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Oilers Must Be Bold To Capitalize on Their Window

October 1, 2016, 12:58 PM ET [204 Comments]
James Tanner
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You can say what you want about the Oilers, but you must give them credit for one thing: Oscar Klefbom's ridiculously team-friendly contract. You must also give the Devils the same credit for Larsson's deal and realize that Larsson and Klefbom - a duo likely to be among the best top-pairings in the NHL for years to come - combine to make less than P.K Subban.

FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS.

The kind of roster flexibility that gives you might be the one aspect that you can look at the Hall/Larsson trade and use to defend Peter Chiarelli.

But the Oilers have a problem: Connor McDavid is going to need to be the highest paid player in the NHL. Likely in NHL history.

He has this year and next year left on his ECL - that is two seasons in which he is going to get paid 4th liner money for being the best player in the NHL. Likely one of the best players of all-time.



Giving that this is a cap-league, it should be pretty obvious that the Oilers have an unprecedented window of opportunity to stack their team over the next two years.

As of right now, Eberle, RNH and Lucic all make $6 million, and all three are good-to-great value at that price.

Yakupov, Draisaitl, McDavid and Puljujarvi make peanuts.

The Oilers have $8 million in cap-space.

They have $6 million tied up in Ference and Fayne. (Inexplicably).

Hendricks, Letestu and Kassian combine to make almost another $6. (Inexplicably)

So what I am saying is that with a little creativity, the Oilers could have up to $20 million dollars to improve their roster.

And, since McDavid is currently the greatest bargain in NHL history, they have a two season window in which they could ice the greatest team the Salary Cap Era NHL has ever seen.

They also have no need to use any of their upcoming 1st or 2nd round picks.

So how do they do it?



1. Trade for Jacob Trouba.

Darnell Nurse and a First Gets it done. If not, add 2nd rounders until WPG takes it.


2. Call up the Ducks. Tell them you want Lindholm and offer them Eberle and as many future 1sts and 2nds as required to get the deal done.

3. Sign both players and then relax, you now have the best group of defenseman in the NHL by about seven-hundred miles.

In fact, a top four of
Klembom-Larsson
Lindholm - Trouba

is probably good to make you a Cup favorite for the next five years, even if you didn't have Connor McDavid on your team.

OK, that's just an example and made-up trades are pretty dumb. But the point is good. The Oilers have capital, they have cap space and they have an incredible roster. With some aggressive moves they really could turn their team into something fantastic.

Think about their current roster.

Think about the cap space available.
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