3 lineup holes the Oilers need to fill in the new year
No NHL team is ever perfect, and the Edmonton Oilers are certainly no exception.
Though the Oilers boast two of the best hockey players on the planet — Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl — a subpar 13-15-1 record through Edmonton’s first 29 games of the season is proof enough that even teams with the best players aren’t automatically guaranteed success in the NHL.
This is a huge advantage for the Oilers, however, as acquiring elite-level skill at the top of a team’s roster is perhaps the hardest part about building a good team. The Oilers have that and a decent surrounding cast in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman, Evan Bouchard, and Darnell Nurse. The core is pretty solid, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a lot of glaring issues that still need to be fixed.
So, as the NHL enters its annual holiday roster freeze, here are some of the things Oilers GM Ken Holland can write on his Christmas wishlist as the team tries to once again fight its way back into the NHL playoff picture.
A new goalie to help out Stuart Skinner
At the top of the wish list is undoubtedly a new goaltender who can help take the load off of Stuart Skinner, who is going through a very rough sophomore slump.
According to MoneyPuck, Skinner is dead-last in the NHL in goals saved above expected this season at a putrid -12. He has shown for stretches that he can be a competent starting goalie for the Oilers, but the team lacks any sort of relief for him when things don’t go his way. Veteran Jack Campbell is struggling in the AHL and journeyman Calvin Pickard can only do so much to stop the bleeding.
Goalie prospect Olivier Rodrigue could be a potential internal solution, but the organization seems hesitant to hedge their bets on a 23-year-old goaltender who has never appeared in an NHL game.
There should be a few intriguing options available in the trade market. Holland will have to decide if he wants to go big with a proven veteran like Anaheim Ducks goaltender John Gibson or a bounce-back candidate like San Jose Sharks’ netminder Mackenzie Blackwood.
No matter which way Holland decides to go, it will be a position that he will need to upgrade.
A shutdown defensive partner for Nurse
There is no question that the goaltending has not been up to par for the Oilers this season. A big part of that lies in the performance of each goaltender, but there is also some blame to be had on team defence.
The left side of Edmonton’s defensive group should be locked in with Mattias Ekholm, Nurse, and Brett Kulak being fine in the roles they play. On the right side, both Bouchard and Vincent Desharnais have also done well. That leaves Cody Ceci’s spot in the top four as a position that the Oilers would probably be smart to upgrade.
That isn’t to say Ceci has been horrible, he has been just okay playing in a top-four role that he might no longer be best suited for. A lot of fans have pointed out that Ceci may be the Oilers’ most consistent defenceman all season but consistency in and of itself doesn’t mean he has been near the Oilers best defenceman.
If the Oilers can find a way to acquire someone like Calgary Flames defender Chris Tanev and somehow send Ceci the other way, it would be the perfect move to help shore up the defence.
A second-line scoring right-winger
For a team with McDavid and Draisaitl, the notion that they still need a scoring winger in the top six sounds pretty strange, but they do.
While it would be nice to have those two do all the scoring, a well-balanced NHL team should be able to rely on all six of the players on their top two lines to score. So far, each player has been able to do that for stretches except for Connor Brown, who is now looking like he will be a healthy scratch.
Warren Foegele is filling in for now but the results have been few and far between. The entire second line has been in a bit of a funk for a few weeks and could use a fresh body there to help rejuvenate the offence.
Luckily enough, this should be the easiest position for Holland to find a remedy. Some internal options include Dylan Holloway when he returns from injury and Raphael Lavoie, who has been scoring buckets in the AHL.
A trade would be difficult due to limited cap space but some options around the league include Vancouver Canucks forward Andrei Kuzmenko and former Oilers winger Jordan Eberle in Seattle.