signed and a top six right winger. He also has to sign pending UFA defenceman Brett Kulak and work out new deals with restricted free agents Jesse Puljujarvi (if he can’t be traded), Ryan McLeod and Kailer Yamamoto.
While their biggest moves at the draft were salary cap related, the Oilers did return home with a handful of players, most notably Spruce Grove’s Reid Schaefer (32nd overall), who they believe has the potential to be a power forward in the NHL.

“He goes to the hard areas and he stays there and when he’s not scoring he’s creating space for himself and his teammates.”

They used the fifth round pick (158th overall) to stock the shelves in goal, taking Samuel Jonsson from Brynas IF Gavle of the Swedish Hockey League.
In round six (190th overall), they went with defenceman Nikita Yevseyev of Bars Kazan in Russia. The six-foot-one, 187 pounder was ranked 80th among international skaters on ESPN.com’s draft list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQr1N3QXEs

Joel Maatta, a centre from the University of Vermont went 220th overall to Edmonton. The six-foot-two, 202-pounder plays under Todd Woodcroft, brother of Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft, so the scouting report out of Vermont is quite in depth.
- The 20-year-old was named Vermont’s best two-way forward and was also part of Team Finland at the 2021 World Junior Championship before it was cancelled.

BLH’s Thoughts: Man, I thought I was way off when I was projecting Edmonton’s possible cap space before but here we are.

I was out celebrating this weekend so I took it off from writing. Therefore I’ve not been able to comment on anything that’s happened since last Friday. Let’s change that, shall we?

The Kassian trade. Could it have been better? Probably, but the 2nd and 3rd rounders that were surrendered will be lucky to be regular NHLers in the 2028 season. Edmonton’s in it to win it right now so who the hell cares about those picks today? If Holland’s smart, he just uses that money to pay Puljujarvi for another year. Can’t see that happening though.

Reid Shaefer. You’d have to be living under a rock not to know the Oilers were taking this guy. Bob Stauffer was talking about him all year it seems and just as we’ve seen with free agency targets, the Oilers aren’t shy about letting it be known who they are taking at the draft.

I like the pick, but with that said, Holland was talking about good teams needing size on the wing but here we are awaiting a trade involving Jesse Puljujarvi and not Kailer Yamamoto.

Shaefer’s gonna be a beauty. Lots of folks complaining about not taking 150lb Jagger Firkus. I’m not sad Edmonton passed on this player because the Oilers already have a 150lb winger.

As far as the other picks go, I guess the Swedish goal is switching teams for next season. The one he played for last year was brutal apparently. So, who knows? I don’t expect him to play in Edmonton for another five, six, seven years, if at all.

I’ve read that the Russian defender is very physical and Holland’s had some experience with tough defenders from the motherland before.

In taking Maatta, he joins teammate Luca Munzenberger as another big bodied European skater plucked from Todd Woodcroft’s Univ. of Vermont hockey program. He’s a long-shot to make it but there’s probably no other team with a better report on the kid than Edmonton. Either way, if he makes it to the NHL, it won’t be as a point producer. Believe that.

Trade Rumors

Spector’s Hockey

[Lance] Hornby suggests the next several days could determine if Dubas is bold enough to move William Nylander and his palatable $6.96 million annual average value for cap space, defense or prospects.
Dave Feschuk also weighed in on the Leafs’ pressing need for a starting goaltender. Possible trade targets could include the Ottawa Senators’ oft-injured Matt Murray, the Minnesota Wild’s Cam Talbot or Gibson.
Larry Brooks reports it wouldn’t be surprising if the New Jersey Devils were still in the market for Jack Campbell if they can find a taker for Mackenzie Blackwood. He also believes the Edmonton Oilers will be interested in Campbell or Darcy Kuemper, who’s been linked to the Washington Capitals.
Larry Brooks suggests the Rangers should take a run at acquiring Patrick Kane as a one-year rental player instead of the Vancouver Canucks’ J.T. Miller.
Adrian Dater reports Samuel Girard could be a “moving piece” if the Avalanche should decide to shed salary in order to sign pending UFA defenseman Josh Manson.
Bruce Garrioch reports the Senators would like to upgrade their blueline with a right-shot defenseman. Options could include the Florida Panthers’ MacKenzie Weegar, the Arizona Coyotes’ Jakob Chychrun and the Pittsburgh Penguins’ John Marino.

BLH’s Thoughts: As it did with Zach Hyman last summer, it really feels like Jack Campbell to Edmonton is all but done, but if somebody comes in at the last second to submarine Holland’s deal with Campbell, I wouldn’t be surprised as that’s happened in the last two offseasons as well with netminding targets.