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A Quiet July 1st Is Likely For The Best

July 2, 2019, 1:42 PM ET [128 Comments]
Sean Maloughney
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Ladies and gentlemen may I present your 2019/2020 Edmonton Oilers!

Draisaitl-McDavid-Kassian
Lucic-RNH-Chiasson
Nygard-Granlund-Gagner
Khaira-Cave-Haas
Brodziak

Klefbom-Larsson
Nurse-Russell
Jones-Benning

Koskinen
Smith

So... raise your hand if you're excited!

(crickets...old man coughs...someone cracks their knuckles)

Yeah that's what I thought.

That was the general reaction from the Oilers fan-base after an overall uneventful July 1st. After the Oilers bought out Sekera, fans and pundits, including myself were expecting some kind of more impact signing to go down. Not only did one not happen, but Edmonton was not able to acquire the players that they were reportedly in the running for.

Brett Connolly who seemed a given to sign in Edmonton signed a 4 year deal in Florida worth 3.25 million a year.

Valtteri Filppula signed a two year deal worth 3 million a year.

Petr Mrazek re-signed in Carolina for two more seasons at 3.125 per year.

Holland added a depth forward who will likely play more wing than centre in Markus Granlund, an AHL callup in Tomas Jurco, a 27 year old swiss forward in Gaetan Haas, and a goalie who starts every sentence with "back in my day" in the 37 year old Mike Smith. The team also announced a two year extension for Jujhar Khaira.

None of these moves really move the needle in a positive direction for Edmonton. At the time of writing this blog the Oilers still have roughly 3.9 million dollars and you can bet they will look to spend it.

After Day 1, Holland spoke to the media; his answers were reserved but he didn't shy away from any questions. He spoke of his confliction with buying out Sekera but stressed the need to try and open up some space. Holland also stated that he wants to acquire at least one more 20+ goal scorer for the roster.

Fans aren't going to want to hear this, but it is going to take more than one year to undo the dumpster fire of issues that Peter Chiarelli left. Obviously fans wanted to see Holland make some brilliant deals that moved players like Russell and Lucic out, but that wasn't going to happen yesterday. Taking a step back, it is actually a breath of fresh air to see a GM who isn't trying to spend his way out of his team's problems.

Jump into a time machine with me for one moment and head to the distant time of July 1st 2020. Here is what the Edmonton Oilers roster looks like.

Draisaitl-McDavid-_______
Lucic-RNH-Chiasson
Khaira-_______-________
____-________-________

Klefbom-Larsson
______-Russell
______-_______

Koskinen
_________

Assuming the cap even goes up a modest amount to 83 million dollars, the Oilers will have nearly 26 million dollars in cap space next summer. The only RFA's Edmonton will have to worry about paying any larger amount of money to will be Matthew Benning, Darnell Nurse, and potentially Puljujarvi and Caleb Jones. Russell would be in the last year of his deal, should he still be with the organization and moving his 4 million dollar salary then should be much easier.

That leaves the Oilers will roughly 30 million dollars to restructure the team.

Fans don't want to hear that right now. The team has been terrible for too many years and fans have had to fork over their hard earned money to watch a mediocre on ice product. Hearing that they should wait one more year to watch success is going to fall on deaf ears.

There is plenty of summer left and we will still see Holland find ways to be active over the next few weeks. As it stands the Oilers aren't going to be building a contender for next season, but the patient game Holland is playing is likely in the best long term interests of the club.
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