The sun is just rising and we’ve already got traction on the Volkov and a pick to the Edmonton Oilers for Jesse Puljujarvi comment Elliotte Friedman made on the latest 31 Thoughts podcast.
I’ll keep this one short. It would be a massive mistake for Holland to move Puljujarvi for a 22-year-old who is trending to be a bottom-6 forward with a dusting of offense to his game.
Puljujarvi put up better numbers in the AHL (5th highest PPG for an 18-year-old player in AHL history) as an 18-year-old than Volkov did as a 21-year-old. Can we expect the Tampa Bay prospect to continue shooting at a 20% rate? Also, one has to ask, if Volkov or Julien Gauthier were playing for a club in the SM Liiga, would they be averaging five or six shots a night? Dominating possession as well as zone entries? I don’t think they would, to be honest.
Just getting rid of a player because he wants to go doesn’t sound like Holland’s M.O. and for 10 cents on the dollar sounds even less like the multiple Stanley Cup-winning GM.
I’ll throw one more thing out there, would you trade Tyler Benson for Julien Gauthier or Alexander Volkov today? No? Then why would you accept those returns for Puljujarvi? Pro-rate the Finn’s AHL season last year and it comes out looking pretty similar to what Benson accrued.
The best thing that Mr. Holland can do is let Jesse play for as long as possible over in Finland and get his confidence up. That’ll also allow Puljujarvi to stay in game shape while the Oilers find the correct return. What’s the worst that can happen? They don’t trade Puljujarvi? Oh damn! I guess they’ll have to revisit things in the summer. But what’s the best thing that could happen?
They might get a better return on a trade…
Connor and Leon might change their minds and actually reach out to Jesse and offer the olive branch. No doubt Edmonton could use Pulju’s skillset on their right-wing and even if those two won’t play with him, by the sounds of it, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins wouldn’t mind at all.
I’m only one guy with an opinion, but based on what I’m seeing from Puljujarvi in those Champions Hockey League games so far, he’s back, he’s healthy, and he’s motivated. Given the right scenario, he’s at least a 30pt winger in the NHL right now and that’s not something I can say for Julien Gauthier or Alexander Volkov.
Game two between the Oilers rookies and the Flames rookies goes tonight in Calgary at 7pm I believe. I’ll be watching to see if Benson and Marody bounce back and also to see how Olivier Rodrigue does. Go Oilers Go!
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Andrew Ference was on the 31 Thoughts podcast that dropped this morning and he had quite a few things to say about his time with the Edmonton Oilers. I’d like to transcribe those for you and I’ll comment on it later since it’s such a long read. And a prefaced apology if the read is a bit hard, I tried to transcribe it word-for-word. Sometimes spoken word doesn’t come off that well when reading it.
EF = Elliotte Friedman
JM = Jeff Marek
AF = Andrew Ference
EF: I wanted to ask you about Lucic. Nobody is going to feel badly for a guy who’s earning as much as he is but I do feel badly because it’s not working and I think anybody who has any pride, and he has a lot of pride, it hurts.
Do you talk to him at all about how it’s going in Edmonton because I do think even though, obviously he keeps it private, he wanted to be traded last summer. I do think they tried. Do you talk to him at all and try to help him get through it?
AF: Yeah, well he’s got as much pride as anybody. He absolutely loves being in the NHL. He loves playing an important role on a team. You know I see frustrations, the same frustrations I had too going into Edmonton about certain aspects about going there especially coming from a really dialed in- when you see a really dialed in culture and team and how it’s operating and you go to something different, it can be extremely frustrating. I
mean being from Edmonton, I grew up in Sherwood Park, I saw it a million times. There’s always a sacrificial lamb on the team that gets roasted by the radio guys and newspaper guys and then the fans just continue that on.
I think he’s obviously taken that a little bit and you’ve always got a target on your back with a big contract and you know he’d be the first to admit he should be getting more points and scoring more goals.
But it’s tough, it’s really tough to play there and to be I guess the center of so much negativity. I don’t care who you are, negativity gets to you, it doesn’t usually help you at all.
So it’s tough for him and I think it’s tough for any player transitioning from a really super important role on a team to secondary role on the ice. I think he’s still incredibly important in the room and I think that’s probably, whenever I’ve talked to him, it’s goals and assists and sometimes your play can dip and change and sometimes it’s luck and sometimes you’re just not playing good but you can always do the stuff in the room and create that culture and lead off the ice. You always pretty much have full control of that. That shouldn’t fall off the map.
So I think for a guy like that, that’s where you have to transition where your role on the ice isn’t so important but your role off the ice in the room as a leader, you have to magnify that yourself and really make yourself important in those ways as well.
JM: Is it a feeling of almost like getting caught or trapped? Where everything around you- I mean this game changed, as you know Andrew, fast. This game changed quickly. Do you think he has the feeling that maybe he got caught, that, you know; he’s the same player, ‘Hey this worked not that long ago, why isn’t it working now?’ To me, that has to be one of the most frustrating feelings not just in sports but in life. Because you didn’t change, everything around you did
AF: Well, everything’s changing, yes. But I think that there aren’t too many defensemen that still like playing against him. Him on the forecheck when he’s all rambunctious and running around. He’s not a fun player to play against. It’s just that when you’ve had really successful seasons like he’s had, I don’t know what his top line numbers are in his best years but you’re not hitting those same numbers you used to hit. You’re not getting the same playing time, you’re not scoring as many goals, does that mean you’re horrible? No!
I guess people will automatically look at your contract and have expectations of where you should be, and so they should, but I think it’s just some people might adjust their own personal expectations a little quicker than others and accept the fact that I’m not going to be that 40-goal guy, 22-minute-a-night guy, so what can I do? If you don’t adjust that quick enough, the frustration will be neverending.
What’s Wrong in Edmonton?
EF: You mentioned frustrations about going back to Edmonton. I remember a game on Hockey Night where you were the After Hours guest with Scott Oake and Edmonton got pummeled that night. We remember watching the game on-air and saying ‘Scott’s not going to get the guest tonight. There’s no way Andrew Ference’s gonna be on the set after this. He’s going to have to scramble and fill 30 minutes’ and you showed up, which was great. But you were really hard on them. Like, you lit up the group and you’ve talked about that. I don’t think anybody watching that game would’ve had a problem with it but what you just said a couple seconds ago, I just think there’s a lot of Oilers fans out there wondering ‘why doesn’t it work?‘ You know they’ve had a lot of great talent there. Is there something there, in the water of Edmonton, that contributes to all of this? Why do you think they’ve had so much trouble?
AF: I don’t think it’s one thing. I think there’s a combination of elements that go into it, right? Like I said, that aspect of feeling more scared to make a mistake and be the whipping boy rather than being good and taking your chances and having the confidence to try and make a play. I think some guys might get into that role of being scared to be the whipping boy. You take less risks, your urge to win and be bold is less than your urge to not be the whipping boy or stand out, right? I think that is one aspect.
The Media
I think the quickness radio or newspaper or fans jump and attack their own guys is horrible. I think that the quickness to defend the players in the organization, I remember Jeff Petry or Schultz getting raked over the coals and nobody coming to defend them and trading them when their value after they’d beaten them down for months and then trading them. It’s not just for those guys but it’s for other guys on the team. You’re looking at that and saying ‘Woof. They don’t have his back. Are they going to have mine when it’s my turn to be the whipping boy?’
The Most Frustrating Part
But I think the most frustrating part for me as a player like I said, when I went in there straight from Boston, was that talk is cheap. I went in, Dallas Eakins is a fantastic coach, there’s another whipping boy who got dragged over the coals, he’s a fantastic coach who was dealt a pure crap hand and a team that would actually listen. You had a group of players that talked about how they wanted to make the playoffs and talked about how sick they were of losing and then by game three after losing 6-1, they’re straight out to the bar until three in the morning lighting up the nightlife in Edmonton.It was to the point to where it was ridiculous where the lifestyle was way more important than actually playing the game and making the playoffs but like I said, talk is cheap.
Even in practice, I came from a group where you’re practicing with guys like Bergeron or Chara and you’re going at each other, in-game intensity, and that’s how you get better, that’s how you be a playoff contender, that’s how you be a champion and you try to instill some of those values and there were guys that were on playoff teams that had the same frustrations.They come and practice hard and there’s a group of guys there that like it was too cool to try hard. Having derogatory terms for trying hard in practice.
The Culture
That’s the culture and so how do you break that? You come in and try to disrupt, right? So I think over the years there have been attempts to disrupt whether it was Eakins or I come in there or Pronger, whoever it was, different people come in and disrupt but I know personally, it was really hard for me. You come in as an older guy but far from being one of the better players on the team so you can be a leader from experience but I’m not a game changer, I’m a 4/5 defenseman. So your voice only goes so far with people who only respect how good your toe-drag is or whether or not you’re out partying. Your voice doesn’t carry much weight with people that don’t put value on those aspects that I was bringing from Boston or that Dallas was trying to instill on the team.
It wasn’t only frustrating but it pissed me off because it was a waste of years of your NHL career where you never get those back and you see a coach like Dallas get really unfairly treated. Was he perfect, no? He’d be the first to admit that he’d rather do some of those things different but taking the blame for, what are you supposed to do with a culture like that?
The Media Again
JM: I agree with you on that about Dallas. I think he’s a really good coach and I would watch games and then read the reviews of them, and you played, you can tell me if I’m off-base on on-base with this one. I think it was after game seven or maybe game eight that one year that you guys had that western road swing to start down in California and it was a tough one for you. This is when you started that swarm defense and it didn’t work. I think Dallas abandoned it about after game seven or eight but then it would get to about game 12 or game 20 and I’d read about how the swarm defense has to stop in Edmonton. Is anybody actually watching the game, they abandoned this games and games ago. From your point of view as a player on that team, how frustrating is it to play, read the commentary afterward, and say ‘that isn’t even close to what we’re doing.’
AF: Because it becomes an easy narrative. I hate to rag on the media, we were a bad team. We lost a lot of games and got scored on a ton but there is a narrative where it’s just easy to write about something and stick to it whether it’s a player or a concept or whatever it is. You stick to it and it’s fun to write negative things on it and I’m sure that people that call into the show have lots to talk about. It makes it easy. It’s an easy way to talk about a crappy situation. You could’ve had any kind of defense or any kind of system but if you go out on a western swing and your guys are out every single night until five in the morning, you’re not going to win too many games.
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Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman spoke about the Edmonton Oilers in their latest podcast (check it out here) from March 8th and it’s a nice 9-minute segment dedicated to the Oilers and their woes.
I want to transcribe some of it here for you today and comment on some of the things they say but if you’re the impatient type and simply want to hear the segment first, scroll down to the bottom and you can listen to it.
JM= Jeff Marek
EF= Elliotte Friedman
OSCAR KLEFBOM
JM: Elliotte, Oscar Klefbom and the idea that they may be playing him simply to showcase him despite him being a little bit banged up.
EF: I think a lot banged up. I’ve wrote a couple of times this year that Kesler is being held up by duct tape and a couple of guys reached out to me and said Klefbom is too.
I’ve written a couple of times here too and I don’t understand why he’s playing. Like, I get guys want to play and you want to wait until someone is officially eliminated but he’s clearly hurting and there’s no logical reason for it. And finally someone said to me, you know what could be going on here?
They’re going to make a move here.
JM: How can it be a showcase if he’s injured? He’s not going to show well.
EF: Well I think people understand what he was
JM: So do you need to see him now? That’s the point I don’t get. If you’re running him out there hurt, what’s the value there for anybody? Certainly not for Klefbom, not for the Oilers.
EF: You know what? Honestly Jeff, there’s so many questions about this thing that I have. I can’t answer this question. But the fact is that I think that teams are scouting him, I think people were looking at him and I think they got to sign Darnell Nurse, who’s had a really good year and I think Klefbom has value. He had a great year last year, he scored 12 goals, he’s got a good contract. I do think people are looking at him.
Oh, Oscar is definitely on the block and I do expect him to be dealt this summer because Chiarelli likes Ryan Nugent-Hopkins more and sees more value there. Also, the depth on the left side defense is a helluva lot deeper than down the middle.
My theory on why other teams don’t care if he plays is that his shoulder injury has been disclosed and it can’t get any worse by playing with it. As Friedman said above, they know what they could be getting in Klefbom and are willing to roll the dice.
I think another thing that is starting to get out is there might be a disagreement between player and team as to whether or not to get the procedure done now.
Players want to play (Pat Maroon, Cam Talbot, and Adam Larsson all come to mind this season for playing hurt), they don’t want to abandon their teammates, and it’s my belief that Klefbom is probably feeling a tad guilty and playing through his injury because back in 2015 he was in and out of the lineup, unsure when he was going to be able to come back. He might’ve got some flack from teammates or other staff for not getting back into the lineup.
I just reckon he’d prefer to play the year out and get that respect from his teammates. Of course, they’d understand if he chose to go under the knife but it’s his call, right?
WHAT HAPPENS TO EDMONTON IN THE OFF-SEASON?
JM: What happens to Edmonton in the off-season?
EF: You know, that’s a great question. I watched, I didn’t see Saturday night because I was in Maryland, but I watched the interview (Bob Nicholson one) with David (Ambder) and Cassie (Campbell-Pascal)…
*cuts to interview*
EF: You know I thought Nicholson was dropping a lot of hints there and you got the sense he wanted to say a bit more but he was holding himself back.
He (Nicholson) has a long history with Cassie and I think he wanted to say some more stuff but the thing that struck me was that they’re going to make changes but they’re not going to make changes for the sake of doing it.
He said ‘we fire a lot of people here’ and I think he would prefer to keep Peter and Todd. That’s the sense I got but I think that may be decided by who else is available.
Like what if Barry Trotz (WAS) is available? What if Joel Quenneville (CHI) is available?
And the other thing too is, I don’t know who really is making the final call here?
JM: By way of title it should be Peter Chiarelli.
EF: Or Bob (Nicholson) or the owner (Daryl Katz).
JM: Didn’t the owner want a coaching move during the season? Wasn’t it after that Dallas game?
EF: There’s been some rumbling about that. This year you’re talking about?
JM: This year. Yeah. And Wayne Gretzky was on the road trip.
EF: There’s been a rumor about that. I don’t know if it’s true though. Daryl Katz doesn’t come out that much. It’s hard to check that kind of thing.
JM: Any time I talk to anyone there it’s ‘Katz is fuming. Katz is fuming about this season.’
EF: I agree with that. Someone told me last year they were the highest revenue team in the NHL and they’re not going to be that way this year. Because that arena is such a cash cow.
They’re not going to be there this year (no.1 in revenue) and I do believe that Daryl is upset but who’s making the call? Is it Katz? Is it Nicholson? Is it Chiarelli? Is it Wayne Gretzky? Is it somebody else? Like, nobody seems to have the answer to that.
Now, I’m not exactly sure which Dallas game that is but I’m going to go ahead and assume it was the one they lost 5-1. A matinee game back at the beginning of January.
Don’t you remember? That was the game where Stauffer didn’t do his customary post-game tweet and things got VERY quiet. I wrote herethat there was a meeting to discuss the futures of McLellan and Chiarelli and it wasn’t too long after that Chiarelli did a couple of media interviews to discuss the state of the franchise and that’s when Todd McLellan got his dreaded vote of confidence.
If the Capitals get booted in the first round this year, Trotz is out. If I’m not mistaken, he was on Oilers Now last week and he was saying there’s something off about that team and Trotz… So take that for what it is.
Is there a better coach than Joel Quenneville to take over the Oilers? He knows exactly how it is coaching a team with two teenage superstars and building a winning team around those players.
But I do get where Friedman is coming from. Nobody is really sure who’s at the wheel of this cheese wagon. I mean Coffey was brought in by Gretzky, right?
SPEAKING OF COFFEY
JM: And what’s Paul Coffey’s role here?
EF: My guess is that he ends up coaching but I don’t know if that’s head coach or assistant coach.
JM: He’s scouting in Ontario.
EF: I heard that, could he be a GM? I’ve been told he’s got no desire to be GM. I think he wants to coach.
GM! HA!
If Coffey wants to be a head coach, he’s got all the right people in place to make that happen in Edmonton but that idea, at best, is a terrible one. That said, IF he puts in the reps as an assistant coach and is promoted from there, I think most could get on board with that because he’s earned it.
Who is he scouting in Ontario? Ryan Merkley? They share some playing attributes.
I mean if he’s scouting kids for the upcoming draft, then there’s a good chance he’ll have an official title by the start of next season and watch where he’s sitting at the draft or possibly the draft lottery.
THE TURN AROUND
JM: How close do you think they are to turning it around? Knowing the composition of this team.
EF: They’re not as bad as they’re playing this year. I refuse to believe that.
JM: They need wingers.
EF: They need wingers but that should be, in theory, the easiest thing to find. Now, I will say this, I think one of the things they’re going to have to figure out is how to convince Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl that they shouldn’t play together.
JM: They want to play together. They want to be on the same line.
EF: Ya but I think that’s gotta change. You’ve got to show them Pittsburgh and say ‘Guys, why did they win two Stanley Cups back-to-back? Because they got Crosby on one and Malkin on another and you get someone like Kessel and he plays on a 3rd’.
JM: Yzerman, Federov. Keep going.
EF: You gotta. Those guys have to learn that they can’t play together. Maybe in certain situations. Crosby and Malkin play together on the PP. Maybe you put them together on a line here and there but generally, they got to play apart.
I 100% agree here. The Oilers are by no means this bad. Their 5×5 scoring tells us all we need to know not to mention IF they had some goaltending and special teams, they’d be a 100pt team again and that’s without Eberle or Hall or Pouliot or Mark Fayne.
I grew up being spoiled with the Jagr, Lemieux, Francis line in Pittsburgh but they didn’t always play together either but when they did, the Pens were almost guaranteed to score. A line like that today would be like having McDavid with Laine and Bergeron… Ridiculous, right?
WHAT ELSE?
JM: They need a save and you’re hoping this is just the outlier year for the netminder and he comes back like he did last season.
EF: Yeah but look, I agree with you. Talbot had a rough year but if you look at their team this year, you know, Larsson was worse than last year, Klefbom, because of the injury, was worse than last year, Sekera, who was a pretty big player for them was out for half of the year.
Sometimes you have to bet on our guys aren’t going to be that bad again. Things are going to be better next year.
JM: But you’re not going to go into next season with the same lineup.
EF: No no. That’s why I wonder about the Klefbom thing.
JM: Then again, the idea of we’re not going to make changes for the sake of making changes is- You’ve got a fanbase that’s torches at the castle gate right now. That volcano needs a virgin.
Two things here,
There will be sacrifice but how many, we don’t know.
How could you NOT call this year an outlier will all the f*cked up stats and EVERYBODY but 4 players regressing this year?
Is it possible to have two outlier seasons in a row? Obviously, last year was one and this year is another.
Since the Oilers went away from hiring within the OBC it’s been some sort of episode from Black Mirror or something.
yr 1 – everyone is hurt
yr 2 – nobody is hurt, 100+ pt season but season ended on a bad call
yr 3 – 75% of roster regresses plus injuries, plus players’ dads dying, plus worst home PK in NHL history, plus PP eating sh*t
I’m really on the fence with firing the main men and making a huge trade. Terry Jones said it before me, if you fire those men you take the onus off of the players and they need to be held responsible as well, no matter how noble their actions may be.
Book this though, Talbot, Montoya (IF he’s with the Oilers parent club and not in the minors), and Puljujarvi will have great years as they’ll be going into their contract years. I think it was Lowetide who said to keep Pulju away from McDavid so that the Oilers don’t run into another Leon Draisaitl situation and I’m not sure I agree with that. Good players are good players and should be paid as such.
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Tough game for the Oilers last night. ‘Twas a shame to waste that glorious goal from Connor McDavid, that PP laser from Leon Draisaitl, and Milan Lucic’s best performance in a very very long time. The goal is coming, you can feel it. 27 games on but mark my words, it won’t be much longer especially with the Rangers coming up who have Marc Staal and a bunch of AHLers manning their blueline.
Did you know: Even though the Oilers PK is last in the NHL (that won’t last, they’ll catch the Islanders), the only month that they were the worst PK in the league for the whole month was October. In fact, they had the 14th BEST PK in the league in February. #silverlinings
BEAR WITH ME
Ethan Bear had a tough game last night. I wouldn’t say he was directly responsible for 2 of the Predators goals but he was definitely part of the reason they were scored and I would say that’s fine given the circumstances. It’s not like the Oilers are trying to lock down a playoff spot here.
Bear’s stat line read like this:
No points
minus 3
14:42 TOI
1 shot
2 blocks
1 giveaways
That said, he was noticeably out of his depth but on the plus side, that boy can pass a puck and I didn’t see any panic in his game! If he gets a few more games (hopefully not paired with Sekera), I hope to see that cannon of his. The former WHL defenseman of the year is one player I think all of us are eager to see more and more.
PUL-ME? PULJU!
When is Todd McLellan going to put Jesse Puljujarvi in the top-6? When will Jesse get his shot on the first PP?
Since he joined the Oilers, I’ve gotten the impression that McLellan was the type of coach who would give TOI where TOI was earned. Well, what I’ve noticed is that isn’t really the case. He’ll move players up and down from Lines 1 and 2 or Lines 3 and 4 or sometimes from lines 2 and 3 he’ll swap a bit but not often.
If ice time is earned, what does Jesse Puljujarvi have to do to get some ice time with Leon Draisaitl or Connor McDavid? And if that isn’t something that is in the coaches plans, then can he keep some linemates for more than a game? I thought that the Aberg/Strome/Puljujarvi line looked very dangerous against San Jose.
I just don’t understand how McLellan is “rewarding” his players…
31 THOUGHTS PODCAST TAKEAWAYS
Milan Lucic for Loui Eriksson
This was something near the end of the podcast that Friedman had suggested reasoning it with the notion that he thought they could both use a change of scenery. Marek added that the Oilers would have to “sweeten” the deal because Lucic had more term.
I have to decline on this one. We saw last night what kind of physical impact Milan Lucic can have on a game and just because he didn’t score doesn’t mean he wasn’t useful and that’s the difference between the two really. When Eriksson isn’t scoring, what else is he doing to impact the game?
IF Loui Eriksson was the shooting machine he used to be, then that might be a different story but it looks like he’s lost confidence there or he could be dealing with some physical ailments.
As it stands, Lucic brings more to the table than Eriksson.
Marek mentioned that the Blues were asking organizations other than the Jets about BIG LH’d dman Logan Stanley before they dealt Paul Stastny to Winnipeg for picks and prospect Erik Foley.
The Oilers have a few LH’d dmen they’d like to move but this SO weird because it seems like the Blues only have LH’d dmen in their system. According to rosterresource.com, the only RHers playing defense for St.Louis are on their parent roster…
But I mean if they’re looking to add to that stable of lefties, I think the Oilers could help there 🙂
The cost for Pacioretty is HIGH!!!
Friedman says he believed MTL asked LA for Toffoli, Vilardi, a 1st rounder this year and maybe a 1st rounder next year and LA for good reasons said no. He also mentioned the Habs wanted Charlie Coyle plus and Minnesota said no. Lastly, Florida was one of the teams that Max Pacioretty wanted to go to but Montreal wanted Trocheck and so no deal was made because the Panthers turned that down.
So if the Oilers are looking at Max Pacioretty, I’m not sure it’s going to be a worthwhile trade because it’ll cost players like Yamamoto, Puljujarvi, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or more.
It’s not worth it to deal that much future out for a guy whose contract is up shortly. Not only that but it sounds like Pacioretty is willing to make it work in MTL. Who knows if that’s true or not? Maybe Max is doing his GM a solid by saying that publicly and something at the draft happens like a 3-way between Montreal, Ottawa, and Edmonton…
Could the Blackhawks trade a core player?
Friedman and Marek pontificated upon what Chicago might do this summer. Are Bowman’s and Quenneville’s jobs safe? Could the move Toews because of the season he’s having? Is Duncan Keith an option to go because he’s got the easiest contract to move?
Friedman said he’d give Toews one more year before moving on him but that he’d check the market on Saad, Anisimov, and Duncan Keith.
Keith and Toews have NMC’s on their deals which means they’re not going anywhere w/o consent. Anisimov’s NMC lifts July 1 but Saad is clause-free.
Keith and Saad jump out to me for a couple of reasons:
Duncan Keith is the type of General that the Oilers blueline is desperate for. There isnt’ a go-to guy in that defense. Not one. A lot of “complimentary” dmen back there but no alpha. It needs one and Duncan Keith would be that guy.
He’s 34 years old, makes $5M+ per yer and his contract goes for another 5 years but the real money comes way down starting in 2019/20.
He can’t score 50pts a year anymore but I’d say he’s still good for 40 at least. He’s one of the NHL’s great dmen and I could see him playing at a 1st pairing pace until he’s 39 too. What would you give up for him?
Brandon Saad is only 26 years old and has another 3 years @$6M per on that deal left. He’s got the wheels, we know that. And he can shoot the pill. That’s pretty apparent.
In order to get a guy like Saad, some major futures would have to go. What I mean by that is exactly the kind of players that the Oilers are looking for right now. I think Puljujarvi or Yamamoto for sure. But then the Oilers would have to get Chicago to take a contract back too.
Or maybe the only deal would be Saad for Nuge… Both players contracts are the same term and dollar…
I still think RNH on McDavid’s wing would yield the Oilers a 50pt winger, so why move a guy that could do that for you AND provide you with a kickass centre if one of McDavid or Draisaitl goes down or if McLellan wants to move Leon up to Connor’s line…
Anyways, those are a few of the trade murmurs that Marek and Friedman talked about on this weeks 31 Thoughts Podcast.
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