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The Hockey Writers
Oilers Could Be Forced to Trade Barrie with Bouchard Breakout
- The Edmonton Oilers will be forced to make a decision on defenceman Tyson Barrie in the next few seasons… they can’t afford a power-play specialist who won’t be needed on the power play for much longer $4.5 million a year.
- Edmonton has been grooming Evan Bouchard to fill Barrie’s role in the future… That timeline has fast-tracked in a major way since Bouchard has already looked very good to start the 2021-22 season.
- Bouchard’s entry-level contract is up in two seasons, and at the rate he is progressing, he is in store for a nice pay raise.
- By the time the Oilers have to re-sign Bouchard, there will only be three defencemen and nine (total) players still under contract: Darnell Nurse ($9.25 million average annual value (AAV)), Barrie ($4.5 million AAV), Cody Ceci ($3.25 million…
- Before the Oilers need to address Bouchard’s extension with the team, the focus will be on goaltending. He has already taken on some of Barrie’s duties offensively and defensively, so the time to sell high on Barrie is sooner than we had hoped.
- If Barrie continues to struggle defensively, and Bouchard plays well at both ends, we might see a permanent solution as soon as this year.
BLH’s Thoughts: Geez, we only got to game five and the “Barrie Out!” hot takes are coming in hard.
Barrie and Bouchard were always going to be a “thing” this year, but I reckon it’s by design. They’re interchangeable and that’s not a bad thing.
I think that Ken Holland has shown that he likes to have deep veteran-laden squads because he knows that there’s a very good chance any youngsters that make the team are going to have high peaks and deep valleys. Just look at Bouchard and Yamamoto right now for a good example of that.
It’s not uncommon for players of all types of experience to start their campaigns slowly and the ramp their form up as the season progresses, plus we don’t know what’s going on with Barrie. Maybe something off the ice is impacting his game or perhaps he’s dealing with a knock he picked up in the first four games of the year… Nevertheless, this is an elite offensive defenseman and we should be basing out expectations thusly. If you want him to play a perfect defensive game nightly, you’re going to be disappointed on the regular.
As for trading him, I also believe that to be the plan at some point here, but very doubtful it’ll come in year one of the new three season deal he just signed unless he asks out and I find that scenario far-fetched considering he wanted to play in Edmonton.
Now, the question we should be pondering throughout the year is, did the Edmonton Oilers make the right bet on Evan Bouchard over Ethan Bear? No matter how you look at Holland’s moves this summer, who would fill in at RHD on the first pairing was always going to be a story and so far, Bouch is winning the battle and it’s not even close.
Oilersnation
Zach and Warren
- GM Ken Holland’s to-do list this off-season had a lot of boxes to check off. Among them, he needed another scoring option in the top-six group of forwards. Hyman is providing that, and much more with his nose for the puck, willingness to forecheck and his ability to penalty kill. If he’s not near the puck, he’s on the way.
- Holland needed more out of his bottom six forward group. Foegele has helped provide that, jump-starting a third line that bangs some and scores some. As part of that process, Kassian has been as engaged and as good as we’ve seen him in a long time. That is no small matter.
BLH’s Thoughts: To be honest, I didn’t think that Hyman was going to go on a tear this early in the year, did you? God Damn, he’s a hard worker though, eh? He really brings a different element to the Oilers roster and McDavid’s line in particular. Opposing defensemen in the past could simply plan to try and defend McDavid off the rush, now they’ve got to deal with Hyman in the muck and I do wonder if that will cause them to tire quicker?
As for Foegele, I wish the club had more junkyard dogs like him. He’s not a reckless forechecker like Josh Archibald, but he’s a heavy dude that wins puck battles with unmitigated strength and compete.
Spector’s Hockey
ESPN.COM: Emily Kaplan reports Jack Eichel’s camp is meeting with the Buffalo Sabres in a final attempt to convince management to allow their client to undergo disc replacement surgery… Kaplan said sources claimed as many as five teams were interested in trading for Eichel.
TSN: Chris Johnston reports the Ottawa Senators want to add a center or winger to their top-nine forwards to further boost their offense. He pointed out they have 11 picks in next year’s draft to draw upon for trade bait.
OTTAWA SUN: Bruce Garrioch took note of Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman suggesting Senators defenseman Erik Brannstrom could become a trade chip.
Pierre LeBrun poured cold water on the notion the Montreal Canadiens might be interested in Chicago Blackhawks center Dylan Strome. He said the struggling Habs aren’t shopping around for help.
