I have to be honest, previously I was under the impression that veteran defender Mike Green was more or less a lock to re-sign in Edmonton during the abbreviated off-season that will take place this year, but now, I’m not so sure and here’s why,
During Tuesday’s installment of Oilers Now, host Bob Stauffer stated that he thought Green’s current price point would be around $2M and I reckon that’s simply out of the Oilers’ price range. If the salary cap was going up, it wouldn’t be a problem.
I will say this though, I don’t think it’s a fait accompli that he doesn’t re-sign in Northern Alberta.
Last summer, Andrej Sekera (33), Braydon Coburn (34), Roman Polak (33), and Carl Gunnarsson (32) all signed contracts for well under $2M per season with new clubs (Sekera/Polak) or their existing ones (Coburn/Gunnarsson). If Edmonton is a place that the 34-year-old Green would like to continue his career, he’s going to have to do the same because they already have Matthew Benning on the roster and Evan Bouchard bubbling right under.
Maybe he goes the Mike Smith route and signs a team/cap-friendly deal stacked with bonuses? OR maybe he comes into Oilers camp on a PTO Jason Garrison-style and earns a contract? Then again, if I remember right, I think Calgary has three or four defenders who are free agents. Since Green has a place in C-Town, maybe he simply puts down roots there…
Edmonton Oilers Quick Hits
- Word out of Russia is that Jesse Puljujarvi isn’t going to the KHL (that includes Finnish-based team Jokerit). My sources have indicated to me that he’s willing to continue his hockey-playing career in Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland.
- If he does go to Sweden, Frolunda sounds like it could be a good option as it is one of the wealthier clubs in the country and they’ve got a reputation for developing good young players. Imagine Puljujarvi and Lucas Raymond ripping it up over there?
- Rumour has it, Auston Matthews was nearly signed by Frolunda before choosing ZSC in the Swiss league during his draft year.
- Bob Stauffer said yesterday that he could see Ryan Nugent-Hopkins making as much as $7M per year on his next deal and that there’s an appetite to see that come to fruition because of what the player means to the market.
- Can we get some more broadcasters out of the Western Conference to vote on the Jack Adams, please? It’s a joke that Dave Tippett wasn’t even a nominee for this year’s coach-of-the-year award… What the hell did Bruce Cassidy and the Sundance Kids do to earn theirs?
- John Tortorella and Alain Vigneault I can see, but Cassidy? Come on… Give me a break.
- Speaking of awards, Leon Draisaitl is up against Nathan MacKinnon and Artemi Panarin for the Ted Lindsay, and to me, it’s Leon’s to lose.
- Panarin shouldn’t even be on any of the awards ballots as a candidate. He’s a phenomenal player to watch but Zibanejad is the best player on that team.
- Defenseman Calvin de Haan is out for Chicago now? My word… They’re not going to have much of roster to ice if this trend keeps on going. They just signed highly-touted defensive prospect Ian Mitchell, but I’m not sure if he’s eligible. I want to say no.
The NHL’s Latest Blunder
Can anybody tell me who is even more jacked to see an NHL hockey game because their team will be playing a regional rival in their exhibition match before the play-ins start?
SMH… I didn't see this… Every team is getting lined up against its biggest rival to… "Get the juices flowing…"
Who thinks of this sh*t? https://t.co/h1CwokBHkz
— B.L.H. (Edmonton Oilers Enthusiast) (@BeerLeagueHeroe) July 15, 2020
This is the league, once again, putting the almighty buck ahead of the safety of the players… Surely, nothing could happen in a meaningless game of hockey, right?
Well, maybe the players need a game to get “the juices flowing”… As if every game between the Oilers and the Flames wasn’t a bloody slugfest this year that started with Matthew Tkachuk taking runs at Zack Kassian… I guess Jason Gregor forget about that yesterday…
I think there’s a legit concern when your team is facing one of the cheapest players the NHL has seen since Claude Lemieux was a regular in the league. So it begs the question, apart from financial motivation, what’s the point in having teams play their rivals? There’s so much more to lose than there is to gain, isn’t there?
Sure, injuries are part of the game and you don’t go on the ice with the notion of having to stay healthy floating around in your headbone. But what about suspensions? In a game where the intensity is heightened due to a series of prior games being transported straight out of the 80s to now and where you’ve got players who haven’t laid a body check in more than four months, what are the odds that someone gets overzealous and hits an opponent in a questionable manner? I think it’s a fair question to ask.
Now, do I love the idea of watching Calgary and Edmonton play? Of course, I do! Those games have been really entertaining recently. What I’m more concerned with is the team going on a deep run to the Stanley Cup Final. So with the Cup run in mind, I couldn’t give two sh*ts about an exhibition game against Flames. If the team needs to get loose and back into the swing of things, have them play Coyotes.
I’m being selfish on this one. I know. I just feel like the league is being careless.
Puck Racism
The sales are starting to trickle in with this design and I’m going to spam the hell out of it on my website and the BLH Hockey Instagram because I feel passionate about it and I feel like Hockey is Diversity deserves the proceeds that I’ll be donating to them.
So, please. If you’ve got an extra $20 lying around and you want to do a good thing for good people, click the pic down below and grab a t-shirt, a mask, a onesie, a tank top, or some stickers.
Hockey is Diversity is a German group whose aim is to draw attention to the ethnic diversity in society, which goes beyond the sporting borders in order to sensitize people interculturally. The diversity that has long been regarded as an enrichment in sport as a melting pot of people of different ethnicities, cultures, and religions should also be transferred to society.
