WWYDW: The Edmonton Oilers and the remains of free agency

Less than a week into NHL free agency, and the vast majority of the big names and a large swath of the little names have been cleared off the board. That puts us officially in bargain-hunting territory, and Edmonton Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli has hinted that his team might be in the hunt for a bargain or two prior to the start of next season.

In Chiarelli’s shoes, which players would you be looking at?

The Oilers have room to add a centre, perhaps as a No. 13/14 forward or just possibly a little higher up the lineup, though of course he might also spend some time on wing.

To my mind, there are two possibilities on the list above.

The first is someone young with some upside, specifically one of Mikhail Grigorenko or Brandon Pirri. Grigorenko still gets slagged as a casual player, but he’s also massive, had really decent on-ice results for a miserable Colorado team last year, and has added faceoffs and penalty killing to his strengths. There’s also offensive potential there yet to be unlocked. Pirri is less interesting but knows how to score goals and might be a cheap complement on a line with high-end talents.

The other option is a reserve guy, someone to play the Matt Hendricks role from last season. There are four or five players on the list above who would qualify; if I had to pick one I’d gamble on John Mitchell, who tallied 10-plus goals for four straight years before last season.

There are too many options here to go through them all.

Jaromir Jagr would be an extremely popular pick-up option for the Oilers, and the man can clearly still play. For most NHL teams, including Edmonton, he’d be my preference over another famous old guy like Shane Doan or Jarome Iginla.

Daniel Winnik is what Lowetide would call a “Fernando Pisani-type” winger and could conceivably fit in anywhere. Brian Gionta and Viktor Stalberg are lower-end examples of the same general kind of player and there are a few others who might fit that description on this list. Alex Chiasson is not a guy I’d look at in this role, but having played at Boston University he’ll be a familiar name for Chiarelli.

There are some pure-offence and pure-defence types that might be useful in the right role. Jiri Hudler is the most interesting name to me of a scoring group that includes P-A Parenteau and Thomas Vanek as well. Dwight King and Scottie Upshall are potential Matt Hendricks replacements.

There are still NHL defencemen available in free agency who could conceivably help Edmonton.

Andrei Markov would be a great fit but will certainly cost too much. Cody Franson is likely to be more affordable, but lacks high-end mobility or aggression and seems to me a terrible fit for Todd McLellan.

The “Andrej Sekera stopgap” class has a bunch of entries. I like Brian Campbell or Mark Streit, others might prefer someone like John-Michael Liles of Johnny Oduya.

If we’re looking past guaranteed stopgaps, Nikita Nesterov and Christian Folin stand out as younger guys who might be able to carve out a role beyond a single season. Yohann Auvitu belongs somewhere in this mix too, and if you’re a big Jyrki Jokipakka fan and squint really hard he might as well.

We should also mention Roman Polak, who played nearly 18 minutes per game for Toronto last season. He has a lot in common with current Oiler Eric Gryba, but is a more established NHL option. I’m very curious to see if he commands a multi-year deal or has to settle for another one-year pact.

That’s all from me. So: Which bargain free agent(s) would you like to see Edmonton pursue?

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