Today’s Oilers Rumours: My Take

The Edmonton Oilers bye week is upon us and not that we’ve got 5 days of no Oilers hockey there’s not a lot going on in the rumor mill these days regarding the Oilers so what we’re seeing is some fan fiction being tossed about on Twitter. Today, we had two instances, one coming from Alan Hull (Copper and Blue) and another from Josh Marshall (I know you’re asking yourself, who? It’s fine, you’re not the only one wondering.) and I’m going to offer my commentary on both if you please. If you don’t, go here.

Let’s start with the more notable of the two.

I think Brain Boyle must be Brian Boyle’s smarter cousin or it could just be a typo. Anyways, I don’t think that the Lightning are looking to deal for Davidson. Reason being, they have younger dmen who are equally as good, if not better AND they have three actual NHL defenders on the left side in Hedman, Garrison, and Coburn. Yes, Brandon Davidson can play the right side but even there Tampa has Stralman, Sustr, and Witkowski. One would have to argue if Davidson is better than Witkowski IF that was even an option. Jon Cooper likes his righty/lefty pairings on D. You can check out their organizational depth

You can check out their organizational depth here.

From an Oilers perspective, this would be a steal of a deal. Edmonton would get their BIG strapping centre who’s good on the dot, it would give them some more centre depth, and he’s very experienced playoff in the post-season. Being a 32-year old UFA at the end of the year wouldn’t worry them one bit.

From a Tampa Bay expansion perspective, the Lightning are a tad screwed. Stralman, Hedman, Garrison, and Coburn all have no-movement clauses and to add to that group on forward are Ryan Callahan, Valtteri Filppula, and Steven Stamkos. So that is 7 players they need to protect and automatically are forced into the 4-4-1 format for the expansion draft unless one or more of them agree to waive their clause. One of those players could do that this month and make Steve Yzerman’s job a bit easier too. In that scenario, MAYBE Davidson

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becomes a member of the Lightning.

So I call BS on Mr.Marshall’s “breaking news”.

Alex Thomas from the Oilers Rig also offered his take on this rumour here. Thomas’ coverage of the rumour is tight and worth a read but it’s this one sentence that irks me a bit.

Tampa Bay is in desperate need of young defenders

This is simply not true. If you look at the link above and check out their org. depth, you’ll see that of the left-handed defenseman in the Lightning’s pipeline that there are players like Slater Koekkoek, Dominek Masin, and Jonathan Racine playing in the AHL. We could add to them the Saskatoon Blades’ Libor Hajek. So they’re not “desperate” by any means. Could they get younger, YES! Coburn and Garrison are in the latter halves of their careers and not getting any faster.

I agree with Thomas, in that the Oiler should pull the trigger, I just don’t see it as realistic.

HULL OF A EFFORT

To NYI:Jordan Eberle (RW) & Kris Russell (D)

To EDM:Travis Hamonic (D) & Jaroslav Halak (G)

This is a fan proposal from Copper and Blue and if you can’t see the plethora of wrong in it already, we may have a problem, Houston.

The whole proposal is banking on the Oilers picking up a goal-scoring right winger. If the Oilers made this trade, and Hull certainly does a fine job trying to sell you on it, they’d be behind the 8-ball again. Just like in the summer when they traded Hall. I like the Hall trade more than ever now and perhaps that deal might not be viewed as trading from a bad position today but it really did in the summer and this is not the kind of place you want to be trading from because the other GMs will eat you alive.

They also get Kris Russell, who, I’ve been among the largest critics of, though I have always maintained he was a legitimate NHL Dman. Russell’s inclusion is a short-term plug for the hole left by the loss of Hamonic.

It’s not surprising to see Hull include Russell in such a proposal, his allegiance to Matt Henderson does nothing to help. But with that said, swapping Russell for Hamonic would be an upgrade for the Oilers and I’ve advocated for Halak being the Oilers backup before. Of course, my proposal was that the Oilers trade Pouliot for him… Not sure if that is any better than the above.

Is Travis Hamonic not a less skilled version of Adam Larsson though? I wanted to say grittier but Larsson has shown us this year that he’s no shrinking violet and he’s been consistently healthy (knock on wood). He also cost the team Taylor Hall. #ThePriceYouHaveToPay

Bottom line is, Hull makes a semi-compelling argument but the Oilers defense is performing fine, in fact, better than fine. According to NHL.com, the Oilers are 10th in the NHL in goals against. Last season the Oilers finished 27th…

So adding anything more than a Shattenkirk-type to aid the PP is redundant. Taking away from the RW with the “hopes” of adding to it is pie in the sky thinking. Are the Islanders in a position to be removing such a strong part of their defense in return for offense?

So adding anything more than a Shattenkirk-type to aid the PP is redundant. Taking away from the RW with the “hopes” of adding to it is pie in the sky thinking. Are the Islanders in a position to be removing such a strong part of their defense in return for offense?

I’d love to add Travis Hamonic and Jaro Halak to the team but in my opinion, take it for what you will, it doesn’t work without both teams making other moves first and that’s the kicker. It’s hard enough to make a trade in the NHL today but to have not just one team but two teams move multiple pieces around so they can make this one deal, it simply doesn’t fly.  I’d argue that the Islanders would rather add a player like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins anyhow and then restructure the roster to fit around a 1-2 Tavares/RNH punch.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

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Beer League Hero Written by:

I'm the Beer League Hero! I am from Camrose, Alberta but I make my home in Taipei City, Taiwan. I've been through the ups and downs and the highs and the Lowes, the Bonsignores and the McDavids, the Sathers and the Eakins but I'll never leave my Oilers, no matter what! They're with me until the end and then some. GO OILERS GO!

One Comment

  1. Lee Dicken
    February 7, 2017

    I don’t see the Oilers doing much at the trade deadline. My concern is their lack of fire power. for the last month its either McDavid or Leon and that’s pretty much it. Unless Eberle, Lucic and RNH get going the playoffs, it will be a short ride. Add Pouliot to the mix and you have to wonder what is going on. That’s 22 million $ worth of not much.
    It’s a real shame Pitlic is hurt. (again) because if he had stayed healthy , he would have more goals than any of these players.
    Some of this is fixable, RNH has to start worrying about scoring ever since he proclaimed he was going to be a better defensive forward, he has turned himself into a 3rd line center. PC needs to chat with him and tell him we need the RNH we drafted. Lucic needs to be told, dude, its still 5 years till your retirement, now get out there and make something happen.
    Eberle is Eberle, he cant be fixed, he is the 1 player I would trade, when push comes to shov , he will disappear. If he is not getting you 30 plus goals he is not helping the team. He is not big, fast, aggressive, smart or defensively sound and so if he is not scoring he is really just spinning his wheels while making huge money in a cap tight world.
    And lastly, you need to look at the coach, its his job to get the most out of every player, his grade on this has to be a C+ at best. Maybe his system is all wrong for the type of players he has. Hich in St Lois couldn’t coach anymore once you took his big grinding players away from him. He failed because he only knows 1 style of coaching. Is TM the same in that he wants it done his way , not the best way for the players he has?
    Sure the team is better, if McDavid gets hurt for a month, how well do you think this team will do?

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