That that was the last 3-day break in the Oiler schedule from here until this season is mercifully put out of its misery on April 7th. We are exactly 3 weeks away from the NHL trade deadline, so we should see lots of assistant GMs and full scouting teams show up at Oiler games for a dozen games. Yes, the Oil play a dozen games in 3 weeks.
Edmonton’s best tradable asset is Patrick Maroon. The burly winger found a home in the top 6 as an Edmonton Oiler and is set to be a UFA on July 1st this year. He’s making just $2M a year with $0.5M being retained by the Ducks. He was probably Peter Chiarelli’s best trade in terms of value financially and with regards to what was given up in exchange.
Maroon is 5th in points and 3rd in goals on the Oilers with 13-13-26 through 48 games. That’s a 44 point pace and while his goal scoring is lower than it was a year ago, it would be a career high to hit that mark. He has a positive goal differential on a bad team. He’s 5th in CF%, 6th in FF%, and logging a little more than 17 minutes a night. He’s clearly a physical player with 106 hits on the season and he can play a greasy game that gets under people’s skin as well.
One thing Maroon hasn’t done well this year has been keeping his penalty differential down. The big man is -9 in penalty differential with 17 called against him and only 8 drawn. That’s not something I think teams loading for the playoffs would worry about too much. As the whistles get put away in the playoffs we would likely see an increase in Maroon’s effectiveness.
The Oilers have had Maroon away from McDavid a fair amount this season. He’s played 411:34 with him at 5v5 but also 280:07 away from 97. If the Oil want to max the value they can get from Maroon they might benefit from reuniting them. It’s hard to think that a massive winger with the ability to play anywhere in your top 9 isn’t on every team’s wish list. Oh, and he’s cheap.
What Edmonton might want in exchange for Maroon is really going to be market dependent. If Chiarelli could squeeze a 1st rounder out of someone then that could be a real benefit to the club at the draft. It could turn into a player or a prospect later. Otherwise, you have to think that the Oilers are looking to add prospects at this time. The AHL team is lacking talent up front. Both Yamamoto and Benson should graduate to pro next season, and I’m sure there will be more college free agents available, but it’s really quiet in Bakersfield right now. Someone aged 19-22 who could conceivably help in 2018-2019 would definitely pique Chiarelli’s interest.
What of keeping Maroon? Edmonton has a major money problem next year. They paid through the nose for winger Leon Draisiatl and used up any money that would have been used to give Maroon the raise he wants (and likely deserves). In addition, they’ve committed $6M a year until the end of time to Milan Lucic, who was supposed to be what Maroon turned out to actually be. Unless the team can free up money from the defense by trading Sekera or Russell (both have trade restrictions) then money is pretty tight and they need to re-sign Nurse.
What I’m getting at is that Chiarelli screwed up the cap so bad with anchored contracts that even if they want to keep Maroon, it will likely come at the expense of someone else of equal or higher value. They may simply have no choice but to trade him now and pray that before July they can fix those issues.
LINEUP
Expect Talbot back
Cammalleri McDavid Draisaitl Lucic Khaira Puljujarvi Maroon Strome Caggiula Slepyshev Letestu Kassian
Klefbom Benning Nurse Russell Sekera Davidson
Talbot OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Kuch. The Oilers play tonight against the highest scoring player in the NHL, Nikita Kucherov. With 27-39-66 through 52 games, Kucherov finds himself with a 10 point lead over McDavid in the scoring race. Kucherov has always been a good player, but last year he exploded and topped his previous career high by 19 points. This year he’s on pace to add ANOTHER 19 points to his career high. It has been a special year for the Lightning forward and he will be a threat all over the ice. Interestingly, Kucherov’s goal scoring is coming primarily at 5v5 strength. He leads the NHL with 20 5v5 goals.
2) Stammer. Steven Stamkos is 5th in NHL scoring with 19-41-60 through 52 games this year. He missed a lot of hockey last year and before that had one of his least effective offensive seasons. You can forgive everyone for thinking that maybe the best of his days were behind him even though he’s only 27 (28 in a couple days). While teammate Kucherov has been a 5v5 killer, Stamkos has been at his deadliest on the PP. He is 3rd in the NHL with 12 PP goals this season. Only Malkin and Laine have more. Against a historically weak Oilers PK, he might overtake them.
3) Bringin’ Seksy Back. When Andrej Sekera was out, the prevailing belief was that if the Oil could just hold out long enough for him to get back, it would be like adding a body at the deadline. Sekera would provide that boost to the defense it so desperately needed. In hindsight, we all screwed up. It turns out that coming back from major knee surgery to the heart of an NHL schedule is a massive undertaking and maybe things won’t look so great. It’s been several weeks and Sekera isn’t even beginning to look better. He’s struggling a lot and the Oil need him to show some life. This schedule isn’t going to get easier for a man on the mend.
Puck drops tonight at 7PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. Game On! Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy