NHL Notebook: Kailer Yamamoto will return to the Oilers lineup Thursday and the team needs to make a roster move and Jonathan Toews falls out of top-10 trade targets
By Zach Laing
1 year agoThe Edmonton Oilers opted to not put any player on waivers when the clock hit noon on Thursday.
But that doesn’t mean things aren’t about to happen. It had been speculated for the last week that the Oilers would place Jesse Puljujarvi on waivers to become cap compliant with Kailer Yamamoto near return from LTIR and it was floated early Thursday that Warren Foegele could be the one hitting the wire.
Instead of making a trade, it appears the Oilers will be sending two players down to the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors.
The options for the Oilers, according to PuckPedia, are A) to make a trade, B) assign two waiver-exempt players to the Condors (Dylan Holloway, Philip Broberg, Vincent Desharnais), or C) make an addition to the LTIR.
While the fun money is on the Oilers making a trade, it doesn’t appear to be the route the team will go. We’ll likely see Dylan Holloway and Vincent Desharnais assigned to the Condors before tomorrow’s game.
Toews falls down trade targets list
Daily Faceoff’s latest trade targets list dropped Thursday featuring Jonathan Toews falling down the list.
Toews, who has loosely been linked to the Oilers as a trade deadline target, has dropped down to number 11 in Frank Seravalli’s list. Here’s what he wrote about the veteran:
Toews has fallen out of the Top 10 as his trade stock has plummeted over the last 10 days. He hasn’t played since before the All-Star break (Jan. 28), sitting out the last six games with an illness, and will not re-join the Blackhawks for the final game of their trip in Ottawa. Toews continues to workout, but there is no plan in place yet for him to return. That’s concerning because Toews missed the entire 2020-21 season with a chronic immune response syndrome believed to be related to long-COVID. How will he bounce back? Will he bounce back? When he’s played, Toews has been a shadow of himself, slowed significantly this season – and far off from the stingy, pain-in-the-ass center and unshakeable leader. This is increasingly looking like a difficult trade to pull off, if he even wants to be traded.
Another player who has dipped down a little bit in the list is Oilers forward Jesse Puljujarvi. He’s down to number 16 on Frank’s list, and he had this to say:
Kailer Yamamoto is close to a return to the lineup and that could force a decision on Puljujarvi’s future in Edmonton. Last month, Yamamoto’s injury bought the Oilers some time. But prior to Yamamoto returning, Oilers GM Ken Holland sent a note to all 31 other clubs advising them that Puljujarvi was available for trade. A handful of teams reached out with interest. They ended up not needing to pull the trigger. Yamamoto is eligible to return to the lineup on Feb. 12 and once that happens, provided that everyone else is healthy, they may execute a trade. If he doesn’t go then, the 2016 No. 4 overall pick will likely need to be included in any sizable deal at the deadline in order to make the money work. In other words, Puljujarvi’s tenure in Edmonton is on borrowed time.
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Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.
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