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‘It was never 100 percent Ekholm’: Oilers nearly reached deal to trade for Jakob Chychrun before acquiring Mattias Ekholm
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Photo credit: Walter Tychnowicz-USA TODAY Sports
Zach Laing
Jan 9, 2025, 09:00 ESTUpdated: Jan 8, 2025, 21:28 EST
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Mattias Ekholm is now 140 regular season games and 37 playoff games into his tenure with the Edmonton Oilers, and it’s safe to say the acquisition has been a slam dunk for the team.
He’s played big minutes for the team driving play offensively and defensively at elite rates, and he’s been nothing short of an anchor on the Oilers’ blue line.
And while the team traded prospect Reid Schaefer, who they drafted in the first round the draft prior, Tyson Barrie, a first-round pick and a fourth for Ekholm on Feb. 28th, 2023, the team nearly made a different move that day, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli revealed on Wednesday’s edition of Oilersnation Everyday.
In the last hour before making the deal, I had the tweets queued up ready to tweet that the Oilers were getting Jakob Chychrun, or they had been in deep discussions with Arizona to get Chychrun. So even as much as the Ekholm deal feels like a slam dunk now — and I think Ken Holland specifically was always leaning more towards Ekholm than Chychrun — but it came down to a value thing.
Like ‘Hey, Nashville keeps kind of pushing this along. Are we will to pay as much?’ Even that day, it was never 100 percent Ekholm.
Seravalli didn’t divulge what the trade would’ve cost the Oilers, but the Arizona Coyotes ended up trading Chychrun to the Ottawa Senators for a first-round pick and two-second-round picks. The belief at the time was that the Coyotes weren’t as willing to take back a contract, which the Oilers needed to have another team do to make the money work.
Chychrun only spent a season and a half in Ottawa, scoring 16 goals and 46 points in 94 games, before he was dealt this past offseason to the Washington Capitals for defenceman Nick Jensen and a third-round pick in 2026.
It’s undeniable how much Ekholm has meant to the team, playing a key role in the Oilers trip to the Stanley Cup Finals last spring. Barrie, meanwhile, hasn’t been the same since leaving Edmonton, struggling mightily in Nashville playing just 65 games. He signed with the Calgary Flames this summer, scoring a goal and two points in nine games.
With Nashville’s AHL affiliate Schaefer is starting to make a name for himself, scoring eight goals and 14 points in 19 games this season, building off his first pro campaign last year where he scored seven goals and 21 points in 63 games.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, and senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.

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