Hockey’s worst-kept secret this season might be the fact that the Edmonton Oilers are looking to acquire a defenceman.
They entered the season with a group featuring relative unknowns in Travis Dermott, Troy Stecher and Ty Emberson, with the former hitting waivers Thursday, and the other two holding their own looking solid, but unspectacular.
A general thinking of where the Oilers are at has them likely waiting as long as possible to address things, in hopes of accumulating as much cap space as possible, before the NHL’s trade deadline. More general thinking has been that the team will look to target a right-shot defenceman when the time comes, rather than a left one.
With Mattias Ekholm, Darnell Nurse, and Brett Kulak patrolling the left side, and Evan Bouchard, Stecher, and Emberson patrolling the right, it makes sense to see that as the top to upgrade. But that, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, could change.
“Alec Regula won’t be Edmonton’s last defensive move,” Friedman wrote in a Thursday night 32 Thoughts column. “They will consider both lefties and righties.”
What’s led to the potential shift? For one, the emergence of Nurse and Kulak as a pairing could play into it. Kulak has been playing his offside, and they have been outright dominant. In 137 minutes of play at five-on-five, they’ve controlled 60.8 percent of the shot attempt share, 60.7 percent of the scoring chance share and 62.9 percent of the expected goal share, all the while outscoring the opposition 5-1.
They’re on an outright tear, boasting a 103.8 PDO so some regression in their game is likely due. Stecher and Emberson have found themselves together on the third pair, but they’ve been underwater in their brief 46 minutes of ice time. Given they’re both right-handed defencemen, it’s understandable the Oilers may be willing to open up their options in terms of trade targets.
Earlier Thursday, Friedman was on Fan 590’s The Fan Hockey Show, where he spoke about where the Oilers are in their search for defensive help.
“I think what everyone kind of realizes is Oilers the way they look now won’t be the same as they look at the deadline,” he said.
“I do think they’re looking really hard at the (defencemen), and I don’t know if that’s a huge surprise to anybody, but they’re looking really hard at D and seeing what’s out there and what they’ll eventually be able to do, what they want to do. At some point in time, they’re going to address that.”
Friedman went on to speak about a few teams and players that could be potential trade fits:
Anaheim Ducks
“One of the teams I kind of wonder about is the team playing in Toronto tonight (Anaheim Ducks). They’ve got five left hand D and the Oilers are generally looking for a righty, right? So I don’t know if that’s an exact mix. First of all, I think this: the Oilers are definitely looking for a defenceman. I think if they got the guy they wanted for the trade they wanted to make, they would do it anytime. I think that’s obvious… they’re like Santa, they’re making their list and they’re checking it twice, and they’re just looking to figure out who’s the guy and what they need to do to get him.”“(Pavel) Mintyukov finally got in the lineup (Wednesday night), we’ll see what they lineup with tonight on the back-to-back, but I look at a team like that and I say ‘that’s not the kind of kid you want out of your lineup for a long time. He’s a good, young player, and you want him to play. Anaheim is a team I definitely look at.”“Anaheim is a team that they want to be better. That Trouba trade says to me they want to be better, and they’re gonna trade (Cam) Fowler. Fowler is the big one. He’s a lefty shot, he wants to be traded, they want to trade him. They tried to put him in that Trouba deal, but they wanted the flexibility.”“To me, if Fowler was a right shot, he would be perfect for what the Oilers need and he’d still be very good for them, but he’s a guy I definitely think is one of those big D out there.”Seattle Kraken
“I look at a guy in Will Borgen in Seattle. He’s not a big name. I have to check and see how his deployment has been as of late, but he went through a stretch there where he wasn’t playing. He’s in the last year of his contract and is just a solid, unspectacular player.Columbus Blue Jackets
“I also look at (Ivan) Proverov. I think he’s definitely a guy that Edmonton has checked in on to see what the market is going to be like for him and what’s going to be the case out there.”
Friedman also listed other names that could be out there in the Montreal Canadiens’ David Savard and the Chicago Blackhawks’ Alec Martinez.
If the Oilers are looking for greybeards, there are options: Fowler, Savard, Martinez. But if they want a younger player they could build around for now and into the future, Pavel Mintyukov would be a very interesting name.
Drafted by the Ducks 10th overall in 2022, he jumped right into the NHL last season, scoring four goals and 28 points in 63 games, and has added three goals and six points in 24 games so far this season. Mintyukov, however, found himself a healthy scratch in three recent games. His strong suit as a player is his offensive game, having racked up 150 points in 136 OHL games with the Saginaw Spirit and Ottawa 67’s, with draft profiles lauding his offensive upside.
Could Anaheim be open to moving him? It would be hard to imagine given the profile of the player, but the Ducks have other young defencemen with offensive upside in Olen Zellweger and Jackson LaCombe.
Nonetheless, the Oilers front office has their work cut out for them in evaluating the market.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist, making up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
