Monday Mailbag – Is Peter Chiarelli taking too many risks with cap space?

Welcome, my friends, to a long weekend edition of the mailbag where I’ve dragged the writers out of their weekend getaways to share a little bit of wisdom with you about all things Oilers. As we do every week, we’re back with another round of questions and answers to help you get through your day, no matter where you’re at on this Royal Wedding Monday. As always, I need you guys for this feature so email me your questions to baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk. Now sit back, relax, and pretend to look busy for as long as possible. Have a good week, everybody.

I’d be surprised if Persson has a high cap hit at all. At best he will replace Auvitu. I don’t see him being a regular for the Oilers. Koskinen deal doesn’t look great, no debating that, but I won’t combine signings, each is their own.

I guess with Persson staying in Europe we don’t need to worry about him. I am concerned that Chiarelli gave Koskinen 2.5 million. Even on a one year deal, I think that’s too much for an unproven 30-year old.

I’m concerned about the goaltending position in general. As I answer this we’ve learned that Persson is being paid a bonus but he’s been asked to stay in Europe for next year. So the Oilers just bought his rights and are waiting for him to prove what he is before bringing him over.

The Koskinen deal was pretty odd, but this is a standard Chiarelli thing. Has there been a free agent deal in which he’s really gotten himself a bargain? Connor McDavid should be paid a billion dollars so I guess that’s one, but none of Draisaitl, Russell, Lucic, or Sekera were really value deals.

At the time of me answering this, we know that Persson’s contract is one year with no dollar value known yet. I mean, $3 million for two players isn’t terrible I suppose, but I’m saying that without knowing Persson’s contract value yet. The fact that he’s playing in Europe next season is a little more concerning with the dollar value unknown still.

At first, I would have agreed with you because the Oilers’ cap space is so finite that there’s not much room for error. Now that we know Persson will be spending another year in Sweden before coming over then I think you’ve got a solid depth move at a low risk. Don’t mind the way this turned out at all.

Persson should not impact Benning that much. I see this as depth add. Benning is a better defender, and considering the Oilers GA was their biggest issue last season, I’d hope they dress the best defenders.

At this point, it doesn’t impact it at all. Personally, I’d like to see Benning get some more opportunity on the power-play. He ran the PP in college and has arguably the hardest shot on the team, plus he shoots right. Surprised he didn’t get more of a look this year.

Won’t affect him at all. Benning is a 3RHD who might turn into a 2RHD and that’s fine. I doubt even if Persson was coming over that it would push Benning too hard.

I don’t think Persson is even higher than Ethan Bear on the depth chart at this point so I doubt he’s going to be pushing an established player like Benning anywhere.

For next year, it won’t affect Benning at all. To say the least, I suppose hopefully it will add a little competition for him knowing we have another guy to take his spot if need be.

Certainly won’t matter this year, but it will add some competition to the depth chart and that’s a good thing overall.

It is heavy with Dmen, and barring any major surprises I see a few D-men being available. I like Bouchard and Dobson.

I’d like to see Boqvist slide to them at 10, and part of me thinks he may. Dobson is another solid possibility.

The draft has been called nine players deep and the Oilers draft 10th. I would identify the top nine players and wait for one of them to drop to 10th. There’s always someone ready to go off message. Don’t get attached to anyone. I don’t care who that top nine player is or what position he plays. Snatch up the best player available.

Someone is going to go off the board in the top nine. It always happens. If so, I hope either Brady Tkachuk or Adam Boqvist falls to the Oilers. Both would fill a need, as Boqvist is a puck moving righty defender while Tkachuk is a multidimensional forward.

It’s so hard to say right now because things change so quickly on draft day. I suppose I’d hope for Evan Bouchard to drop from 8 to 10. The good thing about this draft is there seem to be a ton of defencemen in the top 10 so the chances of one of them dropping for us to pickup is high.

We had Uffe Bodin from Elite Prospects on the Real Life Podcast a while back and he was talking about Adam Boqvist a lot and it got to the point where I hope he slides to 10th. I don’t know that it will happen but he’s the kind of slick, puck-moving defenceman that would look really nice in a couple of years. That said, I think Chiarelli trades it to help move the team forward now and also to save his job.

Not really. Unless NHL suddenly becomes like NBA where veteran UFAs sign short term deals, I don’t see how it helps, especially considering signing big tickets in free agency is rarely the way to build a winning team. Oilers won’t have room to sign a big ticket free agent in near future unless they shed more salary. So no, I don’t see it helping that much, especially since most of the players on the team aren’t eligible for UFA in next few years.

It’s a cool idea but that’s a young team and not many of those guys will be UFA’s in the near future. Let’s just focus on continued development for McNuge.

It can’t hurt! How much fun must it be for the RORs or Paraykos of the NHL to play a bunch of shifts on McDavid’s team? Maybe some of that leaves a lasting impression.

This tournament is a way for mid-level players who would never be good enough for the Olympics to wear a Team Canada sweater and a way for fringe Olympic-calibre players to get themselves a positive reputation within Hockey Canada. I can’t imagine it actually bares much function in regards to making free agent decisions. Everyone knows McDavid is good. They don’t need an exhibition tournament in Europe to see that.

I don’t know how high the chances of that happening are, but I mean it’s definitely not a bad thing for McDavid to play with different people. Everyone already knows how good he is but playing on the same team as him would provide a different experience.

I wonder about this a lot too. I would think that if you look at McDavid or see any of his highlights that this should be enough to inspire you to come here. That said, who knows? People have their own things going on and their own wants and needs that make this a tough question to answer.

I don’t see Yak in the same category. Bonsignore didn’t work as hard as Yakupov. Oilers didn’t ruin his potential in my eyes. His challenge was learning to play team game and understanding how to play within a system. Hard to teach that. He tried, I believe he cared and he wasn’t afraid on the ice. His hockey sense in how they play in NHL was the challenge.

He had a good rookie year under Ralph Krueger and then Dallas Eakins crushed the kid. I don’t think he would have been a 30 goal scorer. But I do think he would have had a much better start to his career with Krueger for a couple of years.

First order of business, I hate you. Second order of business, the player obviously holds his fair share of blame for his development. There has been a lot of speculation about maybe having learning disabilities or a low Hockey IQ. However, the Oilers took a player who led their team him goal scoring and pushed him to the third line then demanded he learn how to be a third liner before being a second liner. Just before jettisoning the kid for nothing they gave him a shot with McDavid and Yak was killing it but it wasn’t the result THEY wanted so they killed the audition. So the team took the worst possible course of action in developing a player who had issues. It was the worst case scenario. Sadly, it looks like they’re doing the same thing to Puljujarvi. It’s up to the Finn to develop himself in the offseason because the big club has no interest in doing what’s best for him.

I would love to see where he, and the Oilers, would be had they stuck with Ralph Krueger. Both Nail and Jultz had nice rookie seasons before having their will to live zapped by Dallas Eakins. Yakupov was a strange and enigmatic player but he had a great work ethic and some skill. It’s shocking that he hasn’t been able to hack it at all but I don’t think he’s ever been in a position to succeed and I think his years with Eakins completely ruined his swagger.

A little part of me always wants to think that Yakupov was destined for something like this, but I’m pretty sure I’m 100% wrong and it was all our fault.

I feel bad for Yak because we watched the joy of playing hockey get sucked right out of him. Eakins make him a healthy scratch only a couple games into his second season here and things never really got better from there. I think that the kid maybe wasn’t going to be a shoot the lights out first overall pick, but a serviceable NHLer. I doubt that happens now and it’s sad to see, but I’ll always be cheering for him.

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