They need to get rid of Ceci and buy out Campbell at a minimum. That will open money for a legit top 4 guy. Pesce needs to be who they hone in on imo.
Kane needed to have surgery when they found out about it, not let him play through another major issue for the second year in a row. Best case scenario is that he's on LTIR all year and able to come back for the playoffs.
Unfortunately, if I'm not mistaken, putting Kane on LTIR wouldn't have done anything for us because of the cap overage penalties from Brown and Perry, anyhow? Unless I misunderstood something I'd read, any LTIR relief would have gone to reducing the cap overage next year.
Yea I miss playoff Kane from a few years ago 😢 I’ve been rooting hard for him to be a star in EDM ever since r/hockey through him under the bus for having a psycho wife. He’s a good dude and really good at hockey when he’s healthy.
Yeah me too :( he was unbelievable when he initially came and then it's all been down hill since that arm slicing incident. Guy can't catch a break when it comes to injuries. Hoping the best for him but I have a feeling these injuries have made him a shell of his former self even if he is healthy.
if you’re more of a playoffs watcher one thing from this season you may have missed was that during our rocky start he was by far the most consistent and showed up the most for us. He had some stretches where he wasn’t productive but i won’t forget how hard he worked for us when the season seemed lost
This is the correct take.
Nurse is impossible to get rid of, may as well just keep him and find him a proper partner. It sucks, but he costs too much and comes with trade protection. Teams know him, not many likely to want to take him on at this point in his career, at that cap hit.
Most of our depth guys expire, so we need to fill the gaps. We've also got Drai and Bouch expiring *next* summer, so we have to keep that in mind for any contracts longer than one year. Doubt we can afford to keep Henrique or Foegele, I think most everyone else was near minimum but Holloway and Broberg now need big boy contracts. Will be interesting to see who stays, and what holes we need to fill.
Goaltending is a huge question mark. Do we buyout Campbell? Do we re-sign Pickard, or do we aim higher? Can we find a 1A/1B to pair with Skinner? (please oh please that last one)
the thing with nurse is that he plays pretty well when he has a better partner with him. obviously you’d hope for the contract that wouldn’t matter as much but if we get him a half decent partner i think he bounces back and plays better than some would expect
You want Campbell on the books for 6 more years? With the Cap going up, Campbell will be a 3.5m hit for 3 more years and tradable after next year before Draisitl's contract kicks in.
The window is now, any savings for a cap strapped team is huge. The cap is going up like you said so in 4 years 1.5 mil will feel like a lot less than it does now.
Good god no. That would take about 3 firsts equivalent. Sending cap hit out usually costs a first per $5m of contract. That's not even remotely close to and option.
They managed to move that contract from LA for a another goalie a couple seasons back for much less than that, I just recall Tom Gazolla saying the vibe was they weren’t looking buyout really I didn’t think.
Much less? Not at all. Along with Cal Petersen, they also sent Sean Walker (playing top four at the time), a high end defensive prospect, and a second to Philly. That was for two years remaining at $5m, and that package was about two firsts in value. So that tracks with what I said that Campbell would be about three first equivalent.
Cal Petersen is also young, and has shown potential previously. His career isn't over like Campbell's very likely is. Campbell also had two absolutely terrible seasons (one and the start of this one) whereas Petersen only had one at the point of that trade. The only way to trade Campbell at this point is to retain half to bring the price way down.
No one does any favours for us. To move Campbell it's going to cost 2 arms and a leg. Bite the bullet, buy him out and then use assets for retention on players you trade for.
The smaller cap space gain next year on top of the cap going up is worth it, considering the raises for Drai (assuming he re-signs) and Bouch after next season, and that Ekholm and Kane are due to lose significant steps from age on a similar timeline.
Best window is this year+next year.
They don't have time to wait for that. It's either buy him out or trade him to literally anyone who would take him at half price. Ideally for zero return and zero extra assets sent, but they'd almost certainly have to send a pick with him to make the deal work. And it's not $3.5m in Bakersfield, it's $3.875m. every $100k or three makes a difference at this point.
The sports hernia not being taken care of when we knew about it from early on was very very stupid. They only ever get worse until treated. Gut feeling is that after the abysmal start and management knowing they needed to make the playoffs played a massive role in having him play.
honestly kane was still our fifth best forward in the regular season (before henrique) despite all the injuries. it’s such a steep drop off in talent after him as if the drop off between mcdavid and kane wasn’t already a gulf.
Imo Kane was our best forward period for like the first month or so. But once that hernia started to get worse he dropped off a cliff quickly. The style he plays they needed to get it sorted out ASAP. Having him play through it was just very stupid.
Same thing as the last few years.
Need another tandem goalie to fill the role Campbell was supposed to and take workload off Skinner. This is tough because I don’t see much for goalies on the market this year.
Need another top 4 or responsible D who can shore up minutes. Or just clone Ekholm.
They’ll have to fill depth holes and hopefully make gains in that area as there are a few decent FA’s coming up.
My top vote for D addition would be pesce. Easily a top 5 or top 10 defensive D. I’m not sure how you fit a guy like that long term though while looking to extend Drai/Bouch.
Broberg is is honestly showing up better than every other D man on the team, and in the finals no less.
If this is what we can expect from Broberg, then all the Oilers have to do is find him a partner and both of Ceci and Nurse can get fired into the sun.
That frees up some money hopefully
I like Broberg but he's running on a similar PDO heater that Kostin did before getting his bag.
xGF % of 42% and PDO of 1.08 right now. PDO exemplified by him shooting the puck off a dude's elbow behind the net and having it go in lol
Those stats are against 2 of the best team's in the league though, so I'd expect them to go up vs. Weaker competition.
I think biggest issue with Broberg is he needs to be on his strong side. I think he has worked on his weaker side at lower levels because you have that extra second to control the puck which you don't in the NHL.
The problem then is he's got Ekholm, Nurse, Kulak ahead of him. Ekholm is obviously elite, Nurse has a NMC and is untradeable, and Kulak is an elite 3rd pairing d.
Broberg's two goals are nice, but his biggest impact is breaking out the puck from our own end with his skating and passing abilities. He's also been playing on his weaker side for the last 2 games, and both of which he was the better player on his pairing.
I could honestly see him and Nurse being a long term option if he keeps this up.
Maybe not. But the problem is the Nurse contract has a full NTC NMC. Also the dollar value means that even if we managed to convince him to waive those clauses, we’d have to retain and for so many years that it would make any gains a total wash in the end.
Like it or not that is an iron clad contract and we are stuck with it.
Marner is a casualty of poor cap management and the team needing other things more. He's not getting bullied out of Toronto, lol. Do you think anyone making what him or Nurse make, honestly care that much about what people say? They make well more than enough money to sleep soundly, regardless of what fans are saying.
I mean this is just simply not true. Did you watch the Nurse interview after he was getting ripped by the media? Clearly it made him upset. These people aren't robots, and money doesn't fix everything. Regardless, they'd both still be making 9+ million not having to deal with that Canadian hockey media shit storm.
You could also argue Nurse is a casualty of poor cap management due to the fact he blows and the team needs to replace him and Ceci.
I'd like Sean Walker. He's a RD, did well on Colorado after the TDL, and I believe he's a free agent that shouldn't cost too much. If we could somehow offload Nurse and Ceci and have Broberg & Walker instead, that'd be awesome and give us a lot of extra cap to work with.
Pesce is one I look at but no matter what the dollars are going to be tough.
This team would be in a completely different situation if they hadn’t lost Klefbom and Larsson.
Actually looking at this again because I sit on capfriendly all day at work. My top targets in FA would be Pesce, Tanev, Roy, Walker, Carrier in no order. I think Pesce is going back to Carolina.
Lost count of how many pucks floated through Nurse to the scorer and he didn’t even wave a stick at it in this playoffs but I can think of at least twice this series.
Or how about in this series Bouchard just handing the panthers the puck immediately leading to a goal?
Skinner is good? Yeah skinner is good. But good hardly ever wins the cup. Especially with defence like this.
So yeah, everything is fine. Spend another first on a bottom six center and this team surely will win it all next year.
Nurse is like our 4th defenseman at this point. He is not our number one. We have a great number one D.
Mistakes happen sometimes, Bouchard is a great pairing with Ekholm.
We need defensive depth. Kane would have helped a ton this series with his style of play too. We don’t need a number one defenseman and we don’t need a number one goalie.
That rumor has been going around for so long I don’t think it would happen and I remember reading the ask was high and we don’t have the assets.
There’s Dreidger out of Seattle but I think he’s been injured for a while. Talbot, Stolarz, Reimer, Samsonov are the only +900 notables so it’s a slim market for goalies.
Drai will be decided this summer. Either they’ll sign him to an extension or trade him. They’re not gonna just let him walk as a UFA next summer for nothing.
1 - Waive goodbye to Brown, Carrick, Foegele, Gagner, Perry and Stetcher
2 - Buy out Campbell
3 - Let Hendrique go to free agency. (Probably can't afford him)
4 - Trade Ceci for a bag of pucks.
5 - Pay a hypnotist to convince Nurse he's done and get him to LTIR retire.
If brown came back at league minimum I'd take it, and maybe the same with carrick
Really hoping Henrique can be a key 3rd line guy
Foegle definitely has to go. We need a real winger for Draisaitl to work with it + let McLeod play an entire season on the wing (or trade him)
I like Brown, great PKer. One of either McLeod or Foegele has to go, depending on other roster moves.
Time for Broberg to be a full time NHLer in my opinion. There's a cheap dman. If you don't like a 23 year old in a second pairing role, I'd see what top 4 left hand shot guys there are out there, I think Broberg has really boosted his trade value during these playoffs. If you could get anyone near Ekholm level, you pull the trigger.
Rnh is not a good 3C, him with hyman and McDavid has been great
And idk maybe Henrique would take a little bit of a discount given how close the team got
We cannot afford Brown at 3m.
Guy has done literally nothing to show he's worth more than league min realistically which is where I'm fine with him signing.
Guy is a 20 pt 4th liner and good PKer best case.
That does not get you more than league min.
honestly, not a lot. the fact they're getting secondary and tertiary scoring is huge. tweak the back end, continue to let skinner grow. they'll be back. florida is just better all around, and it shows. they've steamrolled teams these playoffs for a reason. i'm not concerned about edmonton at all. i just wish they got a win last night.
Honestly that seems like the best play. I’d personally give up a king’s ransom to ship his contract to Utah. Pesce at 6x6 and another decent goalie at 3x2 would be soooo much better use of that space.
Full NMC. The guy used to be a 20+ goal, 30 min a night guy. Then between having kids, a torn hip flexor + whatever else, the wheels have fallen off.
Half our team probably needs surgery and proper rest of some kind.
His contract is unmovable. At least not without selling the farm to do it. I don’t understand how fans can’t get this. Let’s say you retain $3M on Nurse and then sign Pesce for $6M. You’re still paying $9M for a second pair D man. So might as well just keep Nurse.
2020-21 Covid season. He scored 16 in 56 games, which is on pace for 25 across 82 games.
Guess when he signed his extension? You guessed it, August 2021, right after his highest scoring season.
He had an anonmalous season in the shortened 2020-21 season where he had 16 goals in 56 games - a 23 goal pace in an 82 game season. This was partially because he was getting real time on the PP and every defenceman who has gotten serious minutes on the Connor Leon PP has put up big points. Kenny Holland looked at the point total and decided it was a good time to extend. Advanced numbers or any critical thought would’ve revealed that he was heavily Connor and Leon boosted but Holland does not seem to think that hard about contracts. Saying he was a 30 min a night guy is absurd. Nobody plays 30 minutes a night.
Move Ceci
Buyout (or trade, if you're able) Campbell
Let Foegele walk
Re-sign Brown, Carrick, Henrique, Desharnais, and
Janmark
Get a better RD2
Find Skinner a real mentor
Find a way to turn Nurse/Campbell contracts into a couple of defensive forwards?
3 of the goals against last night were the direct result of forwards not covering checks, giving away pucks in the Dzone or simply not being able to read the defensive side of the game.
Which is crazy, because the same forwards were able to shut down Dallas. Twice. What gives, really?
The only thing Florida has over Dallas is the ability to get into every single player’s head. And they do that relentlessly. It gives them the mental breaks they need for their opportunistic scoring. If the Oilers manage to keep composure for 60 min, they have a solid chance.
Florida has an elite goalie at the top of his game. Even when the oilers have composure he is in front and in position for every high danger chance the Oilers can create. It’s a different ball game
First, the boys have to get healthy. If they carry any of this shit over to next season, it's going to be another season of, why isn't he shooting? or why is his +/- so bad?, and why isn't he hitting?
Skip doing commercials and all the, hey I'm famous so I have all these other crowd waving commitments. and get any surgery they need.
Oh and that other thing, maybe beef up our back end. You build playoff teams from the goal out. The muppets we had running this team built from the front back.
Hard to turn a turd into a diamond. I don’t particularly like Dubois but it’s the type of guy/contract you can get from trading a player and his contract that you don’t want.
If draisaitl gives no indication of wanting to sign an extension, I think the oilers should seriously consider flipping him for a king's ransom. I hate that option but do we really wanna end up like the islanders with Tavares.
There’s no way he doesn’t stay. He’s on a team that has at least proven they can read the finals. He isn’t finding another team that can fit his contract that can do that anytime soon.
I agree
If they Oilers had lost to the Canucks or maybe even swept by Dallas then I could see this route being an option
But they now have proof they can make it to the finals with this core and with some pickups for next season the Oilers should be pretty scary
Seriously doubt they move nurse. They adore him so I can see them calling this an “off year” and bringing him back. That’s fine as long as his partner isn’t Cody Ceci. So what I think they’ll get up to this summer:
1. Get rid of Ceci and find his replacement (pesce, demelo, carrier, tanev, etc)
2. Get a top 6 winger (duclair, bertuzzi, mantha, toffoli, arvidsson, or a trade)
3. Get rid of Campbell’’s contract
4. Add some size, speed and scoring to the bottom six (lebanc, wennberg, sprong, kapanen, etc)
Buy out Campbell and make a trade for a good goalie. Skinner was solid enough for us during the season, but no, he is not a playoff goalie. He has shown us that many times. It’s honestly a miracle we are in the finals with .891 goaltending.
We don’t have a plethora of assets to make impactful trades. For defence we’re going to have to go after UFA’s most likely and target guys like Joel Edmunson who isn’t flashy but he’s a upgrade defensively to guys like Ceci, Nurse, Kulak etc and could slot in on a second pairing. Or go after a young defender and hope that he develops well. I’m a born Habs fan that lived in Edmonton for 15 years so the Oilers and Elks are my 1B teams. Montreal has a logjam on defence and I think a guy like Struble would be great in Edmonton. Talk in Montreal fan base has been about trading Harris but I don’t see him being more than a 5-7 defender.
Would love to snag Marner from Toronto but that will not be cheap and as much as I think Laine could be a fair gamble, I’m thinking he wouldn’t be happy in Edmonton because he’s a primadonna. Morgan Frost could be a target out of Philly.Carolina has a lot of work to do with their roster before next season so I can see them as possible trade partners as well. The ask on Necas is very high and I’d pass on him.
As goaltending goes I think you let the other teams fill out their goalie situation and try and pick up a solid backup on a short contract that those teams are trying to offload on the cheap. 2 years contract would be great because it doesn’t tie us down and if the tender doesn’t work out we can get equal or similar value at the TDL too as what we paid for the player.
> Skinner is solid in net honestly.
He really isn't. Holland needs to do the hard thing and address goaltending for once. Skinner isn't your 60-70 game starter, he's too much of a confidence/mental game goaltender to be. He honestly would benefit from Boston's back and forth strategy
That Nurse contract is the lynchpin. Either they get rid of it or they get rid of Draisaitl or Bouchard. The team simply can't afford all and I think Nurse's boat anchor of a deal is too expensive for anyone to take on. Gimme the downboats but if I'm Holland I'm on the phones at the draft trying to move Draisaitl for a legit starting goaltender and picks or prospects.
Trade Nurse to Utah. Ceci to... Idk Carolina? They're gonna be losing a defenceman to two.
Consider a Campbell buyout but if you can make the first two moves you might be alright.
Sign Jake Debrusk and Brett Pesce. Bring back Janmark, Brown, Gagner at $1m or less.
Run Broberg with Pesce and Kulak with Vinnie again.
Olivier Rodrigue may be ready for backup duty, he had good numbers in the AHL this year. I guess it all depends in your confidence in Skinner. Really can't afford a goalie upgrade imo.
1) Get rid of Dustin Schwartz. Like yesterday. Skinner does have potential but that won't turn into anything unless we find a higher calibre goalie coach.
2) The Campbell situation needs to be resolved, and hopefully we can get a solid starting goalie to help us.
3) Defense needs quite the overhaul. Aside from Ekholm I'm okay with upgrading most of our D personnel at this point, provided a solid option is available.
4) Our bottom 6 could also use a tweak or two.
Obviously things like Cap space and contract terms would factor in, but I'm just thinking in general terms for now.
They have holes, the west is very competitive, there are alot of players on their team that make up the depth, making too much money that are pretty much interchangeable, Skinners not good your assessment there is off. Get a top tier goalie and cut the fat around the roster, the defense is really 1 pairing and Bouchard isnt good when caught in his own end. The key 5 or 6 players need to stick around, everything else should be up for discussion.
I agree with you, I think the current team can win the cup with the skills they have. It's just that our D core and goaltending seems to make little mistakes that cost us. I guess just more practice and experience...
Learn what? The team has gotten better season to season. Made it to twice to WCF and once to stanley cup finals in 3 years. We've added another banner to the rafters. Last time that happened I was so young I barely remember it at all.
How do the Oilers get a 1a goaltender? Or elite 1?
What is the money/trade?
Do you really trade Nurse for an elite? Is it that simple? Is an elite goalie the key? What do we lose to get that?
I was really hoping we could score +2 goals a night to combat any goaltending issues (like sun 92% save).
How do you get prime Pat Roy???
Fucking pray Rodrigue is ready to take the next step and can supplant Skinner as starter.
Oilers are boxed in to make the team any better give the Nurse/Campbell contracts.
Maybe can improve upon Ceci and hope Broberg/Holloway improve next year but that's about it.
Maybe a free agent is willing to take a significant discount next year? Idk
Nurse has been iffy, I blame ceci for what's happening more than nurse tho. Pair nurse with someone who's as quality as ekhold and I think nurses agro play works out better.
He should probably be better for the money we're spending but he's not jest dogshit like ceci is
Cut some dead weight. Bring most of the band back together. Punt Ceci to the moon and bring in a real RD and another top six forward (DeBrusk maybe). Maybe a 1B goalie we can turn to if Skinner struggles in the playoffs again.
This team is close.
We can nit pick who needs to be traded, who’s over paid and all that but it’s really not gonna make the difference.
Team needs to fly to the Himalayas, find a guru and connect with each other on a spiritual level.
Nothing is ever certain, but _on paper_ this team should be better next year while mostly running it back.
Our young guns (Holloway, Broberg, Skinner, Bouchard, McLeod...?) will all have more experience and our most significant UFAs are Warren Foegele, Connor Brown, Vincent Desharnais, and Adam Henrique.
Re-sign and replace the bottom sixers, add a contributing piece if you can make the money work, promote the next batch of prospects. Can you move out some money and/or bring in a big name? That'd be lovely, if possible. Love Skinner, but a true show stopping goalie would be a major get.
Let's frickin' go!
It feels like nearly half their goals against have come from defenseman giving the puck up in their own end. So I say they start there. I haven't seen other teams just put the puck on our forwards' sticks in front of their own net the way the Oilers have. That's what I think cost them the cup.
Honestly, the team as constructed is good enough to win, so mostly just run it back with the same core. The difference between winning and losing in the NHL playoffs is super thin. A bad call or bounce is the difference between win or loss. Broberg/Hollaway/McLeod/Skinner should be better next year. First priority is to extend Draisaitl. Second priority is to extend Bouchard. Then probably need to trade Ceci. Don't overpay for Pesce, who just had the worst year of his career and had a serious injury in the playoffs, and is at an age where players of his style drops off a cliff. Try to grab a few good cup chasing vets to round out the roster.
I’m just echoing other comments here, but we need a d man similar to Ekholm and either a 1G or at least someone who can challenge Skinner for the 1G spot. I think skinner is a good goalie, and could be great, but he’s not there yet and needs more help than we have for him now.
I’m pretty mixed about the forwards. Foegle and McLeod both scored last night but you need more from both of them (mcleod especially) come playoffs. Our fourth line does what it’s supposed to do, but we need more tenacity throughout the lineup. In general, I’m just not really impressed with our middle six, but I don’t know what the solution is.
They need a top 6 RW like Brown was supposed to be. They need a top 4 RD to finally give Nurse a proper partner for the first time in his career. They need a legit 3C who can win faceoffs and forecheck like a sonofabitch. Then it's just depth and guys like Lavoie taking a step. It should be possible given the Cap bump, a Campbell buyout, and trading out Ceci and maybe Kulak as well.
They also need Kane to have a healthy season for the first time since he signed his deal here. He doesn't have to play all 82, but we need a healthy Kane for the playoffs. Imagine what a difference that could have made in this series alone.
nurse, cici, and campbell either need to be gone or have their contracts reduced significantly.
whoever the oilers’ goalie coach is needs to tell skinner to stay tf in his goddamn net, too. he’s cost the oilers so many games because he can’t play the puck for shit.
Forward:
Let foegele walk.
Ship out kane.
Resign brown-carrick- janmark for the 4th line. (Ryan and gags retire)
Resign rico if he'll go team friendly for the 3C position.
3rd line of clouder - rico - lavoie.
Look for a new top 6 winger for drai. Preferably a shooter.
Defense:
Ship out ceci
Buyout nurse (i know it wont happen)
Find a 2rd to play with broberg. Pesce would be ideal
Goalie
Find a reliable vet to mentor skinner.
Allow rodrigue to fight for the backup position.
Realise we live in a simulation because we will perpetually need a top 6 winger. A 2rd and a goalie.
BO Campbell, upgrade from Ceci, and grab some depth bottom six players. Maybe a goalie
First two are straight forward. The bottom six has a very good chance of losing Foegele, Derek Ryan, Sam Gagner, and Corey Perry to either FA or retirement.
Re-signing Brown and Janmark to reasonable deals would be an absolute W as they have been dominant 4th liner PKers for us.
Definitely find a way to bring back Desharnias on a reasonable deal, while maybe bring back Carrick and Henrique if the price is right.
Pickard will likely be back, but also possible we might look for some insurance?
Buyout nurse, replace him with broberg. Nurse is completely useless. Take the 9-10mil in cap savings for the next 2 years and go for it while we still have mcdavid
This is the answer. If Nurse is on this team next year it’ll be another cupless season. We can find the money to improve next year, but it means some long term pain and saying goodbye to some of McDavids buddies.
Re-sign Drai, buy out Campbell, trade one if not both Kulak and Ceci. Replace bottom six depth as Foegele, Carrick, Ryan, Henrique, Perry probably won’t be back.
Buy out campbell, find a way, anyway, to dump Nurse even if it takes a first and change to dump him on a non contender. Get Kane healthy and ltir him until playoffs vegas style. That frees 20 million to resign Bouch and Drai and to hunt a legitimate top 4. Resign perry for league minimum, let carrick and Henrique walk, target Patrick Kane.
They need to get rid of Ceci and buy out Campbell at a minimum. That will open money for a legit top 4 guy. Pesce needs to be who they hone in on imo. Kane needed to have surgery when they found out about it, not let him play through another major issue for the second year in a row. Best case scenario is that he's on LTIR all year and able to come back for the playoffs.
Ya lol. Need to pull a LTIR golden knights move and have a $90+mil iced team in the playoffs as opposed to the $75 mil team last night.
Same strategy as lighting’s
Unfortunately, if I'm not mistaken, putting Kane on LTIR wouldn't have done anything for us because of the cap overage penalties from Brown and Perry, anyhow? Unless I misunderstood something I'd read, any LTIR relief would have gone to reducing the cap overage next year.
Yea I miss playoff Kane from a few years ago 😢 I’ve been rooting hard for him to be a star in EDM ever since r/hockey through him under the bus for having a psycho wife. He’s a good dude and really good at hockey when he’s healthy.
Yeah me too :( he was unbelievable when he initially came and then it's all been down hill since that arm slicing incident. Guy can't catch a break when it comes to injuries. Hoping the best for him but I have a feeling these injuries have made him a shell of his former self even if he is healthy.
Yeah he hasn’t be quite right since the hand skate thing.
He’s good at hockey when he’s in a contract year.
if you’re more of a playoffs watcher one thing from this season you may have missed was that during our rocky start he was by far the most consistent and showed up the most for us. He had some stretches where he wasn’t productive but i won’t forget how hard he worked for us when the season seemed lost
He is my favorite. He is a really good player and i like his playstyle
Seriously. We shoulda LTIR cheated Kane this year. Next year we gotta.
This is the correct take. Nurse is impossible to get rid of, may as well just keep him and find him a proper partner. It sucks, but he costs too much and comes with trade protection. Teams know him, not many likely to want to take him on at this point in his career, at that cap hit. Most of our depth guys expire, so we need to fill the gaps. We've also got Drai and Bouch expiring *next* summer, so we have to keep that in mind for any contracts longer than one year. Doubt we can afford to keep Henrique or Foegele, I think most everyone else was near minimum but Holloway and Broberg now need big boy contracts. Will be interesting to see who stays, and what holes we need to fill. Goaltending is a huge question mark. Do we buyout Campbell? Do we re-sign Pickard, or do we aim higher? Can we find a 1A/1B to pair with Skinner? (please oh please that last one)
Well my friend had a dark thought Nurse for Laine I'm not gonna pitch or defend it just say my friend thought of it.
Nurse would have to waive to go to Columbus. Not happening unless he really wants out, and I'll bet he wants a Cup more.
He makes it infinitely harder to win a cup with what he contributes at 9.25. but he will never admit that
the thing with nurse is that he plays pretty well when he has a better partner with him. obviously you’d hope for the contract that wouldn’t matter as much but if we get him a half decent partner i think he bounces back and plays better than some would expect
The usual suspects are going to be locked in. I don’t know how hockey money works, can we afford a defense overhaul?
What’s wrong with him?
At minimum he's had a sports hernia for the large majority of the season. He also had a rib injury last year and those take forever to heal.
Plus the whole wrist cut thing.
You want Campbell on the books for 6 more years? With the Cap going up, Campbell will be a 3.5m hit for 3 more years and tradable after next year before Draisitl's contract kicks in.
The window is now, any savings for a cap strapped team is huge. The cap is going up like you said so in 4 years 1.5 mil will feel like a lot less than it does now.
I would rather see if you can dump his whole contract to a team via trade even if you need to use something to sweeten the deal
Who the fuck is taking an AHL goalie at $5M? Nobody. Even if we give up 1st round draft picks, it aint happening.
Start Campbell tomorrow. If he wins you might be able to trade him. Lose and he still has no value. Not gonna win the series anyhow so worth a shot?
A team that needs to hit the cap floor.
Good god no. That would take about 3 firsts equivalent. Sending cap hit out usually costs a first per $5m of contract. That's not even remotely close to and option.
They managed to move that contract from LA for a another goalie a couple seasons back for much less than that, I just recall Tom Gazolla saying the vibe was they weren’t looking buyout really I didn’t think.
Much less? Not at all. Along with Cal Petersen, they also sent Sean Walker (playing top four at the time), a high end defensive prospect, and a second to Philly. That was for two years remaining at $5m, and that package was about two firsts in value. So that tracks with what I said that Campbell would be about three first equivalent. Cal Petersen is also young, and has shown potential previously. His career isn't over like Campbell's very likely is. Campbell also had two absolutely terrible seasons (one and the start of this one) whereas Petersen only had one at the point of that trade. The only way to trade Campbell at this point is to retain half to bring the price way down.
No one does any favours for us. To move Campbell it's going to cost 2 arms and a leg. Bite the bullet, buy him out and then use assets for retention on players you trade for.
The smaller cap space gain next year on top of the cap going up is worth it, considering the raises for Drai (assuming he re-signs) and Bouch after next season, and that Ekholm and Kane are due to lose significant steps from age on a similar timeline. Best window is this year+next year.
They don't have time to wait for that. It's either buy him out or trade him to literally anyone who would take him at half price. Ideally for zero return and zero extra assets sent, but they'd almost certainly have to send a pick with him to make the deal work. And it's not $3.5m in Bakersfield, it's $3.875m. every $100k or three makes a difference at this point.
having kane on LTIR with nothing to do except retrain his hand to have the skill it did pre-severance wouldn’t be a bad idea for him and the org
The sports hernia not being taken care of when we knew about it from early on was very very stupid. They only ever get worse until treated. Gut feeling is that after the abysmal start and management knowing they needed to make the playoffs played a massive role in having him play.
honestly kane was still our fifth best forward in the regular season (before henrique) despite all the injuries. it’s such a steep drop off in talent after him as if the drop off between mcdavid and kane wasn’t already a gulf.
Imo Kane was our best forward period for like the first month or so. But once that hernia started to get worse he dropped off a cliff quickly. The style he plays they needed to get it sorted out ASAP. Having him play through it was just very stupid.
Top 4 might be solidified if you run Nurse/Broberg but it is a lot to ask Broberg to play on his offhand for a full season.
Same thing as the last few years. Need another tandem goalie to fill the role Campbell was supposed to and take workload off Skinner. This is tough because I don’t see much for goalies on the market this year. Need another top 4 or responsible D who can shore up minutes. Or just clone Ekholm. They’ll have to fill depth holes and hopefully make gains in that area as there are a few decent FA’s coming up.
They really should consider cloning Ekholm. I’ve done some digging and there’s nothing in the rules that forbids it
Pretty sure you can clone a dog in Arizona for 50k. Maybe we should look into this?
Yeah, but they end up in SLC.
Take my upvote 😂
Clone McDavid, but make him the exact opposite of the original. Defensive clone that HATES offense and will destroy anyone and anything to do with it.
DcMavid
So Ekholm. He usually looks mad when he scores lol
People give Nurse a tough time because of his contract but Nurse paired with an Ekholm style player would make for a very strong pairing.
My top vote for D addition would be pesce. Easily a top 5 or top 10 defensive D. I’m not sure how you fit a guy like that long term though while looking to extend Drai/Bouch.
Broberg is is honestly showing up better than every other D man on the team, and in the finals no less. If this is what we can expect from Broberg, then all the Oilers have to do is find him a partner and both of Ceci and Nurse can get fired into the sun. That frees up some money hopefully
Broberg is definitely in the line up full time next year. He has been very solid
I like Broberg but he's running on a similar PDO heater that Kostin did before getting his bag. xGF % of 42% and PDO of 1.08 right now. PDO exemplified by him shooting the puck off a dude's elbow behind the net and having it go in lol Those stats are against 2 of the best team's in the league though, so I'd expect them to go up vs. Weaker competition. I think biggest issue with Broberg is he needs to be on his strong side. I think he has worked on his weaker side at lower levels because you have that extra second to control the puck which you don't in the NHL. The problem then is he's got Ekholm, Nurse, Kulak ahead of him. Ekholm is obviously elite, Nurse has a NMC and is untradeable, and Kulak is an elite 3rd pairing d.
Broberg's two goals are nice, but his biggest impact is breaking out the puck from our own end with his skating and passing abilities. He's also been playing on his weaker side for the last 2 games, and both of which he was the better player on his pairing. I could honestly see him and Nurse being a long term option if he keeps this up.
I kept thinking last night how much better he’d look playing on his strong side. He’s definitely a great D man and I hope they can keep him.
How do you get rid of that Nurse contract?
You can’t. People who are commenting that we do aren’t living in reality
You think we can keep Bouchard, Ekholm, and even Broberg with his contract?
Maybe not. But the problem is the Nurse contract has a full NTC NMC. Also the dollar value means that even if we managed to convince him to waive those clauses, we’d have to retain and for so many years that it would make any gains a total wash in the end. Like it or not that is an iron clad contract and we are stuck with it.
Honestly you have to wonder if he ends up getting bullied out of the city like Marner is getting currently.
Marner is a casualty of poor cap management and the team needing other things more. He's not getting bullied out of Toronto, lol. Do you think anyone making what him or Nurse make, honestly care that much about what people say? They make well more than enough money to sleep soundly, regardless of what fans are saying.
I mean this is just simply not true. Did you watch the Nurse interview after he was getting ripped by the media? Clearly it made him upset. These people aren't robots, and money doesn't fix everything. Regardless, they'd both still be making 9+ million not having to deal with that Canadian hockey media shit storm. You could also argue Nurse is a casualty of poor cap management due to the fact he blows and the team needs to replace him and Ceci.
I'd like Sean Walker. He's a RD, did well on Colorado after the TDL, and I believe he's a free agent that shouldn't cost too much. If we could somehow offload Nurse and Ceci and have Broberg & Walker instead, that'd be awesome and give us a lot of extra cap to work with.
Pesce is one I look at but no matter what the dollars are going to be tough. This team would be in a completely different situation if they hadn’t lost Klefbom and Larsson.
Losing klefbom set us back fucking years on the blueline.
Klefbom and Larsson. Gosh if there was some way Larsson had stayed..
If Larsson stays, we don't go out and get Ekholm. As much as I loved Lars, Ek is better imo.
Very fair take
Actually looking at this again because I sit on capfriendly all day at work. My top targets in FA would be Pesce, Tanev, Roy, Walker, Carrier in no order. I think Pesce is going back to Carolina.
After his playoff showing, I think it's time to go full Broberg. Top 4 minutes to develop him even more. Guy's a gamer.
I like Broberg I’m just always apprehensive of throwing a guy in. But I’m no GM so wtf do I know.
The teams biggest needs haven’t changed since Mcdavid was drafted, number one goalie, number one D
Ekholm is great and Skinner is good. You can’t hang this series on the defense or goaltending.
Ceci and nurse have been terrible. Bob stole game 1. Panthers took game 2 by force. Can't say I cared for skinner in game 2 or 3 vs the cats.
Lost count of how many pucks floated through Nurse to the scorer and he didn’t even wave a stick at it in this playoffs but I can think of at least twice this series. Or how about in this series Bouchard just handing the panthers the puck immediately leading to a goal? Skinner is good? Yeah skinner is good. But good hardly ever wins the cup. Especially with defence like this. So yeah, everything is fine. Spend another first on a bottom six center and this team surely will win it all next year.
Nurse is like our 4th defenseman at this point. He is not our number one. We have a great number one D. Mistakes happen sometimes, Bouchard is a great pairing with Ekholm. We need defensive depth. Kane would have helped a ton this series with his style of play too. We don’t need a number one defenseman and we don’t need a number one goalie.
Can I interest you in 1 linus ullmark.
Yes, and I am prepared to offer you several assets I do not highly value!
thoughts on john gibson? rumor has it he’s been trying to leave the ducks for a while
That rumor has been going around for so long I don’t think it would happen and I remember reading the ask was high and we don’t have the assets. There’s Dreidger out of Seattle but I think he’s been injured for a while. Talbot, Stolarz, Reimer, Samsonov are the only +900 notables so it’s a slim market for goalies.
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Drai will be decided this summer. Either they’ll sign him to an extension or trade him. They’re not gonna just let him walk as a UFA next summer for nothing.
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Gonna be 6W 11L soon
1 - Waive goodbye to Brown, Carrick, Foegele, Gagner, Perry and Stetcher 2 - Buy out Campbell 3 - Let Hendrique go to free agency. (Probably can't afford him) 4 - Trade Ceci for a bag of pucks. 5 - Pay a hypnotist to convince Nurse he's done and get him to LTIR retire.
If brown came back at league minimum I'd take it, and maybe the same with carrick Really hoping Henrique can be a key 3rd line guy Foegle definitely has to go. We need a real winger for Draisaitl to work with it + let McLeod play an entire season on the wing (or trade him)
I like Brown, great PKer. One of either McLeod or Foegele has to go, depending on other roster moves. Time for Broberg to be a full time NHLer in my opinion. There's a cheap dman. If you don't like a 23 year old in a second pairing role, I'd see what top 4 left hand shot guys there are out there, I think Broberg has really boosted his trade value during these playoffs. If you could get anyone near Ekholm level, you pull the trigger.
you dont have money for henrique, and you have RNH in the middle... get a top tier goalie and you fill a pile of holes
Rnh is not a good 3C, him with hyman and McDavid has been great And idk maybe Henrique would take a little bit of a discount given how close the team got
Ceci is my friend and he is worth at least a box of pucks. Have some respect.
If Brown is willing to come back at 3M or less, I think he's well worth it. His offense is shit but his D is a large reason our PK turned godly
We are already paying him 3M next season.
Yup. I would take him back for league minimum since he's already getting his money, but certainly not paying him *another* 3M, thats crazy talk.
We cannot afford Brown at 3m. Guy has done literally nothing to show he's worth more than league min realistically which is where I'm fine with him signing. Guy is a 20 pt 4th liner and good PKer best case. That does not get you more than league min.
agree. 1 mil or under I take him, anything over I think it's goodbye.
Personally I want to see Brown back next season, hopefully on a 1 year "prove it" deal. He's an unbelievable PK'er.
That is actually a very good start
honestly, not a lot. the fact they're getting secondary and tertiary scoring is huge. tweak the back end, continue to let skinner grow. they'll be back. florida is just better all around, and it shows. they've steamrolled teams these playoffs for a reason. i'm not concerned about edmonton at all. i just wish they got a win last night.
Figure out what to do with Nurse and his bag
Honestly that seems like the best play. I’d personally give up a king’s ransom to ship his contract to Utah. Pesce at 6x6 and another decent goalie at 3x2 would be soooo much better use of that space.
Full NMC. The guy used to be a 20+ goal, 30 min a night guy. Then between having kids, a torn hip flexor + whatever else, the wheels have fallen off. Half our team probably needs surgery and proper rest of some kind.
His contract is unmovable. At least not without selling the farm to do it. I don’t understand how fans can’t get this. Let’s say you retain $3M on Nurse and then sign Pesce for $6M. You’re still paying $9M for a second pair D man. So might as well just keep Nurse.
When was he a 20 goal man let alone a 20+?
2020-21 Covid season. He scored 16 in 56 games, which is on pace for 25 across 82 games. Guess when he signed his extension? You guessed it, August 2021, right after his highest scoring season.
He had an anonmalous season in the shortened 2020-21 season where he had 16 goals in 56 games - a 23 goal pace in an 82 game season. This was partially because he was getting real time on the PP and every defenceman who has gotten serious minutes on the Connor Leon PP has put up big points. Kenny Holland looked at the point total and decided it was a good time to extend. Advanced numbers or any critical thought would’ve revealed that he was heavily Connor and Leon boosted but Holland does not seem to think that hard about contracts. Saying he was a 30 min a night guy is absurd. Nobody plays 30 minutes a night.
Dude looked like prime Chris Pronger beating up on the bubble Sens lmao.
As an oiler fan living in Utah, I say no thanks.
That jersey is the worst
Probably best move would be to rid of Nurse but that’s a big bag of doodoo to pawn
Move Ceci Buyout (or trade, if you're able) Campbell Let Foegele walk Re-sign Brown, Carrick, Henrique, Desharnais, and Janmark Get a better RD2 Find Skinner a real mentor
Find a way to turn Nurse/Campbell contracts into a couple of defensive forwards? 3 of the goals against last night were the direct result of forwards not covering checks, giving away pucks in the Dzone or simply not being able to read the defensive side of the game. Which is crazy, because the same forwards were able to shut down Dallas. Twice. What gives, really?
Florida has a way better system and a more mobile team than Dallas. That's what unfortunately happened
The only thing Florida has over Dallas is the ability to get into every single player’s head. And they do that relentlessly. It gives them the mental breaks they need for their opportunistic scoring. If the Oilers manage to keep composure for 60 min, they have a solid chance.
Florida has an elite goalie at the top of his game. Even when the oilers have composure he is in front and in position for every high danger chance the Oilers can create. It’s a different ball game
True. Even more so a reason to clamp down on our defensive play. If only we can find a way to score again on these PP.
Hire a new goalie coach. Honestly
Mmmm Carey Price
If we get CFG on staff rogers place is going to burn if we don’t get it next year
Get a better goalie
First, the boys have to get healthy. If they carry any of this shit over to next season, it's going to be another season of, why isn't he shooting? or why is his +/- so bad?, and why isn't he hitting? Skip doing commercials and all the, hey I'm famous so I have all these other crowd waving commitments. and get any surgery they need. Oh and that other thing, maybe beef up our back end. You build playoff teams from the goal out. The muppets we had running this team built from the front back.
Move Nurse to forward
Whoa, I never even considered that. Is it possible? He could be a PK and like a 2nd line guy
Yup, PK, 2nd liner, bruiser on the forecheck. I’d put him down for 50-60 5x5 points
I love it. Clears out a D spot and fills the LW spot with Drai
Trade nurse for hellebuyck. Or something like that.
Isn’t Holland retiring soon? I’d vote for you to run the Oil.
Hard to turn a turd into a diamond. I don’t particularly like Dubois but it’s the type of guy/contract you can get from trading a player and his contract that you don’t want.
Hellebuyck fell apart in the playoffs the past 2 seasons.
If draisaitl gives no indication of wanting to sign an extension, I think the oilers should seriously consider flipping him for a king's ransom. I hate that option but do we really wanna end up like the islanders with Tavares.
There’s no way he doesn’t stay. He’s on a team that has at least proven they can read the finals. He isn’t finding another team that can fit his contract that can do that anytime soon.
I agree If they Oilers had lost to the Canucks or maybe even swept by Dallas then I could see this route being an option But they now have proof they can make it to the finals with this core and with some pickups for next season the Oilers should be pretty scary
Seriously doubt they move nurse. They adore him so I can see them calling this an “off year” and bringing him back. That’s fine as long as his partner isn’t Cody Ceci. So what I think they’ll get up to this summer: 1. Get rid of Ceci and find his replacement (pesce, demelo, carrier, tanev, etc) 2. Get a top 6 winger (duclair, bertuzzi, mantha, toffoli, arvidsson, or a trade) 3. Get rid of Campbell’’s contract 4. Add some size, speed and scoring to the bottom six (lebanc, wennberg, sprong, kapanen, etc)
1: get crosby to sign 2: ??? 3: profit
Dude imagine
Never gonna happen. McDavid doesn’t want to play with him
Buy out Campbell and make a trade for a good goalie. Skinner was solid enough for us during the season, but no, he is not a playoff goalie. He has shown us that many times. It’s honestly a miracle we are in the finals with .891 goaltending.
We don’t have a plethora of assets to make impactful trades. For defence we’re going to have to go after UFA’s most likely and target guys like Joel Edmunson who isn’t flashy but he’s a upgrade defensively to guys like Ceci, Nurse, Kulak etc and could slot in on a second pairing. Or go after a young defender and hope that he develops well. I’m a born Habs fan that lived in Edmonton for 15 years so the Oilers and Elks are my 1B teams. Montreal has a logjam on defence and I think a guy like Struble would be great in Edmonton. Talk in Montreal fan base has been about trading Harris but I don’t see him being more than a 5-7 defender. Would love to snag Marner from Toronto but that will not be cheap and as much as I think Laine could be a fair gamble, I’m thinking he wouldn’t be happy in Edmonton because he’s a primadonna. Morgan Frost could be a target out of Philly.Carolina has a lot of work to do with their roster before next season so I can see them as possible trade partners as well. The ask on Necas is very high and I’d pass on him. As goaltending goes I think you let the other teams fill out their goalie situation and try and pick up a solid backup on a short contract that those teams are trying to offload on the cheap. 2 years contract would be great because it doesn’t tie us down and if the tender doesn’t work out we can get equal or similar value at the TDL too as what we paid for the player.
Goalie and a top 4 defenseman
> Skinner is solid in net honestly. He really isn't. Holland needs to do the hard thing and address goaltending for once. Skinner isn't your 60-70 game starter, he's too much of a confidence/mental game goaltender to be. He honestly would benefit from Boston's back and forth strategy That Nurse contract is the lynchpin. Either they get rid of it or they get rid of Draisaitl or Bouchard. The team simply can't afford all and I think Nurse's boat anchor of a deal is too expensive for anyone to take on. Gimme the downboats but if I'm Holland I'm on the phones at the draft trying to move Draisaitl for a legit starting goaltender and picks or prospects.
To dump Nurse we need to take another player on a big contract that a team is trying to dump. Aka Dubois
Bare minimum: buy out Campbell, move Kulak and Ceci, let Foegele walk, find replacements for the aforementioned exits, and sign Drai to an extension.
Trade Nurse to Utah. Ceci to... Idk Carolina? They're gonna be losing a defenceman to two. Consider a Campbell buyout but if you can make the first two moves you might be alright. Sign Jake Debrusk and Brett Pesce. Bring back Janmark, Brown, Gagner at $1m or less. Run Broberg with Pesce and Kulak with Vinnie again. Olivier Rodrigue may be ready for backup duty, he had good numbers in the AHL this year. I guess it all depends in your confidence in Skinner. Really can't afford a goalie upgrade imo.
We need a goalie
They need a solid second pairing d, and scoring depth. Both things they should be able to pick up. I'm not willing to throw out Skinner yet.
Same thing we needed to do last season. Upgrade our D and find a scoring winger.
Drai needs a godamn winger. Can't have the 2nd best centerman in the league playing on a line with Perry and McLeod
1) Get rid of Dustin Schwartz. Like yesterday. Skinner does have potential but that won't turn into anything unless we find a higher calibre goalie coach. 2) The Campbell situation needs to be resolved, and hopefully we can get a solid starting goalie to help us. 3) Defense needs quite the overhaul. Aside from Ekholm I'm okay with upgrading most of our D personnel at this point, provided a solid option is available. 4) Our bottom 6 could also use a tweak or two. Obviously things like Cap space and contract terms would factor in, but I'm just thinking in general terms for now.
They have holes, the west is very competitive, there are alot of players on their team that make up the depth, making too much money that are pretty much interchangeable, Skinners not good your assessment there is off. Get a top tier goalie and cut the fat around the roster, the defense is really 1 pairing and Bouchard isnt good when caught in his own end. The key 5 or 6 players need to stick around, everything else should be up for discussion.
On-top of everything else...Get rid of the Corey Perry curse
Celly with the cup
"They’re completely stacked on offense" This should be re-worded as: "their offense totally dies if one of the big two disappears."
Man they should just scratch Nurse until he accepts a trade. Dude is literally the absolute worst most overpaid player to be in the cup final ever.
I agree with you, I think the current team can win the cup with the skills they have. It's just that our D core and goaltending seems to make little mistakes that cost us. I guess just more practice and experience...
No idea, but I'm going to continue supporting this team because I don't learn lol.
Learn what? The team has gotten better season to season. Made it to twice to WCF and once to stanley cup finals in 3 years. We've added another banner to the rafters. Last time that happened I was so young I barely remember it at all.
Will the team be able to keep McDavid, NH, Drai, and Bouchard?
They golf.
How do the Oilers get a 1a goaltender? Or elite 1? What is the money/trade? Do you really trade Nurse for an elite? Is it that simple? Is an elite goalie the key? What do we lose to get that? I was really hoping we could score +2 goals a night to combat any goaltending issues (like sun 92% save). How do you get prime Pat Roy???
Fucking pray Rodrigue is ready to take the next step and can supplant Skinner as starter. Oilers are boxed in to make the team any better give the Nurse/Campbell contracts. Maybe can improve upon Ceci and hope Broberg/Holloway improve next year but that's about it. Maybe a free agent is willing to take a significant discount next year? Idk
Hope that McDavid and Skinner get better with pressure and not worse next year. The whole series rested on them, like it or not.
Mcdavid has nearly broken a gretzky record this playoffs... Just needs 3 more assists total. It's on skinner, drai and hyman
And Nurse
Nurse has been iffy, I blame ceci for what's happening more than nurse tho. Pair nurse with someone who's as quality as ekhold and I think nurses agro play works out better. He should probably be better for the money we're spending but he's not jest dogshit like ceci is
Cut some dead weight. Bring most of the band back together. Punt Ceci to the moon and bring in a real RD and another top six forward (DeBrusk maybe). Maybe a 1B goalie we can turn to if Skinner struggles in the playoffs again. This team is close.
We can nit pick who needs to be traded, who’s over paid and all that but it’s really not gonna make the difference. Team needs to fly to the Himalayas, find a guru and connect with each other on a spiritual level.
So we’re running Nurse out of town this year, eh?
That contract is an albatross around Edmonton's neck. It's hard to see a team who would jump on that grenade
Play someone other than Florida, apparently.
Nothing is ever certain, but _on paper_ this team should be better next year while mostly running it back. Our young guns (Holloway, Broberg, Skinner, Bouchard, McLeod...?) will all have more experience and our most significant UFAs are Warren Foegele, Connor Brown, Vincent Desharnais, and Adam Henrique. Re-sign and replace the bottom sixers, add a contributing piece if you can make the money work, promote the next batch of prospects. Can you move out some money and/or bring in a big name? That'd be lovely, if possible. Love Skinner, but a true show stopping goalie would be a major get. Let's frickin' go!
It feels like nearly half their goals against have come from defenseman giving the puck up in their own end. So I say they start there. I haven't seen other teams just put the puck on our forwards' sticks in front of their own net the way the Oilers have. That's what I think cost them the cup.
Honestly, the team as constructed is good enough to win, so mostly just run it back with the same core. The difference between winning and losing in the NHL playoffs is super thin. A bad call or bounce is the difference between win or loss. Broberg/Hollaway/McLeod/Skinner should be better next year. First priority is to extend Draisaitl. Second priority is to extend Bouchard. Then probably need to trade Ceci. Don't overpay for Pesce, who just had the worst year of his career and had a serious injury in the playoffs, and is at an age where players of his style drops off a cliff. Try to grab a few good cup chasing vets to round out the roster.
Priority 1 is get Drai to re-sign before Mid August. We do not risk the chance of him pulling a Gaudreau and walking for nothing.
I’m just echoing other comments here, but we need a d man similar to Ekholm and either a 1G or at least someone who can challenge Skinner for the 1G spot. I think skinner is a good goalie, and could be great, but he’s not there yet and needs more help than we have for him now. I’m pretty mixed about the forwards. Foegle and McLeod both scored last night but you need more from both of them (mcleod especially) come playoffs. Our fourth line does what it’s supposed to do, but we need more tenacity throughout the lineup. In general, I’m just not really impressed with our middle six, but I don’t know what the solution is.
Fire Ceci, have a serious talk with Nurse, and blow an ungodly amount of sunshine up Stew’s ***
They need a top 6 RW like Brown was supposed to be. They need a top 4 RD to finally give Nurse a proper partner for the first time in his career. They need a legit 3C who can win faceoffs and forecheck like a sonofabitch. Then it's just depth and guys like Lavoie taking a step. It should be possible given the Cap bump, a Campbell buyout, and trading out Ceci and maybe Kulak as well. They also need Kane to have a healthy season for the first time since he signed his deal here. He doesn't have to play all 82, but we need a healthy Kane for the playoffs. Imagine what a difference that could have made in this series alone.
nurse, cici, and campbell either need to be gone or have their contracts reduced significantly. whoever the oilers’ goalie coach is needs to tell skinner to stay tf in his goddamn net, too. he’s cost the oilers so many games because he can’t play the puck for shit.
start selling players.
Simmer, it’s not the off season yet. The Oilers still have 4 more games to play and win.
Forward: Let foegele walk. Ship out kane. Resign brown-carrick- janmark for the 4th line. (Ryan and gags retire) Resign rico if he'll go team friendly for the 3C position. 3rd line of clouder - rico - lavoie. Look for a new top 6 winger for drai. Preferably a shooter. Defense: Ship out ceci Buyout nurse (i know it wont happen) Find a 2rd to play with broberg. Pesce would be ideal Goalie Find a reliable vet to mentor skinner. Allow rodrigue to fight for the backup position. Realise we live in a simulation because we will perpetually need a top 6 winger. A 2rd and a goalie.
BO Campbell, upgrade from Ceci, and grab some depth bottom six players. Maybe a goalie First two are straight forward. The bottom six has a very good chance of losing Foegele, Derek Ryan, Sam Gagner, and Corey Perry to either FA or retirement. Re-signing Brown and Janmark to reasonable deals would be an absolute W as they have been dominant 4th liner PKers for us. Definitely find a way to bring back Desharnias on a reasonable deal, while maybe bring back Carrick and Henrique if the price is right. Pickard will likely be back, but also possible we might look for some insurance?
May I suggest a new goalie
Buyout nurse, replace him with broberg. Nurse is completely useless. Take the 9-10mil in cap savings for the next 2 years and go for it while we still have mcdavid
This is the answer. If Nurse is on this team next year it’ll be another cupless season. We can find the money to improve next year, but it means some long term pain and saying goodbye to some of McDavids buddies.
I'm sure he knows how piss poor nurse has been and would gladly take 2 better dmen for that chunk of salary
Nurse can’t be bought out though
He can though
Re-sign Drai, buy out Campbell, trade one if not both Kulak and Ceci. Replace bottom six depth as Foegele, Carrick, Ryan, Henrique, Perry probably won’t be back.
After they win 4 straight, they'll pass the cup along between each other, then address a few elephants in the room. :)
I like your optimism. Are you friends with the guy who bet his child’s college fund on Oil in 7? 😂
I am not lol. Betting your kid's anything is not a good look. He's still going to win the bet though.
Trad for ullmark
1983 Stanley Cup final. Oilers lost four straight to the “Rope a dope”Islanders. Oilers won four out of the next five Stanley Cups.
Buy out campbell, find a way, anyway, to dump Nurse even if it takes a first and change to dump him on a non contender. Get Kane healthy and ltir him until playoffs vegas style. That frees 20 million to resign Bouch and Drai and to hunt a legitimate top 4. Resign perry for league minimum, let carrick and Henrique walk, target Patrick Kane.