Monday Mailbag – What to do at the trade deadline?

Welcome, Nation, to another edition of the award-winning Monday Mailbag! The Oilers are back from their bye week, they need a new GM, the trade deadline is approaching, and that means we’ve all got questions. Once again, the mailbag is here to help you kill off a few minutes of company time and try to answer all of the things that you’ve always been wondering about. How’s that for an early week gift? As always, this feature depends on you so please send me your questions by email or Twitter for next week and I’ll try to sneak you in. Until then, I hope you all have a wonderful week and please enjoy the free learning opportunity.

Depends where they are at. If in the mix they could add a winger. If they aren’t in the mix then I see them trading Talbot and players like Petrovic, Rieder, Gravel and other vets teams would be interested in. Possibly even Chiasson since he is a pending UFA. I’d rather try to re-sign him first, but if they are out of it he’d be in the mix along with others.

Depends largely whether they’re in or out of playoff contention at the time. If they’re in, they need to find a winger who can contribute. If they’re out, I’d try to rid myself of spare parts that other teams might covet for the stretch and playoffs. No big deals either way. Best done during the off-season.

Uhhhh I would suggest either looking into advanced sciences in which they can clone Connor McDavid or travel back in time to erase Peter Chiarelli’s work on the team. But in all seriousness, they really, really shouldn’t be buying. If they want to make improvements, they have to acquire players with term who can help longer term. Otherwise, I’d be looking to sell off some minor assets where I can.

I don’t think they will be too busy, but I could see them dangling some smaller assets (3rd round pick, B level prospects) for some scoring help. It’s supposed to be a buyers market, so that should help as well. They can’t go “all in” this year, it’s just not worth it, but I think you need to show Connor McDavid that you have a little bit of faith in him and provide some help.

The Oilers cap situation is so messed up that it’s going to be extremely hard to come out successful unless Keith Gretzky can execute a trade perfectly. In my mind we need to #1 clear cap space, #2 add forward depth, #3 add skilled defencemen, in that order.

There is still a lot of hockey to play between now and then so we’ll have to ride this thing out a little bit longer before we can really figure out the approach. Right now, I think the Oilers would be wise to dump off expiring assets that they don’t plan to retain and try to clear out some salary for the offseason if they can.

Kids like the AS game. I see no reason to change it drastically. The game is never going to be competitive, nor should it be. I’d make two changes. The first. Not every team needs a player. Bring the best players. Sure, there will still be some controversy possibly, but no need to bring a player from a bad team if he isn’t worthy of being an All-Star.

Second, I would take the top eight players in each category from each team’s own skills competition. If we want to see who has the hardest shot in the league then bring the players, regardless if they are All-Stars or not, who had best results from their team’s competition.

I’ve always wondered how having players in the fastest skater contest would do if they had to carry the puck for that lap. I wouldn’t mind seeing some form of that. Maybe go two laps — first one as it is now and the second one with them picking up a puck at the redline and doing another lap.

I really dig the idea of including fans or celebrities in the game. Either that or weird random stuff like playing dodge ball on the ice.

First off, I think people should stop complaining about the All-Star Game. If you don’t like it, just ignore it. But I have two ways to make it better. First, bring back the fantasy draft (how cool would it be to see McDavid on a 3v3 team with Ovechkin or Crosby). Second, up the prize money and maybe you’ll see a little bit more effort from the players. That would be great.

The All-Star weekend is catered towards kids and families, and I think they do a great job at that. I personally can’t stand all the gimicks and marketing schemes that come with it, but the weekend isn’t meant for me, it’s meant for kids. I think if the NHL tries changing things around to cater to adults, you’ll take away the fun aspect that it is for the little ones.

I don’t mind the All-Star weekend because I’ve come to appreciate what it is — a marketing event that’s really geared for kids. To me, I like that they changed the format of the game to a 3-on-3 style tournament, but if I was to make one adjustment I’d bring back the draft instead of going by division.

Because Yamamoto isn’t ready. Plain and simple. He wasn’t ready when they recalled him in January. Puljujarvi should be down there playing big minutes as well, but that won’t happen. Puljujarvi at least is strong enough to hold his own right now. But the Oilers need to realize his lack of scoring is partially due to how they handled him. Hopefully, they learn from it moving forward. Stop rushing players.

Both players would benefit from it but they’ve already blown it with Puljujarvi. What should feel like a normal part the development process now looks like a demotion to him because he’s spent so much time on the NHL roster already. Then, that mistake is compounded by lack of ice time here.

Puljujarvi is actually competent enough as a two-way player to make the team better right now. I also think they believe there’s value having him around the NHL coaching staff given how fan behind he is two-and-a-half years after his draft year.

I think Jesse Puljujarvi has fine-tuned his skills enough, he just needs to translate them to the NHL and the only way to do that is to give him minutes with a skilled centre at the NHL level. They aren’t doing that right now and it’s a big mistake. He doesn’t need AHL time, he needs quality NHL minutes. For Yamamoto, I think he does need to fine-tune his skill level and his decision making ability at the pro-level, so I think he will benefit from spending the rest of the year in Bakersfield.

I agree I think both of them should be down there. BUT, we’re at an extreme lack of forward depth right now so I think the Oilers are forced to hang on to one of the two kids.

Doesn’t make any sense. Jesse would be so much better off in Bakersfield right now and it drives me crazy.

Klefbom is good, but his hand is not 100% yet and he won’t be as effective. The Oilers weren’t that good before he was hurt, or in previous years with him. He will make them better, no question, but expecting him to be the savior is setting yourself up for disappointment. No one player will instantly reverse things for the Oilers. Adam Larsson admitted he is not playing very well, and if Klefbom’s return changes that then that will be a huge bonus, but Larsson should not have been this bad without Klefbom. If the Oilers are going to stay in the hunt then pretty much every player not named McDavid, Draisaitl, Nugent-Hopkins or Nurse needs to up their play. Even the top players will say they can be better, but too many Oilers haven’t been consistent enough. Unless Klefbom is a magician I don’t see his return making all those who have struggled suddenly play better.

I don’t know how many people expect him to save the season, but having him back will re-order how the defence looks and that means as much as any of the individual traits he brings. It will take him time to get up to speed, but handling the pain is going to be the major consideration, likely for the rest of the season. I’ve seen broken fingers, especially those requiring surgery, impact guys for the equivalent of an entire season.

He should be fine given it was a hand injury. I’m no doctor but I think it’s easier to step in and play from that than it would be coming back from like an ACL injury. Glass half full!

I expect him to be 100% after a game or two. It was a hand injury so his legs shouldn’t need very long to get back to game shape. He’ll help push everyone down the depth chart as well, which will make players like Russell, Nurse, and the lower-tier d-men even better. I expect him to really help this team win games. He’s without a doubt their best defenseman.

The good thing about Klefbom’s injury is that he was able to continue skating through it all. His timing should need an adjustment but I’m hoping his condiitioning and foot speed will remain the same. A huge positive to his return is that he’ll be taking back ice time from other players who are playing too much. Even if Klefbom needs a bit of time to adjust to the speed, it’s a win.

I think it’ll be important to remember that it’s going to take some time for him to really get back up to game speed. He’s missed almost two months with an injury that will affect how he shoots, how he passes, and basically everything he’ll need his stick to do. Regardless, Oscar Klefbom at 85% is better than a lot of what we’ve got so I appreciate every minute we get to see him in the lineup.

We’ve discussed this on here for over six weeks. There is no easy move. They have to shed over $3m in salary to get Sekera back on. They might be forced to trade Talbot, but even then a team will be sending some salary back I assume. Few teams can just take $4m in cap space. Or they will try to trade other players as well. Sending Manning to the minors would shed $1m, but they’d still have to make others moves.

He’ll go to the AHL for a conditioning stint first. At Sekera’s age and with him coming off back-to-back significant injuries, I’m not even pencilling him into the plans until I see a long stretch at game speed. As for the cap situation, good luck with that.

Finding someone to take Cam Talbot would free a lot of space. I could see Brandon Manning getting waived. There’s an off chance Matt Benning could get dealt too.

Well, they better have a plan in place if Sekera will actually be returning to the lineup. They need to shed between $1-2 million depending on how many players they have on their roster. I would imagine that they will be able to quickly flip out a d-man like Benning or Petrovic (or in a perfect world they send out Manning) and just get a draft pick in return. That’s the only real solution I see to their problem.

I think moving Cam Talbot is the easiest way to do it right now. We’ve got an influx of depth defensemen right now so if Keith Gretzky moves one or two of those guys we should be okay to move forward with Sekera.

Calling it here and now… this is the Talbot trade’s main purpose.

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