The Vegas Golden Knights sure are getting a lot of people’s panties in a bunch these days. They’ve claimed soon-to-be bust Malcolm Subban off of waivers, placed highly sought after goalie Calvin Pickard ON waivers, and they’ve signed Brandon Pirri. And on top of all of that, they’ve got a shit ton of dmen that need to go through waivers including former Oilers Griffin Reinhart and Brad Hunt. On yesterday’s edition of Oilers Now Bob Stauffer mentioned something very interesting…
Now to tie this in to the title of the blog… On yesterday’s edition of Oilers Now Bob Stauffer mentioned something very interesting…
“I bumped into Kelly McCrimmon last night, currently with the Vegas Golden Knights. They had a TON of staff here (in Edmonton) last night. Start the rumors.”
MY TAKE
The Oil Kings are facing the Brandon Wheat Kings tonight and McCrimmon owns the Wheat Kings. So that could be part of the reason he’s in town. As for the “ton of staff” being there, who knows. But it might speak to the rumors comment Stauffer made.
I really can’t lend myself to the idea that the Oilers are ready to make a deal at this point in the season. I mean, We’re one game into the year and in that one game, the entire team looked phenomenal. That said, Peter Chiarelli isn’t adverse to making early-season deals but apart from shoring up the RW a bit or adding another defenseman, what players would the Oilers be interested in that the Golden Knights be willing to move?
The first name that comes out of anybody’s mouth (including wannabe insider Josh Marshall and hall-of-fame scribe Jim Matheson) when looking at options for the Oilers from Vegas is that of Colin Miller’s but he’s one of two right-handed defensemen on the active roster, he’s young, he’s cheap ($1M and an RFA this summer coming up), and Vegas doesn’t have anyone that could replace him like-for-like unless you believe Chris Casto, Kenny Morrison, Dmitry Osipov, or Scooter Vaughan are candidates…
Earlier in training camp, there was a rumor going around that the Oilers might trade Drake Caggiula for Colin Miller… But that was when The Drake was struggling a bit. After Caggiula’s performance vs. Calgary, I can’t see him going anywhere anytime soon.
Yes, he played under the Chiarelli regime when they were both in Boston but unless Vegas has some other moves that’ll bring them another RH’d dman thus affording them the ability to move Miller, I say it’s a no go.
Supernova (@Supernovs1) on Twitter mentioned Jonathan Marchessault and I’m wary of him. Not because he’s undersized but because he basically rode the coattails of some really good players in Florida last season. At this point, he’s also the Golden Knights first-line right-winger and one of their go-to men for goals this season IF he can duplicate last year’s performance.
But Supernova also mentioned that Vegas might want to move Marchessault if he starts slowly and gather up more draft picks as he’s due to become an unrestricted free agent. I think this is a valid point but I don’t know if it’s pertinent right now and if he’s not performing up to par for an expansion team, why would a Stanley Cup contender want to add him?
Now, I’m not saying the Oilers won’t do any business with Vegas. I’m just saying I don’t see much happening right now. Chiarelli said he’s going to be patient with this roster and from what we’ve experienced with regards to the Oilers GM’s word, he walks the walk. Closer to the trade deadline we should see some more action though.
Closer to the trade deadline we should see some more action though unless the wheels fall off the bus sooner but I can’t see that happening. It rarely does with Stanley Cup contenders 🙂
Is there a player on the Golden Knights that you’d like the Oilers to go out and acquire? What price would you pay? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter/Facebook!
Here are a couple of links that shed a bit more light on what Vegas might be doing:
Any chance they would do Miller Fayne and a third round pick???