Looking at Edmonton Oilers' biggest needs heading into the trade deadline
The Edmonton Oilers will be making a move at or ahead of the trade deadline, but what that move is remains to be seen.
Plenty of the Oilers’ deadline plans depend on Evander Kane, who has yet to play this season due to a multitude of injuries. The 33-year-old is making progress towards a return, but an exact timeline has yet to be provided.
Should Kane remain on long-term injured reserve for the remainder of the regular season, it will give GM Stan Bowman a bit more flexibility. If Kane is able to return before the playoffs, it will make things more difficult and could result in the Oilers making just a single move by the March 7, 1 p.m. MT deadline.
Many fans believe this team’s top priority should be a goalie. John Gibson seems to be at the top of that list, though Bowman recently said he doesn’t intend to address that area. The question then becomes, if the potential lone move isn’t a goalie, what will it be?
Oilers could use a scoring winger
Perhaps the biggest need for this Oilers team is a scoring winger. It’s a somewhat crazy suggestion, considering there wasn’t a team expected to be more dominant offensively than the Oilers this season, but that hasn’t worked out as management had hoped.
While the Oilers do rank seventh amongst all NHL teams with an average of 3.26 goals per game, the majority of that offence has come from Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
This past offseason, the Oilers knew they needed to find a scoring winger to play alongside Draisaitl. They wound up adding not one but two in Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson. While it seemed like a fine plan at the time, it hasn’t worked out, as both have struggled to make an impact.
The Oilers also didn’t envision such drop offs from some of their other big offensive guns in Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Evan Bouchard. Management has remained patient, hoping they can all get back on track, but they no longer have time to wait.
There are some intriguing names up for grabs, including Brock Nelson, Rickard Rakell, and Ryan Donato. The latter would be the easiest to acquire both from an assets and salary perspective, though Nelson and Rakell would both provide huge impacts.
Blue line is missing a key piece
It can’t be repeated enough as to how big of a blow the Oilers took when the St. Louis Blues signed Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg to offer sheets. Holloway would be serving as the scoring winger this team desperately needs, while Broberg would be logging plenty of minutes on the back end.
The Oilers’ blue line has struggled at times this season, proving how much Broberg is missed. While they have a solid top-three in Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, and the suddenly dependable Darnell Nurse, they are missing a final top-four option.
That has resulted in them having to give others more minutes than they can handle, which opponents have exposed at times this season. They tried to fix that glaring issue by signing John Klingberg, but that, as many predicted, hasn’t worked out.
There are some defencemen in the market who could help. David Savard, a pending UFA, is a player they’ve been linked to in past years. Vancouver Canucks’ Carson Soucy could also be viewed as an option, as could Ivan Provorov from the Columbus Blue Jackets.
What this will all boil down to is what position the Oilers believe needs improving the most. If they believe some of their skilled forwards can turn things around and be boosted by the return of Kane, expect them to bring in a defenceman.
If they are skeptical about how Kane will perform after such a long time off and don’t believe players like Skinner and Arvidsson can get their games back, they’ll instead look to trade for a winger.
We’ll learn which route they’ve chosen to take in roughly a week’s time, if not less.
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