The Edmonton Oilers signed Brad Malone today, continuing a string of public announcements that have Oilersnation living on the edge. General manager Peter Chiarelli laid out the summer plans and has followed them with extreme prejudice.

The problem is we can count. There IS money for free agents. If you go over to NHLNumbers, it tells us the team has $12.278 million under the cap with two forwards left to sign. If you send Jesse Puljujarvi to the farm and replace him with Brad Malone, that stretches out to $15 million or so if you include JP’s bonus.

Leon Draisaitl isn’t signed but even that’s not really a major blockage. If you take out $9 million for mighty Leon, that’s still between $3.278 million and about $6 million in room. If the Oilers wanted Ales Hemsky, they could have offered more than the $1 million Montreal got him for today. Right? Brandon Pirri is out there, unsigned, he’s probably available for a one-way contract, $1 million large, and one of those Air Canada flight bags you used to get for free when flying Edmonton to Toronto non-stop during the late 1960’s.

The Oilers are committed. They are committed to Laurent Brossoit, to Jujhar Khaira, to Drake Caggiula, to Jesse Puljujarvi maybe most of all. To Anton Slepyshev and maybe even to Mark Fayne.

Things may change when Leon signs, especially if the contract comes in at $7.2 million. That would mean a lot of freedom to sign basically anyone still available. The Oilers are pursuing the plan of action that makes most sense to them: Find some AHL forwards who can help in the development of players that have value, mostly defensemen. Commit to young men who showed they were NHL-ready in the playoffs (Slepyshev, Caggiula) and the wunderkind phenom whose time is now.

That leads me to Brad Malone. I’ve read some pretty ridiculous things on the internet today, folks seem pretty outraged about the Oilers spelling Jaromir Jagr wrong (they spelled it Brad Malone). Malone can PK, win faceoffs and get called up and sent down without (likely) getting caught in the waiver wire.

The Edmonton Oilers have been signing expensive free agents since Peter Chiarelli arrived. This summer, they are sending their dollars to Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. This is good business, and it makes sense. If Peter Chiarelli and his staff cast about looking for:

If that was the priority, they made a good choice. The Oilers weren’t looking for Brandon Pirri today. If they were looking for him, they would have signed Brandon Pirri. Peter Chiarelli is keeping his powder dry on the free-agent front. Damned inconvenient if you ask me, but this organization is committed to Jesse Puljujarvi. That much we know without question.