Craig MacTavish appeared on Oilers Now with Bob Stauffer earlier today and addressed a few topics of interest to every Oiler fan and likely those interested in what the Oilers have to offer other teams around the NHL as well. Here are some of the things he touched on, in no specific order:
1) The Oilers in a perfect world would have a 4th line capable of bearing heavy Defensive Zone Starts and 3 other lines capable of providing offense.
Given the Oilers’ current roster, that would look like Hendricks and Gordon (plus one other poor soul) would be sacrificed to the Hockey gods on a nightly basis. Now this is something they already saw as Oilers. Gordon had 59.6% Defensive Zone Starts and Hendricks was 2nd with 46.6%DZS. What that also implies is that the Oilers want to again take another stab at a 3rd line that can score some. How that 3rd line is constructed is yet to be determined but that bodes well for a player like Arcobello who we saw last year has enough ability to play in the NHL and bring some offense with him.
2) The Oilers will be chasing after some of the “High End Guys” in Free Agency.
That means maybe taking a stab at Markov if he is available or maybe a Paul Stastny. We already spoke about these guys after their teams were eliminated from the Playoffs but to reiterate, the Oilers could use both. MacT specifically said they want a high-end puck mover and despite his age Markov is still that guy. And if they want to solidify the 2C spot I think Stastny is the best bet from this year’s UFA crop. He’s a solid possession player and was a key cog in the Avalanche system.
3) The Oilers have Cap space and are willing to use that as an asset.
Because they have room they can potentially take on larger contracts and use the Cap space the deal provides as the asset in the deal. My mind immediately jumps to names like Mike Richards in LA who is a potential buyout candidate but who Edmonton can afford to take. That’s probably the scariest name for the Oilers because Richards is under contract until the Sun goes supernova and expands to a red giant, killing everything on the planet except perhaps that contract. It could also mean maybe a Stephen Weiss or an RJ Umberger but these are generally going to be tougher contracts to move for little in return (so don’t get your hopes up Columbus).
4) He likes the Primary Offensive weapons but wants to add secondary players
This makes plenty of sense to me as the Oilers should be set in their top 6 (with 1 potential change at 2C) with Hall, RNH, Eberle, Yakupov, Perron, and Gagner. That is a very young, very talented collection of scoring forwards. The problem is once you start to list out the bottom 6 you have to get creative and a little too reliant on “maybes”.
5) The Oilers are not in a position to trade assets for Draft choices.
The club lacks a 2nd round pick, for example, and they likely wont get that pick back because they need real live NHL players a lot more than they need another 18 year old kid. The part of the rebuild that saw them collect mountains of picks is over and dead. Phase 2 is collect real players and that’s a full go at the moment. Consequently Phase 3 is “????” and Phase 4 is “Parade around Edmonton with the Cup overhead and without your shirt on a la Darryl Sutter”.
6) The 3rd Overall Pick is highly sought after.
Many teams have already inquired about the pick and MacT even went so far as to say that there were several very intriguing offers about it. These offers apparently included the possibility of moving either forward or backwards in the draft. Is there a deal out there to be made that guarantees the Oilers Ekblad, the Sabres the Center they covet, and the Panthers who they want plus some considerations from both Buffalo and Edmonton? I think its very possible.
It is likely less plausible that the Oilers move back in the Draft and even less so that they would move the 3rd pick outright. I still believe they want either Ekblad or Draisaitl but Draisaitl might be available at 4-6 depending on what other scouting lists look like.
He covered a lot of ground, but the Oilers are a deeply flawed team and lots of ground needs to be covered before they will compete for the playoffs. This might be an extremely busy couple of weeks.
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