There is a lot of chatter right now about whether or not the Edmonton Oilers will make a trade before the start of the 2024-25 season.
They have an obvious weakness on the right side of their blueline after moving on from both Philip Broberg and Cody Ceci for salary cap reasons, and fans seem to be itching for new GM Stan Bowman to go out and address that issue before the puck drops in October.
While I know the right side of the blue line doesn’t look great right now, I also don’t think it’s quite as bad as some people want to make it out to be. Also, there is no guarantee that whatever trade the Oilers make ends up working out.
It’s a risk to head into the season with the blueline as it’s currently constructed but the rest of the roster looks good. Like, very good. Their top nine is probably the deepest in the entire league, they have a legitimate high-end top pairing with Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm, and Stuart Skinner showed for long stretches last season that he’s capable of playing like a top-ten goaltender.
The rest of their team is good enough to overcome the less-than-ideal right side of the blue line, at least until the trade deadline.
The Oilers have made their bet to some extent by rolling with Troy Stecher, Ty Emberson, and Josh Brown. Within that group, I think there are two defencemen who are very capable of giving the Oilers solid NHL minutes.
In a short sample size last season, Darnell Nurse and Troy Stecher looked pretty good together. They played right around 45 minutes together at 5v5 and didn’t get scored on in that stretch.
Again, that’s not a huge sample but the results were good enough and I’m willing to give them a chance to see if they can gel this season.
A lot of Oilers fans are starting to warm up to Ty Emberson as well and after looking into the numbers and talking to some people out in San Jose, I think he and Brett Kulak could form a very good shutdown pairing. He’s young, he’s cheap, and he has some upside. I like that bet.
I think those two are good enough to at least get the Oilers to the trade deadline when Stan Bowman can reassess things and decide what kind of defenceman he needs to go add to this blue line.
There are other positives that come with waiting and not making a panic move before the season starts.
First off, by the time that the trade deadline rolls around the team will have a better idea of what their cap situation is. I love that they’re not starting the season in LTIR and will be able to accrue cap space.
Once they get to March, they should know whether or not Evander Kane will be available to them at some point in the regular season.
If he’s going to be ready to return, then they can use the cap space that they’ve been accruing. If he won’t be able to play in the regular season, then they can put him on LTIR and use that money to go take a big swing at the deadline.
Going out right now and adding a piece with a significant cap hit is a risk simply due to Kane’s unknown health status.
Also, the level of parity in the NHL right now is very high. There are very few teams in the league who aren’t coming into the year with legitimate playoff expectations. As a result, there would be very few teams who’d be willing to move off of a top-four right-shot defenceman.
I know Dante Fabbro has been thrown around quite a bit over the last week but I’m still confused as to why people think Nashville would move him. They just spent a boatload of money in free agency with the contracts they gave to Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, and Brady Skjei. They also gave Juuse Saros a massive extension.
Why would they move on from a good young defender like Fabbro before the season has even begun?
By waiting until the deadline, the Oilers give the market a chance to develop. Right now, there aren’t a lot of good pending UFAs on the market that would fit with the Oilers simply because so many teams are facing pressure to win this season.
Come March 1st, that could change.
Think back to when the Oilers acquired Mattias Ekholm. If someone had told you in September of that season that Ekholm, who was fresh off signing a four-year extension in Nashville, would be available, you would have called them insane.
Back in my radio days, I always loved one particular line from my friend Lowetide. He’d say “keep your powder dry” and that is exactly the approach that I think Stan Bowman and the Oilers should be taking right now.
It’s not particularly sexy and it might frustrate some fans, but waiting until the trade deadline to add a piece to the right side of the blue line isn’t only the safer play because of their salary cap situation but it is actually the move that comes with the most upside because of the current state of the trade market.
Stay patient and when a big name becomes available, jump on it. I don’t think that name is available right now.
