Could the Oilers Ship James Neal to the Red Wings?

Coming from an Edmonton Oilers point of view, BLH provides you with the latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation from all of the internet’s best sites including Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, Sportsnet, The Athletic, TSN and more!

From The Cult of Hockey via Hockeybuzz.com

This in from NHL hockey insider Kevin Allen, formerly of USA Today, with his things-to-do list for the Edmonton Oilers this summer, which includes three big moves,

1. Oilers acquire a credible goalie under age 39. Elvis Merzlikins? Joonas Korpisalo? Maybe put a call into the Islanders about Semyon Varlamov. Talk to UFA’s Linus Ullmark and Freddie Andersen.

2. Edmonton general manager Ken Holland should try to come up with enough assets for Detroit’s Steve Yzerman to take James Neal’s contract off his hands to open up more cap space. With his team still a couple of years away from competing, Yzerman will eat bad contracts in exchange for assets that will help him.

3. Oilers should re-sign Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Adam Larsson and then call the Rangers about Anthony DeAngelo. Fans want the Nugent-Hopkins cap money to be used for two players. I think the Oilers would miss Nugent-Hopkins contributions.

(LINK)

BLH’s Thoughts: My feeling is that the names we’re going to hear connected to the Oilers until some moves start happening are ones like Chris Driedger, Linus Ullmark, Joonas Korpisalo, Elvis Merzlikins, Petr Mrazek, and Darcy Kuemper. This is the first time I’ve read Varlamov’s name attached to the Oilers in any way and from all the rhetoric that’s been tossed about to date, unless Mike Smith skips town, it’s Edmonton’s plan to re-sign him and bring in a younger understudy who can grow with the club.

I do like what David Staples suggested regarding Allen’s 2nd point,

“Maybe Edmonton would take on the last year of 37-year-old Frans Nielsen’s $5.25 million per contract and pay a lesser price to move out Neal. Detroit needs help at every position, so it’s possible Yzerman would be willing to take on Neal if Edmonton included one or two “B” level NHL prospects/players, such as William Lagesson, Caleb Jones, Cooper Marody, or Tyler Benson.”

It would make much more sense for Edmonton to make this sort of trade if they didn’t want that dead money on their books for another four years and in fact, Cooper Marody going back to Michigan where he played his college hockey might make a little bit of sense. Also, if I’m not mistaken, Neal played his junior hockey in Plymouth, did he not? Sending him to Detroit would be coming full circle almost.

With DeAngelo, I don’t know if those kind of reclamation projects happen anymore. Society has changed in how it doles out its second chances these days. In the past, somebody who’s had trouble with the law could simply move on to another team and try to work is way out of that spot of bother, now if they want to continue playing hockey, Russia is pretty much their only choice.

That said, there was that rumor going around that Montreal had nearly traded for DeAngelo before the trade deadline… I can only imagine the backlash they would’ve received had they completed that trade.

From Spector’s Hockey

THE NEWS & OBSERVER: Luke DeCock isn’t optimistic about the Hurricanes’ chances of re-signing Hamilton. He believes the rearguard has “almost certainly played his last game” for the Canes. The same goes for pending UFAs such as Jordan Martinook, Brock McGinn and Petr Mrazek.

BLH’s Thoughts: From an Oilers perspective, I’d love for the team to get their hands on Jordan Martinook as a depth forward. This is the kind of player who wears his heart on his sleeve and leaves it all out on the ice. As I said above, I also believe that Petr Mrazek may get some consideration from Edmonton this offseason depending on how the market plays out with some of their other goaltending targets.

TSN: Darren Dreger reports the Los Angeles Kings could attempt to acquire two top-six forwards via this summer’s trade or free-agent markets.

Spector’s Note: There’s no indication as to who the Kings could target. Unrestricted free agent options include Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Boston’s Taylor Hall, Toronto’s Zach Hyman, Tampa Bay’s Blake Coleman, St. Louis’ Jaden Schwartz, Colorado’s Brandon Saad, and the New York Islanders’ Kyle Palmieri.

I spoke with John Hoven of the Kings’ site Mayor’s Manor yesterday about Dreger’s report. He believes they’re seeking established scorers around 27 years old on short-term contracts of two-three years.

(LINK)

BLH’s Thoughts: Well, if the Kings are looking to go short-term, that may take RNH out of the equation. Plus he’s not been much of a goal-scorer 5v5 these days. Although, Bob Stauffer did include the Kings as one of the teams he thought would be in on Nuge.

Would the Kings be kind of handcuffing themselves if they were only offering 2-3 year terms on their UFA proposals. I would imagine unless the market for wingers completely falls apart that each of those names listed by Lyle Richardson, they’ll all be looking for around four-to-five years minimum.

However, Mike Hoffman might be the kind of mercenary who’d sign that sort of deal.