Edmonton Oilers Talk: Smith’s Back, Trading Broberg PLUS the Latest NHL Rumors

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!

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The Cult of Hockey

Might Mikko Koskinen be the odd man out once Mike Smith returns to Oilers’ crease?

Firstly, the newly-announced taxi squad would be the obvious landing spot for whichever of Koskinen or Stuart Skinner is odd man out.
Skinner remains waivers exempt this season so could only be assigned to Bakersfield, while Koskinen would have go through the waiver route first, but then could be re-assigned to either Bako or the taxi squad.
As for the second issue, both PuckPedia and CapFriendly agree the Oilers had exactly $536,667 in cap space over the extended holiday break. The squad would need to open up some $1,663,333 more cap space to accommodate for Smith.
A return of Skinner to the farm would open up just $750,000, whereas if Koskinen were to be reassigned, that would open up $1.125 million of cap space, the maximum that can be “buried” on a single contract.
Even without dipping in to the Roster Emergency Exception, the club could assign Broberg to either Bakersfield or the taxi squad, which would free up both his cap hit of $863k and an additional $146k against the performance bonus limit (stick tap to Hart Levine of PuckPedia ). Call it a million bucks in total. Then the club could reassign Niemelainen from IR to LTIR, freeing up another $817k. The Finn has already missed 2 weeks of action with a hand issue and isn’t that close to returning.

The #LetsGoOilers sent Broberg 🔽. In addition to his $863K Cap Hit, they also save $146K due to no longer exceeding perf. bonus pool, for $1M total cap hit savings.

Now have $1.545M Cap Space
To activate Mike Smith ($2.2M) from LTIR, need to clear $655Khttps://t.co/yC72vfAUSy pic.twitter.com/Lthp6Dpsgg

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) December 29, 2021

BLH’s Thoughts: Bloody salary cap… It really does my head in… From the sounds of it, Mike Smith is chomping at the bit to get going here and it’s hard to blame him.

Here’s what the Oilers actually did this morning,

Smith activated off LTIR

Skinner loaned to @Condors

Broberg loaned to taxi squad

Konovalov recalled to taxi squad

How Smith does in his return is really going to have a big impact on how the Oilers treat the trade deadline.

Now, we all know that, but there has to be a little bit of leash given from the get-go here, doesn’t there? Nobody should expect him to be Olympian Mike Smith after being on the shelf for almost three months, but how long should that leash be realistically? A week? Five games? Two weeks?

The Athletic

Luca Munzenberger’s play at world juniors and Vermont has Oilers excited: ‘He’s like Big Bird, but a mean Big Bird’

Munzenberger has developed a reputation in the Hockey East division as someone who wants to “kill everybody” with a thundering check. He’s already been suspended this year for crushing an opponent.
“The first three or four games were a huge adjustment to him. He was running around. He didn’t understand the size of the ice,” Woodcroft said. “He was looking to blow up everybody, every shift, with a huge hit.”
“He’s blown up four or five guys this year where you’re just like, ‘How was that guy even walking?’” Woodcroft said.
“You’ve got to tone him down at times — and I think that’s a good thing,” Wright said. “Anytime you have to try to tone a kid down rather than having to try to ramp him up, it’s a good scenario.”
He (Woodcroft) compared Munzenberger to Jets blueliner Josh Morrissey in the way both keep the puck in at the blue line, make a quick up in the neutral zone and feed a retrieval pass to a winger.
He tries to emulate the way Darnell Nurse operates in terms of skating, joining the rush, tackling big minutes, defensive play and aggressive play.
Woodcroft sees him as a three-year collegiate player at least.

BLH’s Thoughts: When the Oilers picked Munzenberger I didn’t know what to think. I’d not read any scouting reports on him at the time, but considering how much I love throwback players, if he’s as physical as his coach is saying, I like it.

Now, that said, I remember a local lad named Josh Healey (former Sherwood Park Crusader) that eventually ended up with Calgary who used to blow guys up in the NCAA and today he’s a career AHLer playing for the Milwaukee Admirals.

So I hope Todd Woodcroft has that same special touch that his brother in Bakersfield has because the Oilers might just need this guy in two or three years for a playoff run.

NHL Trade Talk

Oilers May Have to Make Tough Decision Regarding Philip Broberg Trade

The only reason Broberg would likely be in the discussion is if a better, more NHL-ready and playoff-producing defenseman were to come in. This is why the Oilers have been linked to a name like Jakob Chychryun.

BLH’s Thoughts: Broberg isn’t in any discussions. Trading him would mean Ken Holland would be admitting he made a mistake selecting him ahead of say… Trevor Zegras or Spencer Knight in the 2019 draft.

Edmonton’s swift-skating Swede hasn’t shown anything to raise concerns over his long-term future and Holland is going to see this guy through.