Armchair GM, Beer League Hero, Edmonton Oilers, NHL, Rumors

Edmonton Oilers Trade Talk: Jeremy Swayman, Marc-Andre Fleury, Ville Husso and 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!

The latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation comes from all of the internet’s top sites like Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, Sportsnet, and TSN just to name a few!

If you’re short on time but want to keep up with the day’s Oilers news, you’ve come to the right place!

Give us a follow on the socials!

The Cult of Hockey

Plenty of challenges facing Edmonton Oilers as NHL announces revised schedule
  • Add it all up and the Oilers will play their last 40 games in just 81 days following the 5-day All-Star break. They will face 6 back-to-backs of which 3 will be in the cluster of games in mid-February, the other 3 as previously scheduled.
  • Only 2 clubs, Ottawa and NY Islanders, have more games left to play than the Oilers’ 47. On the other hand, 4 divisional rivals including Vegas and all 3 California teams have at least 5 fewer games to play than do the Oil.
  • All 4 squads currently enjoy a cushion of 6-10 points more than Edmonton’s 38, which will pressure the Oilers to win most of those games in hand.

BLH’s Thoughts: This playoff-like schedule could potentially impact the Oilers in two ways, 

  • They’ll either snap out of this bad run and go on one helluva tear.
  • They’ll enter the lottery discussion for Shane Wright. 

You see, when the big boys catch fire, they tend to set the league on fire. We’ve seen it once already this year and historically, McDavid’s best statistical months of the year are November, February, and March (especially). With Leon, his best months of the year are October, January, and March. 

I suppose we should hope that the Oilers goaltending has sorted itself out by the time March comes around and the club has crept back into a wildcard spot because if history rings true, Leon and Connor could put this team on their back and right into the post-season; and there’s nothing more dangerous that a team going into the playoffs on a massive heater. 

Oilersnation

Friedman: Oilers owner Daryl Katz will be present at the organization’s scouting meetings this week
  • The Oilers are one of the teams reportedly in the mix for Kane, who cleared through unconditional waivers last weekend and had his contract terminated by the San Jose Sharks.
    • Kane was already suspended for 21 games for providing a fake COVID vaccine document, so he could be looking at another long-term suspension for breaking the NHL’s COVID rules and Canada’s border laws.
    • The challenge here is that a suspension wouldn’t kick in until Kane signs a contract with a team, so the team signing Kane would have to be prepared for him to not be playing while still counting against the salary cap.
  • … the Oilers are looking harder at finding a goaltender and that owner Daryl Katz will be present at the organization’s scouting meetings this week…
  • Katz has been far from the public eye over the past few years, as we haven’t seen him make any comments in regards to the Oilers since back in May of 2019 when Ken Holland was hired. An owner who has seemingly been fairly hands-off suddenly wanting to be involved “first-hand” at the organization’s scouting meetings would indicate that something major could be on the horizon.
  • This is purely speculation on my part, but I would assume Katz’s in-person presence at this meeting would indicate that there’s immense pressure to make the playoffs this year and that multiple jobs are on the line.

BLH’s Thoughts: If Evander Kane can help the team into the playoffs, I reckon ownership would sign off on it. I even think Katz would green light an extension if everything went well and without getting into a moral debate, just looking at how the potential top-nine would look, it would have to be tempting for the team to pull the trigger. 

Kane-McDavid-Puljujarvi
Foegele-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Hyman-RNH-Kassian
McLeod-Ryan-Sceviour

Anyway… Moving on from that, Katz attending the scouting meetings definitely indicates that the owner is looking to get some facetime with senior management to voice his concerns and see what Holland thinks of the year. 

If I had to guess, I think some change is coming and the feeling I get is that it could be in the pro scouting ranks (I’ve heard there’s been a bit of discontent from Holland with that group) and it wouldn’t shock me if the team started to build out their analytics department. 

To be honest, I’m curious if Katz is getting tired of the internal spats going on in public and he’s set to give Holland a “talking to” in order to get his house in order. It is kind of odd that the team has been the talk of the league for all the wrong reasons under Holland’s tenure, at least I think it’s unusual. 

I’m hearing some things on Boston 3rd string netminder Jeremy Swayman. Keep an eye/ear out there. Martin Biron recently came out on the NHL Network and said this guy should be in the NHL and Boston just resigned Tuukka Rask for the year and already has Linus Ullmark signed long-term. 

https://youtu.be/AN_on3KlmL4?t=30

Spector’s Hockey

  • THE ATHLETIC: Scott Power reports there’s an assumption around the league that Chicago Blackhawks goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury will be finishing the season elsewhere. Two league sources suggest Fleury’s play of late could fetch the Blackhawks a first-round pick, something they could be without in this year’s draft because of last summer’s Seth Jones trade.
    • Teams that fancy themselves contenders but have middling-to-poor goaltending (Edmonton, Washington) could come calling.
  • FLORIDA HOCKEY NOW: Colby Guy cites Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman confirming the Panthers are interested in Arizona Coyotes defenseman Jakob Chychrun. George Richards last week reported the Panthers would take a look at the Boca Rotan native, who has three seasons remaining on his contract with an annual cap hit of $4.6 million.
  • THE ATHLETIC: Fluto Shinzawa suggests a trade might be the best bet for Boston Bruins defenseman Urho Vaakanainen to become a full-time NHLer. He believes clubs like Arizona or Seattle could have their eye on a 23-year-old former first-rounder who isn’t playing a major role, suggesting such players could improve skating with rebuilding teams.

BLH’s Thoughts: I don’t see Edmonton going after Fleury unless it’s right at the deadline and they’re firmly entrenched in a playoff spot by then. We saw how well the Cup-winning netminder did when Chicago’s defense was utter shite with Jeremy Colliton as their coach, is he all of a sudden going to get better under Edmonton’s dysfunctional 200ft game?

The new NHL franchise in Seattle already has their AHL affiliate worked out! Click the pick and grab a Karen shirt today!