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Oilersnation
Which Forward Slides Out of the Oilers’ Top Nine?
- Yamamoto, Puljujarvi, Foegele, and McLeod are the four I see battling to avoid starting on the fourth line.
- Today, I see it being Foegele or Puljujarvi who will be the odd man out, but it might only be for one game. It will be a fluid situation that changes based on how guys are playing.
- Puljujarvi is a natural right winger, so that gives him an advantage over Foegele.
- A trade that involves moving out some salary would give the Oilers more roster flexibility. But it would also weaken their top-nine depth.
- A deal hasn’t been made thus far, because Ken Holland doesn’t want to just give him away for a third-round draft pick. He doesn’t have to trade Puljujarvi. He is a bonafide NHL player. He can keep him, but it means the Oilers will have a 21-man roster to start the season.
- A trade won’t be made just because Holloway is pushing for a spot and suddenly the Oilers have 10 forwards to fill the top-nine. A trade will be done to give them some cap flexibility.
BLH’s Thoughts: Gregor makes a solid point in that if they trade Puljujarvi, it weakens their top-nine. It’s clear as day that Foegele is a bottom-six winger and that, to me, makes him an expendable asset. Mind you, he’s not the only one. I think the Oilers could move Derek Ryan, Brad Malone, or Mattias Janmark too, but each player comes with his own safety net as to why they wouldn’t right?
Another thing, I don’t ‘think it’s a very prudent idea to have Holloway starting in Edmonton’s top-six in his rookie year as it is. Why throw him to the wolves right off the bat like that? A line of him, McLeod, and JP would be entertaining as hell! Throw Nuge back up with Leon and Kailer and have Hyman head over to the RW with Connor and Kane… RNH, a $5.5M player, shouldn’t be playing on the third line as it is.
Of course, the above scenario would mean Foegele would be on the 4th line with Janmark and Ryan, but seeing as Woodcroft had him there in the playoffs (when he wasn’t in the press box), there should be a level of comfortability in a roster move like that.
For what it’s worth, there are other options to sort out the Oilers’ cap issues than trading Puljujarvi or even Foegele… But it would mean moving out somebody who’s beloved in the dressing room and keeping one of the PTOs.
https://twitter.com/DKingBH/status/1577649450008428545
Daily Faceoff
- There really hasn’t been much of a market there…
- I don’t think it’s any secret the Oilers attempted to move on from him this summer. They changed their ask. They were first looking for a player back, then looking for a pick back and I think it’s slid to this point.
- With Puljuajrvi on a one-year deal at $3 million, I don’t know if teams are out there looking at it saying ‘hey, we’re going to get a lot of value out of this player for $3 million.
- Maybe on his previous contract it would’ve been different and I think at this point, there hasn’t been enough of a market there to make the Oilers want to pull the trigger.
BLH’s Thoughts: This is hilarious. During the summer, all we heard was that teams weren’t making any offers on Puljujarvi because they were afraid of what he might get in arbitration and now we’re hearing that the market is dry because teams aren’t sure if they’re going to get $3M worth of value? What a crock of shit that is.
Every team in the league knew that there was a chance Jesse would be qualified at $3M. All of them and do you think none of them knew about his pending arb. case last season when his salary was more palpable? Who’s this guy trying to fool?
a little catch and release 😏 pic.twitter.com/44DpRJaMQN
— Evander Kane (@evanderkane) October 4, 2022
They didn’t make a good enough offer is what happened and what’s been happening all along because Ken Holland knows he has, at the very least, a middle-six two-way winger who is good for between 35 and 45 points. In addition to that, lets’s make an argument that every 10pts is equal to around $1M/yr, Puljujarvi, at $3M/yr is without question worth every penny he’s getting this year. Some might even go as far as to say he’s on a massive value contract.
GMs know that Edmonton is up shit creek a bit with regards to their cap and they’re trying to pinch Holland. Simple as that. Either trade JP for pennies on the dollar or include a sweetener with Foegele.
I know what I’d do. I’d trade Warren Foegele because we all know that seeing as the Oilers are in their Stanley Cup window right now they’ll be big fish hunting. Patrick Kane’s already been named and I think John Klingberg could be another. But make no bones about it, Holland is going to need a good young player to use to acquire these big names. Foegele can’t do that, but Puljujarvi might be able to.
So I don’t believe Frank Seravalli for one second when he says there’s not been a market for our big Finn. What he should be saying is there’s not a market there for Jesse at the price point Edmonton’s GM has set because there’s most definitely a market for him. If there truly wasn’t, Holland could slip him through waivers no problem but everybody and their dog knows that’s not happening.
