DRAFT DAY SCENARIO: COULD THIS HAPPEN?
By Lowetide
9 years ago
It’s draft week, and that means up is down, left is right and right is wrong, and you better decide which side you’re on. Rumors about William Nylander or Nick Ritchie drawing into the top five, about Vancouver and Winnipeg and Toronto trading up—it’s madness!
Into this Poe spring I’d like to throw out some verse about the Edmonton Oilers. Let’s roll.
WHAT IF…
My scenario begins with the Sam’s going 1-2. It doesn’t matter the order for our purposes, but let’s assume it’s Reinhart and then Bennett. Edmonton, drafting third would have their pick of giants:
- Aaron Ekblad, the man caught in a body the approximate age of One Direction.
- Leon Draisaitl, whose nickname appears to be Dangler, but he’s making it work.
In that scenario, which player do you take? I’m leaning toward the dangler, but Ekblad could be a 15-year defenseman playing 20+ minutes a night and keeping the opponents honest and popping 10 a year on the power play. Sheldon Souray, but more mobile. That has value.
For the sake of this morning, let’s say Edmonton takes Ekblad, and then Calgary—still a little zonked from the flight in to Philly—decide they’re smarter than everyone and takes Nick Ritchie.
You KNOW Garth Snow wants to make a deal. You KNOW he wants a winger for his team because that pick he gave to Buffalo can’t be No. 1-5.
Question: do you trade what it takes to get No. 5 and take the German?
WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE?
I imagine you’d have to give a combination of assets, central being an NHL winger of note. Whether that’s Perron or Yakupov (oh stop, we’re just talking here) or even Samwise Gagner is open to question. The Oilers have some other things:
- Young defensemen
- Next year’s first-round selection
YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY
Totally get that line of thinking. Why in hell would you do this?
Because the Oilers are weak sauce up the middle and could solve it (or really help) in one day. It has a certain appeal. Also, the new GM would be putting his stamp on the team in a major way. Don’t discount that, it’s kind of an important detail.
WHAT WOULD IT ALL MEAN?
This is the week you can skip from rumor to rumor, but this isn’t one. We’re just blue-skying on a bright sunny day.
What does making this deal mean? You know what it means? It means bankruptcy and scandal and prison! Sorry wrong speech. It means two things:
- the cluster’s age is moved back once again
- the Oilers are finally future strong up the middle.
Pick your poison.
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