What to expect when you’re expecting: the Edmonton Oilers and the trade deadline

With a major offseason for the future of the Edmonton Oilers, it appears that GM Ken Holland is ready to utilize his own unrestricted free agents as rentals.

And while that’s not to say there won’t be an effort to re-sign the likes of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and other UFA’s in Tyson Barrie and Adam Larsson, but it appears the team is comfortable heading into the offseason with them unsigned.

“There’s always some risk they’re not with you next year,” said Holland, who spoke to media Friday afternoon. “That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.

“I think the goal for 2021 is to make the playoffs and try to go on a playoff run. We’ll deal with the offseason in the offseason.”

And with the trade deadline only a few days away, what’s on tap for the Edmonton Oilers? Will they add some more depth? Will they add an top-six forward? Could they upgrade their goaltending?

Well first off, Holland said the organization is comfortable with where they are at depth wise. Edmonton made bets last offseason that have paid off relatively well for them, at least thus far.

“I think that if anything happens between now and Monday, it’s to find someone who can upgrade at a position or have an impact,” Holland said. “The challenge is since we’re in LTIR, we’re basically dollar in dollar out.”

So I think it’s fair to say UFA’s like Luke Glendening, who has been rumored to Edmonton, are out of the picture. He isn’t an impact player, and on top of that, isn’t an upgrade on anyone in the Oilers bottom-six.

Well what about an impact player? There’s plenty of those available, but Edmonton’s A) salary cap issues, and B) lack of draft capital, make things difficult. Ken Holland has his 2021 1st round pick which could be utilized, however, he doesn’t want to do that just for a pure rental players.

Looking at potential options of players with term, the options plentiful for the Oilers there. Here’s the full list of the players listed on TSN’s trade bait list, which features the top 45 players and assets believed to be available:

Not exactly a list that uh.. doesn’t invokes a lot of confidence. None of the three would be impact players, or really bring anything to the table that isn’t already in the organization.

With that being said, however, Holland did note that he would be willing to move the first round pick for a player who has term remaining. In my eyes, it’s a move he should be all over.

While he fell from the TSN Trade Bait list, Rickard Rakell’s name has been in trade talks. He’s an elite offensive play driver, but doesn’t bring a lot to the team in terms of defensive value. With that being said, he’s a younger asset at 27 years and has one more year left on his contract after this that pays him an AAV of $3.78-million. If available, he would be a good add to the Oilers top-six.

But there’s one move I keep coming back to for the Oilers: acquiring Taylor Hall.

Despite having a down season in terms of his raw production numbers, Hall has been a strong driver of play both offensively and defensively for the Sabres posting strong relative expected goals rates. Hall has constantly made those around him better this year in Buffalo.

He’s also an elite offensive play driver compared to league average, but has been bit by a historically low shooting percentage he will surely rebound from. Thus, Hall’s trade value has arguably never been lower. Even last year, he was traded for a 1st round pick, a conditional third, and three not-very-promising prospects.

This year, there’s talk he won’t even fetch a first round pick. But there’s a proposal I think that could work for both teams, contingent on one thing: Taylor Hall immediately signing an extension in Edmonton.

My proposal would see the Oilers trade the 2021 first, James Neal, and a B-level prospect (Dimitri Samorukov, Tyler Benson, etc) for Hall. From Edmonton’s perspective, they acquire a dynamic offensive weapon in the top-six who has had lots of success playing with both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The Oilers quickly would become a contending team with Hall, and the team would have even more ease filling opposing nets.

For Buffalo, they acquire a first round pick they would be unlikely to acquire, unless a bidding war, breaks out and a better prospect than Arizona acquired last year. They would, however, take on Neal’s contract, but with a massive amount of cap space and virtually no dead cap from buyouts, they could buy Neal out at a palatable cost. Edmonton may need to add another prospect, or a future pick, as a little more sweetener.

Whether it’s Taylor Hall or someone else, the Edmonton Oilers are in a position to go all-in on acquiring a top-six impact player who could help the team not only in the short-term, but the long-term too.

But as Holland noted on Friday, it’s hard to project what will happen.

“It’s hard to handicap trade deadline,” said Holland. “It’s poker, you’re playing poker (as a buyer). That’s the art of being a general manager at trade deadline time.”