It’s mailbag time again and that means I’ve taken your questions, fired them off to our writers, and waited for the magic to happen. Can the answers in this week’s mailbag enrich your lives? We shall see, but I feel pretty confident in saying absolutely yes. As always, I need questions and if there’s something you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk. Have a good week, everybody.

I think he’s been valuable offensively. As I write this (prior to Thursday’s Colorado game) he has four points in nine contests. Having said that, I think he’s a somewhat one-dimensional player, and his line has been carefully sheltered and still relies on shooting percentage. With Benoit Pouliot rejuvenated and Zack Kassian playing well, Edmonton has two of the three necessary players for a strong third line. Unfortunately, I still don’t think they have an answer at centre.

He has been okay. He is helping in the faceoff dot and is chipping in offensively. His line’s play has slipped a bit, but overall I think he’s added more to the team than Davidson would have at this point.

I like him a lot in the offensive zone, he reminds me a little of Derek Roy who came in and had offensive success with Oilers later in 2014-15. Like Roy, he doesn’t appear to be an exceptional center without the puck, but early days and it does take time to adjust. 

So far I think Desharnais looks like a good fit at 3C. The last couple games have been tough for the whole team so that sample size you mentioned isn’t big enough for me to overlook it completely. That said, he looks like a player with more jump in his legs than Canadiens fans let on at the trade deadline.

He’s been exactly what I thought he’d be. Handy in the circles and chipping in offensively.

Desharnais certainly wasn’t anywhere near the ideal player that the Oilers were looking for at the time, which was a big, defensively responsible, right-handed centre who could win draws and be effective on the penalty kill. But still, he’s been a very nice add to the team, because (despite the fact he isn’t that aforementioned description of Brian Boyle) he’s a battle tested, legitimate NHL centre who’s an upgrade over Drake Caggiula in tough games down the stretch. I don’t watch the Canadiens at all, but based on numbers, he’s found a second wind in Edmonton, which tends to happen when players change scenery like this and get a fresh start, and he’s turned the third line into much more of a threat than it was previously.

I think he’s been great. He loves to be creative with the puck and he loves to create scoring opportunities. He’s not just another third line grinder. He adds great depth offence.

I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far. Is there room to improve? Always. That said, Desharnais has stabalized the third line in a way that Caggiula or Lander couldn’t do and it shows in the results. All of a sudden, the line of ?-Lil D-Kassian is a threat to score and that’s something that wasn’t happening before.

I think it’s less a matter of team success than it is success for those two individuals. Regardless of how well the club performs, Chiarelli has some careful salary cap maneuvering in front of him, and the question is less “should he save money?” and more “which specific salaries should be on the chopping block?” Either player could do themselves a world of good by looking indispensable when the postseason rolls around.

It depends on how players play. The challenge with RNH is it will be very difficult to have a third line centre making $6 million. Unless they plan on leaving Draisaitl as a winger full-time, I see RNH as the third line centre and that is very expensive proposition. The Oilers aren’t blessed with an abundance of skilled right wingers. Eberle is having an off-year, no doubt, so the return this summer would likely be very low. I think Eberle might get another year unless Chia finds a trade that makes sense. I don’t see him just giving away Eberle for nothing.

One suspects PC will eventually have to move one or the other due to cap issues, but that doesn’t mean it will be this summer. A strong performance by one or both could certainly have a positive impact.

I hope that there is no player movement when it comes to RNH. He’s having his worst offensive season, way below his established numbers, but he has an important role here. A long playoff run COULD provide a huge boost to Eberle’s value and that would be welcome. If someone else in that $6M club has to go, I vote the winger who lost his job to Draisaitl.

Playoff performances will factor into player personnel decisions, as they should. If the Oilers win a round or two and RNH and Eberle play significant roles in that, how can it not impact moves Chiarelli may be contemplating?

After the trade deadline, Chiarelli suggested the team was in some kind of long-term plan, and this season was a beginning phase of it. If there was ever a time to a accelerate that, it would have been this deadline, to capitalize on McDavid and Draisaitl’s cheap years, but it didn’t happen, so I doubt that the front office will sway from the plan they’ve set up regardless of playoff performance.

I have a bad feeling Eberle’s just being used right now to create value for himself, and that he’ll be gone this summer. I HOPE this isn’t the case, but I don’t think a great playoff performance will affect Chia’s plan.

What’s going to affect their future with the team is how Chiarelli manages the cap. Can he get rid of contracts like Pouliot ($4 million) or Fayne ($2.675 million in the minors) because that would go a long ways to relieve some pressure.

Milan Lucic’s first season in Edmonton has been pretty disappointing overall, though a career-best performance on the Connor McDavid power play has kept his point totals from cratering. Patrick Maroon has been a revelation, and yes he’s done an ice job of addressing the power forward role on the McDavid line, a job that was handed to and lost by Lucic. Having said that, Lucic has been better of late, and there are some things (his personal 5-on-5 shooting percentage is in the tank, he’s not getting second assists, etc.) that suggest this may just be a down year. Edmonton needs both guys rolling when the playoffs start.

Maroon has had a great season, no question. He has excelled playing with McDavid. The reality is more players are willing to fight him than Lucic, but it is also true Maroon has been more consistent overall. Lucic’s play has improved the past month, and I’m curious to see if he feels more comfortable in his second season in Edmonton. But no doubt Maroon has had a better campaign.

Maroon is at a point where he is too valuable on the ice to spend five minutes out of the rotation. As for what he brings versus what Lucic brings, they are similar players and Maroon is absolutely having a better year. I don’t think that means the Oilers are disappointed they signed Lucic, though.

Yes. At a fraction of the cost. Good news is that Lucic since March 1 has been producing well, so maybe he’s coming around. Pat Maroon is going to earn a nice new contract after next season.

Interesting you’d frame the question like that. Is duplication of toughness and scoring an issue? I don’t think so. If the contracts of each player are what you’re getting at, it’s pretty easy to see why there’s a disparity based on their careers up until their arrival in Edmonton.

Yes, he is. This is what made the Lucic signing somewhat curious over the summer, because the Oilers were dolling out big dollars to a guy who could provide size and stretch alongside Connor McDavid, when they had that in Patrick Maroon already. That said, nobody could’ve expected Maroon to click as well as he has this year, and good on him for putting himself in the opportunity to do so by getting into great shape last summer. I’m not a huge fan of discussing intangibles, because I believe most positive contributions a player has to the team show up in the numbers, but it’s pretty obvious Chiarelli wanted to bring in Lucic not only for his on ice play, but his presence in the locker room, too. Right or wrong, I don’t think the fact Maroon, an equally big and tough guy, would change the fact that Chiarelli wanted his key cog from the Bruins days on this new team of his.

It’s pretty wild to think about that. For now I’ll just imagine Maroon is making Lucic’s salary and Lucic is making Maroon’s salary. Lucic has been performing well as of late, but if he gets up to his normal play it will be awesome to have two of those types of guys.

I don’t mind when Maroon throws down when he’s defending his teammate or something like that, but he could pick his spots a little bit better. The guy is so funkin’ respectful of others that he’ll say yes because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, and, at this point, I don’t think he has to fight if he doesn’t want to. He’s doing all the things we wanted Lucic to do and I hope that Looch’s late season turnaround is indicative of what we’ll see from him going forward.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Gary Bettman over the years, it’s that he isn’t afraid to walk away if he doesn’t see a deal he likes. That’s why he’s overseen three lockouts. In this case, the NHL obviously doesn’t see a lot of value in playing in Korea, and given the time games will be on I can understand that. If I had to guess, today, I’d call it 60/40 that the NHL does not go.

The NHL has a press conference in China this week. They will announce a big partnership with them to grow hockey. The 2022 Olympics are in China. Bettman might feel the NHL holds the cards now, but if they don’t go in 2018, the IOC will hold all the cards in 2022 and the NHL will be begging to get in then. It would be typical Bettman if NHL doesn’t go in 2018, but the good news is there is a tentative deadline for April 30^th and we all know Bettman loves deadlines. I think he is posturing, but I also believe he is stubborn enough to think the IOC will cave. The Olympics will survive without the NHL and vice versa, but the NHL loses an opportunity to gain new fans by not going.

The NHL wants to test the NHLPA to see if there has been a softening since the last agreement. The PA has a very strong negotiator now and this is (imo) a feeling out process. Kind of like the early moments of a boxing match.

They always posture publicly and they always seem to find a way to go. The only thing is that if the Olympics were in a traditional hockey country this year the NHL would have more leverage. Something tells me the Hockey wasn’t going to draw as big this year as normal.

Posturing? Bettman wants some costs covered. That’s negotiating.

I think the writing was on the walls for the NHL at The Olympics in 2018 when the league announced the re-birth of the World Cup of Hockey. The NHL obviously wants the international aspect of hockey to be a thing, but they don’t want a massive three week gap in the middle of the season in which players go overseas and risk injury. Whether it’s good for the game, good for the players, the fans, whatever, is irrelevant to them, unfortunately, because their top priority is the National Hockey League, which is why they’re forcing an international tournament on us that’s significantly more strategically placed on the calendar (and that they can, ya know, profit off of and control completely) than The Olympics.

Bettman better be lying to us! Until he actually says ‘no’, I won’t hold my breath on what he says.

The players say they want to go. The fans want them to go. The owners pay the bills and want to protect their investments. Isn’t it funny how business can always get in the way of fun? As for whether or not he’s posturing, who knows for sure? Like Jon said above, the NHL has seen three lockouts on Bettman’s watch so it’s not like he minds pissing everyone off.

No, I wouldn’t be worried about it, as long as it’s the best deal for Vegas. There are a couple of different reasons for that. The first, specific to Vegas, is their own timeline. Realistically, I don’t see the Golden Knights really being a serious threat for several years, which means they don’t have to worry too much about immediate repercussions. The second, which is more general, is that it’s a 31-team league. If you do a trade that helps you and division rival X, it moves both of you up relative to those 29 other clubs. Even a win-win trade within the division helps you and one of your rivals move ahead of the other 5-6 teams you’re competing with.

Vegas isn’t taking Dustin Brown’s five-year deal. Even a first rounder isn’t worth $25.5 million dollars for a player who can’t play. Same thing with Gaborik. Maybe if they had one year left on their deals, but Brown has five and Gaborik has four years remaining. McPhee will make some deals, but not ones which cost his owner $15+ million just to get an extra draft pick.

McPhee will make his best deal no matter the opponent I expect. As the Golden Knights become more competitive, those considerations will come into play. LV may want to contend right away, don’t think they’ll have enough scoring.

It depends on what the Knight’s strategy is. If they think they are going to actually compete right away then albatrosses are not good. If the plan is to be awful for a few years and collect picks (Oiler Mode) then albatrosses are OK. The bigger the albatross, the more it will cost. Alternatively, that might not be lucrative enough. If it’s just extra fourth rounders then that’s not good enough. They might prefer to take the BPAs and auction them off to the highest bidders.

Las Vegas isn’t going to contend for anything for 3-5 years and they aren’t going to get many players in the expansion draft who are established right now who will help them over the span of that time frame. Load up on draft picks and young players and build from there.

Absolutely. My goal would be to acquire as many draft picks as possible over the first few years of the franchise’s existence in order to build a deep system. Let’s be honest: The team is going to be very, very bad for its first few years regardless of who it ends up with in the expansion draft. Even the solid, veteran players are likely going to be disgruntled having to pack up and move to play for a new, awful team in Las Vegas, so the Knights are better off doing everything they can to build a deep system where they can draft and develop their own players that have some sense of identity in playing for the organization. You can do so by taking a Dustin Brown or David Clarkson contract in exchange for a first or second round pick, and I figure that’ll have more value than a replacement-level player who wants out at their first opportunity.

If I’m McPhee I would probably take a good player with a bad contract even though it’s helping out future pacific division rivals. He needs to try do anything possible to not make that team as much of a garbage fire as they’re expected to be.

If I’m George McPhee I’m ripping the best players I can from every team regardless of position and trying to make trades from there. (BOLD!) With my strategy, McPhee will either put together a decent team or end up with the absolute worst mix of players that anyone could ever have. “How the hell didn’t we get a goalie?” I don’t know what kind of trade offers he’ll get but if he can manage his cards and play them well George McPhee might be able to use what he steals from Peter to pay Paul to upgrade various spots on his roster.