Today Oilers fans got at least part of what they've been asking for. On Tuesday the Oilers announced they were putting Adam Erne on waivers for the purpose of sending him down to the AHL. While many, myself included felt that Raphael Lavoie was the player who needed to be called up, it appears that Gagner will be the man instead.
This means that the Oilers will need to sign Gagner to an NHL deal as the forward is on an AHL only deal at the moment. This will almost certainly be a league minimum deal at $775,000. Woodcroft was the one who officially confirmed that it was Gagner, stating that it was not Lavoie because they were looking for a 4th line replacement. Woodcroft also had some interesting words for why this was being done.
“Erne is paying the price for the group that hasn’t produced. We need more form our bottom-five…
While I didn't feel Erne impacted the game at all while he was on the ice, the rest of the bottom six simply have not contributed nearly enough either and Woodcroft is clearly sending them a message that they have not been good enough and that any of them could be the next sent down to the AHL if they don't start meeting expectations.
With Gagner in the lineup, the current 12 man forward group will look something like this:
Foegele-McDavid-Draisaitl Kane-RNH-Hyman Holloway-McLeod-Brown Janmark-Ryan-Gagner
Gagner over Erne likely moves the needle a bit offensively but the addition of him doesn't suddenly make the Oilers a strong 5 on 5 team away from their top six. There needs to be more production from the group as a whole and if someone can't find the back of the net soon than Raphael Lavoie needs to be the next man up.
Connor Brown will play in his 9th game on Thursday against the Stars and unless he does something of great note I would highly consider sending him down to the AHL to regain his confidence and bring Lavoie up instead.
Here is the thing with Brown. If they just continue to play him and he still struggles offensively than they are on the hook for 3.2 million next season. If they send him down after game 9 and call up Lavoie and Lavoe plays well than they are saving cap for next season. If Lavoie struggles they can still call Brown up, deal with the cap hit and hope some AHL seasoning does him well. I don't see the downside.
Thanks for reading.