Earlier this week, Sportsnet’s Mark Spector and Edmonton Oilers play-by-play colorman Bob Stauffer were discussing the futures of three of Edmonton’s upcoming unrestricted free agents. The big question was, out of Tyson Barrie, Adam Larsson, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who should the Oilers prioritize?
Stauffer: “Craig Button was on TSN yesterday and said that he believes the priority of sequence for the three UFAs should be Tyson Barrie first, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins second, and Adam Larsson third.
I would actually flip Larsson and Barrie. I think Larsson and Nugent-Hopkins are going to get re-signed here. What say you Mr. Spector?”
Spector: “Here’s what everyone is going to need to know here about Ken Holland’s job over the summer. He needs to convince all of these guys that they’re not all hitting home runs here, right? Everybody isn’t going to hit a home run. Nurse is coming up soon, you got Barrie, you got Larsson, you got Nugent-Hopkins.
If I’m Barrie and I think I’m worth $6M, I’m probably going to have to take closer to $5M to play in Edmonton or I’m going to go somewhere else. That’s just a fact. They can’t sign all of these guys, Bob. They don’t have the money to sign them to maximum contracts.
To me, is Barrie a mercenary? He did his one year here like Hall did in Buffalo but it went well for Barrie. He’s the third leading scorer among defensemen. If he’s hitting a home run, he ain’t hitting it here. So that’s the first thing for me.
Adam Larsson’s money is a lot more reasonable. He’s should be a guy you can fit in here. In fact, he may make less than he’s making right now. Adam Larsson signs here in my opinion. Absolutely for sure!
And Nugent-Hopkins is a probably for me here, Bob. But I guess I want to say to you, what could you do out there for $6M in this current NHL economy? What could you do? You could get TWO players that could certainly do the equivalent to what Nugent-Hopkins does for ya and maybe more.”
BLH’s Thoughts: As I said yesterday, my feeling is that Ken Holland has a number in mind for each one of these players and if they’re not willing to agree to that figure or close to that figure, he’s happy to go into free agency without their names on a contract.
I’d have them ranked in this order, 1. Larsson 2. Nugent-Hopkins 3. Barrie.
The reason I have Larsson at #1 and Barrie at #3 is because Edmonton has Evan Bouchard and Ethan Bear already primed for full-time NHL duty but none of them bring the kind of game that The Iron Swede does. In fact, outside of Darnell Nurse, the Oilers don’t have any more NHL ready defenders who can bring that physical shut-down game.
I like RNH’s positional versatility but I’m concerned about his production this year. It’s not horrible but it’s not where it should be either. I also am not enamored with the idea of paying him more than $6M when Edmonton could use that money to sign Tomas Tatar or Philip Danault (or both) and promote a guy like Ryan McLeod or Dylan Holloway.
If Ken Holland wanted to stack his bottom-six, this would be a good year to do it. There should be a lot of available course-correction options for the Oilers where players who’ve played their careers on the 3rd or 4th line but have been paid like a 1st or 2nd liner. I talking about the Nick Boninos, Casey Cizikas’, and Darren Helms. We haven’t even mentioned Adam Lowry but there’s a pretty strong belief that the Jets will bring him back.
I mean the likes of Mikael Granlund, Erik Haula, and Alexander Wennberg could hit the market as well. To date, that’s 27 goals amongst the trio this season for $7.75M only and maybe even cheaper next season…
The Oilers have the increase the strength of its depth next year and I don’t see players like Tyler Benson or Cooper Marody doing that. McLeod might because of his fantastic skating/speed, bigger body, and the potential to use him on the PK, but I think the days of having a handful of first/second year players on the team are over and they should be.
This team needs to have a 3rd line that is a scoring threat in addition to being a fantastic two-way weapon and on that line it needs to possess a faceoff specialist. Pick your poison be that Luke Glendening or Brandon Sutter or Ryan Getzlaf, but they NEED to get that guy in.
How would you feel about a 2021-22 roster that looked like this:
Tatar-McDavid-Puljujarvi
Granlund-Draisaitl-Yamo
McLeod-Wennberg-Kahun
Shore-Khaira-Archibald
Kassian, HaasI like that 5v5, Tomas Tatar is very good. I think he’s over 2 points per 60 this year and is good for around 50-60pts in a full season. Mikael Granlund is a really nice option because you’re going to want a player who can play on the PK and he’s averaging OVER two minutes per game on the penalty kill this year.
That third line is going to be your soft-minutes/starts line but it boasts quite a bit of skill. I’d like to have an upgrade on Kahun there but the FA market really isn’t strong there and I think Kahun would come back at the league minimum. Alexander Wennberg has been good on the dot this year (51%) but he’s a lefty… I took his skill, youth, size, and skating over Glendening’s lack of all of those things and his elite faceoff-taking.
There’s not a whole lot to say about the 4th line. All three of the players on that line have the coach’s trust and they’re bargain bin cheap.
Nurse-Bear
Klefbom-Larsson
Kulikov-Bouchard
Russell, JonesI don’t know if Klefbom is coming back, so this is pretty optimistic of me to include him. Although, if he couldn’t come back, I’d probably still like to see Kulikov return if he does well through the end of this year. Another player I fancy is Mike Rielly who the Oiler saw a lot of when they played Ottawa. He’s gritty but he can move the puck as well.
Smith
Driedger (Korpisalo/Merzlikins)My feeling is that Mr. Holland finds a way to give Mikko Koskinen a new home and brings back Mike Smith but more in a mentorship role to the new no.1, be that Chris Driedger, Joonas Korpisalo, Elvis Merzlikins, or who ever. It could be Darcy Kuemper for all I know or Jonathan Quick. Either way, I think we’ll be seeing a new face between the pipes next year.
I like the three options above because I don’t know if they’ll be the types to break the bank salary-wise and that will be important.
All in all, I do believe my proposed roster could end up with the Oilers having some excess room under the cap that they could definitely take advantage of come trade deadline time perhaps in the same way that Detroit, Chicago, and San Jose did this past week… And depending on where Edmonton is in the standings, the UFA crop for 2022 is mouth watering… Here are some of the options that might be available,
- Evgeni Malkin (PIT)
- PK Subban (NJ)
- Claude Giroux (PHI)
- Kris Letang (PIT)
- Phil Kessell (ARI)
- Filip Forsberg (NSH)
- Alexander Barkov (FLA)
- Tomas Hertl (SJ)
- Sean Couturier (PHI)
- John Klingberg (DAL)
- David Perron (STL)
- Rickard Rakell (ANA)
Gross… And you know how much Ken Holland LOVES his veteran superstars…
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