The Carolina Hurricanes and New York Rangers dropped a couple bombs on the waiver wire today. Defenceman Brendan Smith and two-time Stanley Cup winner Marcus Kruger were placed on waivers. Should the Oilers be interested in either player?

This one is really, really shocking. The New York Rangers acquired Brendan Smith at the trade deadline last year from the Detroit Red Wings as a rental. They liked his play enough to ink him to a four-year contract worth $4.35 million annually. Just 225 after pen hit paper on that contract, Smith is on waivers. It’s also his birthday today. Yeesh. That’s cold.

Along with that, the Rangers also came out today and expressed their plans to begin a rebuilding process, focusing on the development of younger players. The team has Rick Nash and Michael Grabner as attractive rental options, but burying Smith in the minors is likely a play to open up playing time for younger defendemen like Anthony DeAngelo and Brady Skjei.

Anyways, should the Oilers be interested in Smith? Throughout his career, Smith has been a low-key solid defenceman who doesn’t put up big offensive totals but has very nice underlying numbers. That said, this year he has an ugly 46.7 Corsi For percentage despite playing softer minutes than he did in Detroit. He also plays the left side, which doesn’t match the Oilers’ needs as they already have Oscar Klefbom, Darnell Nurse, Kris Russell, Andrej Sekera, and Brandon Davidson in the Leftorium.

I would pass on Smith.

This one isn’t quite so shocking. I mean, I still think Kruger is an NHL player, but this isn’t the Brendan Smith scenario in which a guy gets thrown on waivers a less than a year after inking a four-year contract.

Kruger was a solid depth player on two of the Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup teams (2013 and 2015), serving as the team’s shutdown centre. He doesn’t produce much offence, as his career-high in points of 28 came back in 2014 and he only has six in 48 games this season, but Kruger is very effective in a defensive role and on the penalty kill.

Unlike Smith, Kruger would actually be a fit on the Oilers. Edmonton badly needs help on their penalty kill, and that’s pretty much Kruger’s calling card. Back in 2015, he was Chicago’s top penalty killing forward in terms of usage, but his usage has gone down since joining the Hurricanes.

Kruger owns a $3.083,333 cap hit for one more season after this one. He could feasibly slot in as Edmonton’s fourth line centre for the rest of this season and next, giving the Oilers room to deal Mark Letestu at the deadline for a draft pick. Letestu is currently on the final season of a three-year deal worth $1.8 million, but given his solid offensive production in Edmonton, he might be looking at a pay raise on his next deal that puts him in the same ballpark that Kruger is currently sitting at. Kruger turns 28 this May while Letestu turned 33 earlier this month.

The free agent market isn’t all that inspiring and Kruger fills a need. I guess it comes down to whether you think Kruger is better than Letestu and if you can get Letestu on a better contract.