Over the past few days a number of prolific players have been on the move to playoff teams. Duchene, Dzingel, Montour, Kinkaid, Nyqvist to name a few. Fans are feverishly refreshing their Twitter to see if their team is the one who will acquire Mark Stone, or whether or not their pending UFA's will be moved for some assets.
In Oil Country it might just be another day, as at the time of writing this blog, the Oilers have made no moves. The Oilers are not going to make the playoffs...I know it, you know it, and I think the media knows it, although tweets like this still cross my feed.
bad night if you're an Oiler fan. Minny wins, Dallas wins, now Ariz wins, and Oilers eight pts out, albeit with few games in hand. Does that change Keith Gretzky's trade plans? That's a very large hill to climb with 21 games left
— Jim Matheson (@NHLbyMatty) February 25, 2019
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There has been plenty of air pumped into the tires of Zack Kassian as of late, due to his recent point production. This is identical to the same level of praise Alex Chiasson received when he was on his heater. Kassian and Chiasson are both bottom 6 players, useful to have but they should be evaluated on their careers work, not a couple strong weeks of play.
Kassian is signed for another year at just a hair under 2 million. The Oilers have plenty of options who could fit the same role and make at least 1 million dollars less a season. Moving Zack Kassian for a third round pick right now is the right long term move for the team.
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LINEUP
OILERS
RNH-Draisaitl-Kassian Rieder-Cave-Chiasson Lucic-Brodziak-Currie Gagner-Malone-Rattie
Klefbom-Larsson Nurse-Russell Sekera-Benning
Koskinen
PREDATORS Forsberg-Johansen-Arvidsson Fiala-Turris-Jarnkrok Boyle-Bonino-Hartman Sissons-Gaudreau-Grimaldi
Josi-Ellis Ekholm-Subban Hamhuis-Irwin
Saros
4 KEYS TO VICTORY
1) Boring Hockey. It's what Edmonton is going to have to play without Connor McDavid. Tonight's game is the second and last game of McDavid's suspension. Two nights ago the Oilers won without Connor, due to playing a plodding dull game while capitalizing on some chances. That style of game is easy to play on a team that struggles offensively like the Ducks, but will be more difficult against a team like the Preds.
2) Proper Development. It's rare for an 18 year old to make the NHL, heck it's difficult for most 22 year old prospects to crack an NHL roster. Josh Currie has had anything but a usual path to the NHL but at 26 years old he is starting to reap the rewards. After scoring 24 goals with the Condors this season, Currie put up his first NHL goal last game against the Ducks. Edmonton has a number of players performing well at the AHL level and they will need players like Currie to come in and provide some secondary scoring.
3) From The Point. The second highest point producer on the Predators is Roman Josi with 51 points. Subban always gets the attention but Josi is the more dominant offensive player. He has averaged more than 50 points for the past 5 seasons and is one goal away from his career high. The Predators have the best defense in the entire NHL and the Oilers will need to deal with threats from both up front and the backend.
4) Seriously I Love Sam Gagner. I was biased at the return of Sam Gagner because I have always liked the player. When Hall and Eberle and RNH arrived in Edmonton, Sam Gagner was still one of my favourite players and it has been great to see him producing in Oilers colours again. I don't get the people who disliked the Spooner for Gagner deal. Spooner was never going to produce on this Oilers team again, meanwhile Gagner can provide some secondary help both at 5 on 5 and the second unit PP. He is overpaid at 3.1 million but he has done more in a handfull of games than Spooner ever did.