On Thursday the Edmonton Oilers made another trade, this time acquiring Nick Bjugstad from the Arizona Coyotes. The full trade is a 3rd round pick and 23 year old defensive prospect Michael Kesslring in exchange for Bjugstad at 50% retained by the Coyotes and 24 year old defensive prospect Cam Dineen. Via CapFriendly the Oilers had exactly 450k in cap space so they are just able to fit in this player.
Bjugstad checks a bunch of boxes for the Edmonton Oilers. The 30 year old is 6'6 and 210lbs, bringing a much needed element of size to the bottom six. Bjugstad is also a right shot centre, with the only other right shot centre on the roster being Derek Ryan. Bjugstad does take a ton of draws but it should be noted that he has a 47.2% in the dot this season.
In 59 games with the 'Yotes, Bjugstad has 13 goals and 23 points with 11 of those goals coming at even strength. He is also a physical player and his 119 hits this season would rank him first on the Edmonton Oilers. Puljujarvi was their most physical player with 112 hits followed by Ceci with 111 and Kostin at 110. The Oilers were looking for a physical bottom six player who can produce and win some key draws in their own end. Bjugstad is a almost perfect fit and comes at almost no cap hit.
The third round pick for him may be slightly too high but my understanding is there were quite a number of teams that were interested in adding him as a depth option. I'm not going to worry too much about a third round pick for a player that helps the team right now, regardless of their role.
The Michael Kesselring addition to the trade makes me like the trade less. Kesselring is second in the AHL among defensemen in goals this season, skates very well and could have an NHL future. I don't like seeing players like that go. At the same time I have preached that Holland needs to focus on winning now and not on players that will help 3 or 4 years from now. If Bjugstad contributes to a long playoff run and hopefully a Cup than it is clearly worth losing a prospect that "might" be good one day.
As of today, here is the playoff roster for the Oilers:
Kane-McDavid-Hyman
RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Foegele-McLeod-Kostin
Janmark-Bjugstad-Ryan
Nurse-Ceci
Ekholm-Bouchard
Kulak-Desharnais
Broberg
Skinner
Campbell
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This may be the Oilers 2023 Playoff roster. It is a highly skilled roster that is deep in a number of positions but not without it's faults. The two spots to upgrade would be Kailer Yamamoto in the top six on RW and Cody Ceci on the right side. In order to upgrade either position, those players would need to be moved out.
Will we see that happen in the next 24 hours? We will find out.
Thanks for reading!
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
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