Earlier this week, our friend Frank Seravalli released his latest trade targets board. Usually, I’ll scour the list and find a handful of names that I think would be good targets for the Edmonton Oilers or at least players who, even if they aren’t realistic, would be dream targets.
This time around, I really didn’t find much.
Out of all the names in Frank’s top 10, the only one that feels like a naturally good fit is Ivan Provorov and Seravalli said during his weekly appearance on Oilersnation Everyday that it’s far from a lock that Provorov even gets traded.
There are names lower down the board, like Rangers defenseman Will Borgen, who would be nice adds but aren’t the sort of impactful player that I think the Oilers should be prioritizing.
So, with no one on the Daily Faceoff Trade Targets board that I’m in love with, I decided to snoop around some rosters and find some teams that could potentially have what the Oilers are shopping for: an impact top-four defenseman.
Again, I am not an insider so don’t take this as me saying that these players are going to be available. These are simply players that I could potentially see shaking lose based off nothing more than the way their teams depth chart currently looks.
With that in mind, here’s what I got:
Utah Hockey Club
Earlier this season, Utah was so banged up on the blue line that they had to trade for Olli Maata and call up former first-round pick Maverick Lamoreaux way earlier than expected. Now, Utah is starting to get healthier and both Maata and Lamoreaux have played pretty well, when healthy.
Sean Durzi and John Marino are both apparently going to be back by the deadline and by then Lamoreaux will be back too. That means Utah’s depth chart will feature the four defensemen I’ve already mentioned and minute eater Mikhael Sergachev, young standout Michael Kesselring, Jusso Valimaki, Ian Cole, and potentially Robert Bortuzzo.
That’s eight defensemen. The idea that Utah could be convinced to move away from one of them isn’t crazy.
Any one of Marino, Durzi, or Kesselring would be great adds for the Oilers. They don’t even need to be picky. Just call Utah GM Bill Armstrong and see who he’d be open to moving.
With all their injuries, I would imagine that Utah will want to keep the depth, but do they need that many? I guess that’s the question the Oilers would need to find an answer to.
Montreal Canadiens
The Canadiens have a ridiculous amount of good young defensemen. Lane Hutson, Logan Mailloux, David Reinbacher, and Kaiden Guhle all project to be top four defensemen in the next few years.
As for veterans, they recently acquired Alexandre Carrier, who has two more years on his deal.
Could the Canadiens be convinced to move on from Mike Matheson? I think he would be a dream fit on this Oilers team. He skates well, passes well, and is a much better defender than he usually gets credit for.
He is a left-shot but he has a tremendous amount of experience playing the right side. His cap hit is very manageable at just $4.875m and he has one more year left on his deal, so the Oilers would get him for two playoff runs. There is nothing to dislike about Matheson, the Habs just have to be willing to move him and that seems unlikely at this point.
Columbus Blue Jackets
So there is talk that because Ivan Provorov’s younger brother is about to begin in college hockey career at Ohio State, the older brother would like to stay in Columbus and would be open to an extension.
Let’s say that happens before the deadline. That means the Blue Jackets would have Zach Werenski, Ivan Provorov, Damon Severson, Erik Gudbransson, and Jordan Harris all under contract for next season. They also have players like Denton Mateychuk and Corson Ceulmans in their system and they could even bring back a player like Dante Fabbro, who is a pending UFA.
They have a pretty solid list of defensemen, so could they potentially trade a player like Damon Severson?
This is probably the biggest long shot on the board but with some LTIR flexibility, the Oilers could fit in his contract. At $6.25m per year and a contract that doesn’t expire until 2031, Severson comes with serious term and would make the Oilers better today.
The Blue Jackets might want a lot because he’s under contract for so long, but maybe for the right price they’d consider moving the veteran to make room for some younger pieces.
