A good friend of mine, we’ll call him Dave, sent me a message on Twitter the other day and offered me a scenario regarding the Oilers and the Islanders. Now, I know that’s not a rumor per se but this Dave contacted me about the Oilers signing Ryan Mantha last year months before he was signed and I trust him. We’ll get to why this is a rumor later on in the post.

But first I’ve got to ask you to listen to this clip from The Jason Gregor Show and tell me what you think they’re talking about.

Here’s what my friend Dave sent me:

Arthur Staple, the NYI writer, said this in an interview: “I would not be surprised if Beauvillier and de Haan are packaged in a deal for a top 6 F.” Stauffer dropping hints that the guy coming back for Eberle is a player that can play more positions in the top 9. Beauvillier is a C/LW.

Who are the top-6 forwards that have been rumored to be going to the Islanders?

• Matt Duchene
• Alex Galchenyuk
• Jordan Eberle

https://twitter.com/NicholsOnHockey/status/877220734057160704

So there you have the Bobfather (Bob McKenzie) saying that perhaps the Islanders will go ALL OUT and trade for both Matt Duchene AND Jordan Eberle.

Bob Stauffer said on Oilers NOW (June 20th) that he expects the Eberle trade with the Islanders to go down shortly after the expansion draft. He also echoed McKenzie’s sentiments that the Isles may go for both Duchene and Eberle.

THE PROPOSED DEALS

Stauffer thought something like Josh Ho-Sang+Travis Hamonic for Matt Duchene might be feasible and I could agree there. Elliotte Friedman thought that the Oilers would have to pay much more than just Jordan Eberle for Hamonic if they wanted him. Plus, I don’t think that Beauvillier and de Haan would get Duchene out of Colorado.

As for Jordan Eberle, if we go from my friend Dave’s thoughts, that deal would look like Calvin de Haan+Anthony Beauvillier for Jordan Eberle.

On paper, those deals would jack up the Isles forward corps quite a bit but what about the salary cap? At the moment, the Islanders have about $4M available and don’t Duchene and Eberle make $6M or more per year each?

Hamonic – $3.85M per year till 2019/20
Ho-Sang – $1.075M per year until 2018/19
de Haan – RFA
Beauvillier – $894k per year until 2018/19

I’d expect de Haan to be signing anywhere from $3.75M to $5M if you take his comparables like Mattias Eckholm ($3.75Mx6), Danny Dekeyser ($5Mx6), Chris Tanev ($4.45Mx5), into consideration. I mean he made a shade under $2M last season, so

I mean he made a shade under $2M last season, so it’s likely he’ll double that depending on the team?

So when we bring it all together, Duchene+Eberle’s salaries are around $12M and the four players mentioned above combined are about, let’s say, $10M because we’re not sure what de Haan signs for. That leaves the Islanders with approximately $2M to play with but with no 2nd pairing on defense

Right now their defense looks as such:

Leddy/Boychuck
XXX/Seidenberg
Mayfield/Pelech

If they really wanted to, they could move Dennis Seidenberg to his native left side and move Ryan Pulock into that vacancy but that’s an awfully inexperienced bottom three defenders.

Bob Stauffer had another suggestion, he suggested that the Islanders move Mikhail Grabovski’s rights (and salary $5M) plus the Islanders first round pick (16th OV) to the Vegas Golden Knights for one fo their 1st rounders that they are likely to pick up from another team. This would open up some cash for the Islanders to play with and if Grabovksi goes on the LTIR next season, the Golden Knights are only on the hook for $1M because the other 80% would be paid by insurance.

That is only for 1 season as well and if they can move Kulemin to Vegas as well, that’d be a dream scenario for Garth Snow.

WHY BEAUVILLIER/de HAAN TO THE OILERS IS A RUMOR

Bob Stauffer has been touting Eberle to the Islanders for a very long time now but he’s only let it be known the return would be for someone that is,

“Cheaper and less established. That might give them (the Oilers) a few more options with regards to where you could move him in to the lineup”

Naturally, myself included, I jumped directly to Ryan Strome but that’s too easy when I think about it and I am of the belief that the Islanders new head coach Doug Weight (DOOOUUUUGGGGIIIIEEEE) is a fan of Strome and would like to work with him. Ryan Strome was nearly .5pts per game after Weight took over coaching duties.

Anthony Beauvillier is cheaper and less established and can play multiple positions and hardly anybody is talking about him, unless you type in “beauvillier isles” on twitter, there you’ll get all sorts of commentary as he’s being connected to the Canadiens (of course he is) and the Alex Galchenyuk rumors. Hence, why his connection to the Oilers is now a rumor. Yes, if Twitter is talking about it, it’s a rumor… lol.

Here’s what McKeen’s had to say about Beauvillier in his draft year and pay attention because a lot of Beauvillier’s character attributes are things that Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli really values.

Anthony Beauvillier has only turned 20 years old and deserves to be on a team that can shelter him and bring him along slowly. Having Milan Lucic, Pat Maroon, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (maybe), Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid will certainly do that. He was a whiz on the faceoff dot in junior (not at all in the NHL yet) and perhaps that (3C) is where Peter Chiarelli could see him eventually. And wasn’t Beauvillier one of the pieces of the Griffin Reinhart trade? He was.

I think you’re probably asking, why would the Oilers need ANOTHER small forward? Didn’t we just go through years and years of trying to play with small forwards? And you’d be right in saying that but I’d have to say that the focus of such a trade wouldn’t be Beauvillier, it’d be De Haan.

I feel like I’ve oversold you on Anthony Beauvillier a bit and not even focused on the best part of that deal, Calvin de Haan.

In de Haan you’ve got a better and possibly cheaper player than Kris Russell.

Fenwick Against per 60 Relative to Teammates:
Russell: -.017
de Haan: -1.59

Shots Against per 60 Relative to Teammates:
Russell:-1.50
de Haan:-2.36

I like those statistics because they tell me how the other team is doing against said player. I like to look at a defenseman’s defensive stats if they are a more stay-at-home dman. And if we look at their “FOR” stats in both of the cases above, they are in the minuses, so that doesn’t help me much.

If you’re a Corsi fella:

Corsi For per 60 Relative to Teammates:
Russell: -7.38
de Haan: -5.13

Corsi Against per 60 Relative to Teammates:
Russell: 5.37
de Haan: 1.32

de Haan wins out here too even though the numbers don’t look great

If we take a gander at some more tradition stats, de Haan comes out on top more often that not as well.

Goals/Assists/Points/PIMs/Shots

Russell: 1/12/13/23/68
de Haan: 5/20/25/36/116

Hits/Shots blocked/Takeaways/ATOI

Russell: 67/213/36/21:13
de Haan: 139/190/24/19:51

It could be said that Calvin de Haan is a bigger better younger version of Kris Russell. They seemingly play the same style. I wonder if de Haan skates as well as Russell though. I’d lean towards no.

A deal like this wouldn’t address the Oilers need of a right-handed defenseman though and it would leave them short on the right-wing. Mark Spector talked about the Oilers signing Tyler Pitlick this summer and Bob Stauffer said that it’d be a shame if Vegas signed Pitlick.

I’m not sure if a RW depth chart of Puljujarvi, Slepyshev, Kassian, and Pitlick would do it? Possibly toss in a Spencer Foo and we know that Drake Caggiula can play across the board. There’s all sorts of potential though and if Draisaitl moves up, then it’s not a problem but only if Nugent-Hopkins stays.

My only problem there is if Duchene is moved out of Colorado, they’ll need another centre, and the Oilers want Tyson Barrie… So maybe you deal RNH for Barrie and you fill that RHD hole but you make another at centre, right? Is that where a signing like Derek Ryan comes in though?

You wouldn’t have to worry about defense again though and a young D-Corps of Klefbom/Larsson/de Haan/Barrie/Sekera/Nurse/Benning would be one of the best in the league.

You can never have enough good defenseman, right?

That said, how do you feel about this new rumor? Let us know in the comments below!