Good morning, everyone, and a happy Monday to you all. As always, I’ve got a post-draft, pre-free agency mailbag ready to go after taking your questions and sending them to the crew for their take on whatever’s on your mind. This week, we’re discussing the Edmonton Oilers being contenders, a one-year offer sheet review, consulting the grit chart, and more. If you’ve got a question you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk, and I’ll get to you as soon as I can.

I mean, the short answer is that the Oilers definitely regret not keeping at least Dylan Holloway. With the Walman addition, even though it costed a first-round pick, you could make the argument that they covered for the Broberg loss to an extent. But not having Holloway in this top-six, scoring 50+ points on his current contract? That’s painful. I like the Podkolzin add, I also like the Emberson add and I do like that Bowman went out and got Ike Howard this summer to add a young player to the mix… but not having Holloway still hurts.

The Oilers have made out fine, and adding Ike Howard and Matt Savoie lessens the blow of losing a young winger like Dylan Holloway. He’s the one the team likely should’ve held onto in the first place.

Not matching on Dylan Holloway was a mistake. Full stop. Right now the Oilers are looking for young forwards that can score, and that’s exactly what they had on him. And to not match for about $1 million more than they wanted to pay was a big miss.

Yes. They still have a very good forward group and a solid blueline with a very good amount of depth. The goaltending will remain a question mark, but it’s not going to sink them. It’s gotten them to the Stanley Cup Final in back-to-back years. They might still need to upgrade, but you can’t argue against the fact that it’s at least playoff calibre goaltending. They’re still one of the best teams in the NHL and their roster actually has more upside than it did a year ago.

Without a doubt. The Oilers’ blueline was very good in the playoffs last year and far from the issue, while there was some change needed to the forward group. Howard, Savoie, Mangiapane and potentially others should be beneficial.

Yes, they’re still contenders because they still have the two best players on earth with an array of strong complimentary pieces. The goaltending needs to be more consistent, but the Oilers are definitely a contender.

Their identity will be the same as every other year: they are going to outscore you and possess the puck more than you. They’ve never been a tough team who will run you over with their physicality so the idea that we should be concerned that they aren’t going to be that this season is insane.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

The Oilers didn’t lose to the Panthers because they couldn’t hit. They lost to the Panthers because they couldn’t score. They need guys who can produce offence from the dirty areas on the ice, and we’ll see if this mix is the group that can do that.

There are a bunch of things that probably would have had to happen. Offloading some contracts like Adam Henrique and Brett Kulak would have been necessary. They wouldn’t have signed Mangiapane either. The Trent Frederic deal wouldn’t have happened. The short answer is: they would have been able to afford Rantanen, but they would have needed to swap out the four players I just mentioned for guys who are making league minimum.

The Oilers didn’t have the assets to make it work, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t try. I loosely ran through the scenario in January when rumours first surfaced about it, but long story short, the Oilers would’ve needed to move Evander Kane, Adam Henrique, with Evan Bouchard taking a lot less money than he did.

I’m not smart enough to figure out this math, but it would have likely been Bouchard + Henrique + picks + other like pieces to make the math work, but we didn’t get there, so we’ll never know.

Right now. This is the best era that I’ve ever been alive for so it has to be my answer. Beautiful, top tier arena and the best player of this generation in orange and blue. Back to back trips to the Stanley Cup Final. This is pretty close to what we dreamed about during the decade of darkness.

I genuinely believe “the best era of hockey” was the era you grew up watching, or have the most memories around. Our brains work in mysterious ways, but it’s safe to say the game is the most high-flying it’s ever been today.

Honestly, I think I’m having the most fun watching the Oilers right now so I’m going to say this is my favourite era of hockey. Close second would be in the 90s because Pavel Bure was my favourite player and he was absolutely electric to watch.

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