OilersNation Top 25 of 2020: #16 — Why it’s time for the Edmonton Oilers to go big fish hunting
By Zach Laing
3 years agoWelcome to the yearly wrap up of the top read articles over the last year!
As the Oilers prepared to head to the NHL trade deadline, there was one thing I was hoping the team would do — go big fish hunting.
Edmonton was in a great spot in early February and the time was nigh to make that splash.
That article, published by me on Feb. 8, is the 16th most-read article this year.
There was one place that I had identified as a place the Oilers needed help and it was in the scoring department. While the club had seen the recent emergence of the dynamite line in Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kailer Yamamoto.
Here’s more of what I wrote:
But the truth of the matter is that McDavid really needs some help on his top line. Since the formation of the Drai-Nuge-Yam line, Kassian has only three points in 11 games and has shown he can’t be relied on to provide offence alone with McDavid. It’s showing that McDavid needs an offensive option with him on the top line.And the time is now for the Oilers to get him some help. It might just be that extra push the club needs to not only make the playoffs but make some noise much like they did a few years ago.The nice thing is the Oilers have options. Some of the names in the trade market the Oilers have been linked to are Tomas Tatar, JG Pageau, Kasperi Kapanen, Ilya Kovalchuk, and to a lesser extent, Chris Tierney and Tyler Toffoli, to name a few.If I’m Ken Holland, I lock myself in a room with my phone, some other staff members, and a few Arby’s Beef and Ched’s and try to land one of these guys tomorrow.
On Twitter: @zjlaing
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