Good morning, everyone, and a happy deadline week to all of you. I’ve got a fresh mailbag ready to go after taking your questions and sending them to the crew for their take on whatever is on your mind. This week, we’re discussing the Edmonton Oilers’ trade deadline plans, goaltending, past trades, 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.

They need a winger and 4C with some size, speed and grit. They really lack any physical presence.

If I’m basing my answer off of what’s currently available and the trade market, then the biggest need I believe they will address is their blue line. There are impactful blue liners on the market that the Oilers can afford. The goaltending market is not as robust.

Lance, there feels like so many right now. The obvious one, though, is another top-four defenceman. If they go into the postseason with either Troy Stecher or John Klingberg playing those minutes, then the Oilers are toast. I would also accept a 3LD, which would then allow Brett Kulak to be pushed up the lineup.

They need to add impact players and they need to add some juice to the lineup. There are too many passengers as of late and not enough drivers, and the Oilers are lacking players who bring some energy. JJ Peterka fits the bill as an intriguing impact player, while Brandon Tanev could fill that energy role well.

A top four d-man. Specifically someone who can play on the right side. Either that or a third pairing LHD and Brett Kulak moves up to play with Darnell Nurse.

Unacceptable. Get creative. A few years the Oilers were in LTIR and still acquired Ekholm, Bjugstad and Kulak. It would be a failure if they only make one addition.

Disappointment. I would like to see them make a big move on the blueline and add to the forward group. Seems like the cap constraints are going to prevent that from happening.

It’s not ideal but I don’t think it would necessarily kill them if that happened. With a bit of cap management, they could still open up just over $1 million in cap space. From there, if you throw a Kasperi Kapanen on waivers, into a trade, then you can acquire Connor Murphy, for example. I hope Evander Kane’s on LTIR, though, and the Oil can spend his cap. They need it badly.

It’s disappointing. The Oilers have multiple holes to fill in the forward group, and could use another addition on the blue line. They should be all in, not wasting another season.

Can’t happen. They need more than one piece, and other teams always seem to find ways to get creative with cap management. Stan Bowman needs to do the same.

Skinner has had ups and downs no question. But so do the vast majority of goalies across the league. It’s just that most fans only watch the Oilers and don’t see other teams with similar struggles. It can be frustrating, but I guarantee if Binnington comes to Edmonton he would allow goals you don’t like as well. Unless they get one of the true elite goalies, there will always be frustration at that position. For instance many are clamouring to acquire Karel Vejmelka or John Gibson. They are having good years this year, but go look at last year for Vejmelka or the past few for Gibson.

I think they’re remembering that Skinner is young and has had long stretches where he looks like a legit number one goaltender. Being patient isn’t fun but the Oilers have quit on goalies too early before and I would hate to see them do that with Stuart Skinner. I am all for an upgrade on Pickard though.

I don’t think it’s them saying there isn’t a problem, there’s just other problems ahead of that. Additionally, who are they acquiring? They can’t afford John Gibson and Karel Vejmelka is making a push for the playoffs with Utah. Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard can be better and they need to show it.

It’s simple: the Oilers are constructed to be a team that has very little money invested in their goaltending. Edmonton has allocated 3.4 percent of their salary to their goaltending, which is the seventh lowest amount in the league, ahead of the Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, Seattle Kraken and Washington Capitals.

The goaltending is always going to be a conversation until the tandem changes or proves itself to be a winning duo, but I also don’t think Stan Bowman is going to do make any adjustments. This is what we’ve got.

In what way? Call for his firing? He isn’t getting fired as President. I think we’ve seen the results thus far. They haven’t been what they hoped. Not every move will work out. I assume it wasn’t just Jackson. His pro scouts must have had some say. I thought Jeff Skinner would be better, but he simply doesn’t fit with his lack of speed and style of play (holds on to puck too long). Now Bowman has to react and fix it. Every GM will make a bad signing or trade. It is how you react after that matters.

Absolutely. Arvidsson was a bad bet and can you imagine how much different this team would look if they had Dylan Holloway over Jeff Skinner? We thought Jackson killed it on the first day of free agency but that ended up being very far from the truth.

Yes, he didn’t do a good job and probably removed too many players from the roster. I would’ve still moved on from Cody Ceci and Vincent Descharnais but Warren Foegele should still be an Oiler.

Yes, he should. I wrote about it in November and it’s still pertinent today.

It’s wild how so many of us were pumped about the moves on July 1st, right? Seems like the Arvidsson and Skinner bets were bad ones, but he’s also not going to fire himself. So… Meh.

I’d have to say the best, since the goal is winning, was acquiring Bill Ranford and Geoff Courtnall from Boston for Andy Moog. Courtnall was solid, but Ranford won the Conn Smyth in 1990 and was a huge part of the team.

Other good ones include acquiring Doug Weight for Esa Tikkanen, Jason Smith for a 2nd (Jonathon Zion) and 4^th round pick (Kris Vernarsky), Dwayne Roloson for a 1^st round pick (Trevor Lewis) and the Mattias Ekholm trade.

The Andreas Athanasiou trade for two 2^nd rounders didn’t work, although the season ending due to COVID impacted that. I still think the Jerrid Smithson trade in 2013 when the Oilers were in 8^th place was more funny than bad. They didn’t give up much (a fourth rounder), but thinking he was going to help them in any way was the fail.

The Dwayne Roloson deal stands out. Mattias Ekholm wasn’t a deadline day deal but if we’re counting that, then it’s probably number one. Hard to envision where this blueline would be without him. Worst? Losing Kesselring in the Bjugstad deal is a really bad look. The Mike Green and Andreas Athanasiou deals look bad in hindsight too.

I moved to Canada in 2010 so I’ll only judge from that time onwards. Jerred Smithson is the worst and it’s not particularly close. That is perhaps the most pointless trade in NHL history. The best is Mattias Ekholm.

It was a deal made the day before the deadline, but acquiring Dwayne Roloson in 2006 was a huge reason why they got as far as they did. The worst was hands down the Oilers trading for Jerred Smithson at the 2013 deadline. Miles out of a playoff spot, they gave up a fourth-round pick for a guy who played 10 games for them. Yeesh.

The best trade for me is the Mattias Ekholm deal, and I’ve even written about how that one probably ruined Oilers trades for me going forward. The Athanasiou trade was a bad one that sticks out because it was one of the most recent examples, but I’m sure there’s another one that will annoy me even more.

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