Daily Faceoff Insider Frank Seravalli has released his latest trade targets list and with just over a month remaining until the NHL’s Trade Deadline, there are finally some names on the list that I think the Edmonton Oilers should be very interested in acquiring.
Frank has updated his list a handful of times over the last six weeks and every time a new list dropped, I found myself being a little disappointed in the names who were on the board. Not that there weren’t good players there, but there weren’t any players who I viewed as slam-dunk fits for the Oilers.
Sure, Marcus Pettersson would have been a nice fit but at the same time he’s a pure rental and the cost was going to be very high. He ended up going for a first-round pick (although I do recognize that some of the other pieces involved muddy the actual value here) and I believe if the Oilers are going to sacrifice their 2026 first-round pick, it needs to be for a player who can help them for multiple playoff runs.
Well, there are finally some quality defensemen with term on Frank’s list and I think that should cause the Oilers to re-evaluate their deadline plans.
I know they’re still early in the John Klingberg experiment and there’s hope that he can be a solution for their problem on the right side of their blueline but I think if there’s a chance that GM Stan Bowman can aim higher, he absolutely should.
There is nothing wrong with having Klingberg as your number seven as you begin a playoff run and while the Oilers blueline has remained very healthy over the last few seasons, health is never guaranteed. The Oilers should absolutely still be in the market for another defenseman.
With that in mind, here are some of the new names on the trade targets board that I think the Oilers should be interested in.
#10 – JAMIE OLEKSIAK
Over the last few weeks, as I went through different rosters of selling teams, Oleksiak was a player who jumped off the page to me. I was really hoping he would become available because he feels like the type of player that would fit in really nicely on the Oilers.
He’s got one more year after this one on his contract with a cap hit of $4.6m, which is pretty affordable but considering the Kraken don’t have any retained money on their books right now, it’s not unreasonable to think that the Kraken could be willing to retain money on Oleksiak, which would make him even more enticing.
His numbers this season have not been good but historically, he’s performed well in a second-pair role. His xGF% at 5v5 is all the way down at 43% which is a 6% drop from last season. Before that, he was on a run of seven straight seasons where that number was above 50%.
A chance of scenery might be good for him and maybe the fact he’s having a down year could mean that the Oilers wouldn’t have to spend a lot to get him. Again, they wouldn’t be asking him to come in and be a top-pairing guy for them.
He’s tough and he defends well and if the Oilers were to move Brett Kulak up to the second-pair with Darnell Nurse, I think Oleksiak would fit in really nicely next to Ty Emberson.
#14 – CONNOR MURPHY
The Blackhawks are trying to get younger as they continue to rebuild their roster around Connor Bedard and there is now talk that Connor Murphy could be the next piece on the move.
He’s missed a decent amount of time with injury this season and his numbers haven’t been spectacular, but I think that’s more of a product of the team around him than it is a comment on Murphy’s ability.
He’s a right-shot defenseman who has one more year on his current contract with a cap hit of $4.4m. The Blackhawks also have one more retained money slot available to them, so they could keep up to 50% of his cap hit.
Murphy doesn’t bring the same toughness that an Oleksiak does but he’s a more well-rounded player. He’s also a right-shot, which does make him a bit more of a natural fit for the Oilers.
I don’t think either of these players would cost the Oilers their 2026 first-round pick either. They could probably be had for less than that. Combine a potentially low asking price with the fact that they both come with one more year on their deal and I think these two players should instantly be near the top of Stan Bowman’s wish list as we get closer to the March 7th deadline.
