Andrej Sekera is not a big man by NHL standards–6.00, 201–but he does a lot of useful things for an NHL team. In our ongoing look at possible blueline additions, we head to the "city of no illusions" for a possible solution.

Sometimes true beauty is right in front of you, perhaps obscured by earrings or a towel or maybe a great distance. In the case of Sekera, he’s almost 300 games into an NHL career spent entirely in Buffalo. Not a lot of deep playoff runs there, and in the case of this 25-year old defender not a lot of notice despite an impressive resume.

In the interest of full disclosure, Sekera is not a player I had planned on profiling for this series. Alan Hull passed along the suggestion and a close examination suggests he’s on to something in regard to the young man from Bojnice, Czech.

The Sabres appear to run a rather democratic system in this area, with Regehr and Weber getting the toughest assignments but not a lot of distance between 1 and 6.

Regehr and Sekera are playing the tougher opponents in Buffalo this season and Sekera’s results (60, 3-10-13 +1) are solid. This is a pretty good player here and he’s done it before (good numbers a year ago in these categories). 

That’s a splendid Corsi Rel based on Qual comp. It tells us when the young man is on the ice (against tougher opponents) the puck is heading in a good direction. He’s having a fine season.

If you’ve been following the series, Sekera doesn’t fit the other defensemen in this group in terms of overall minutes and how he’s being used. Sekera is a top 4 option at even strength, but doesn’t play heavy minutes on the PK and the PP minutes are mostly devoted to Ehrhoff, Myers and Leopold.

Sekera is an effective two-way defender with good speed and an ability to advance the puck. He doesn’t have size and is a 2nd pairing defender. Edmonton could certainly use him and he’d be outstanding Ryan Whitney insurance. I’d guess Oiler fans would consider him among the 4 best options (Smid, Petry, Schultz) if he were an Oiler next season.

Sekera is signed through 2015 summer and has a reasonable $2.75M cap hit. Buffalo has 20 players under contract and only about $5 million left in cap space. They might be willing to offload Sekera for a less expensive roster player and or a prospect or pick. Hell, maybe the Oilers can acquire Drew Stafford while they’re at it.

Alan Hull’s right. Andrej Sekera is a player of interest for the Edmonton Oilers. Previous posts in the series: