The Edmonton Oilers have two major contracts already on their roster and a handful of reasonably well-paid players, leaving them little wiggle room this past summer when they tried to upgrade their roster. Instead, general manager Ken Holland spent much of the summer finding bargain-bin players and veterans to fill their ranks to stay under the cap.
Well, what about next year? What about the team going out and bringing Taylor Hall back into the fold?
The Athletic’s Jonathan Willis (subscription required) breaks down the Oilers’ future cap situation this coming summer where the team could have as much as $26MM available in cap space. However, that’s with 13 roster players still to sign, and if Hall costs the team approximately $11MM AAV, that would leave little room to fill out the rest of their roster, which includes a number of RFA’s such as Darnell Nurse and Matt Benning, who would likely command raises, suggesting that going after Hall is likely a pipedream. The scribe does add that the team could attempt to unload a contract like Kris Russell, whose $4MM AAV with one year remaining might be moveable.
Regardless, it looks like quite a longshot and that doesn’t even factor on whether Hall would want to return to the Oilers in the first place.
- The Los Angeles Kings demoted 18-year-old Tobias Bjornfot Friday to the Onatrio Reign of the AHL, which The Athletic’s Lisa Dillman (subscription required) writes is a positive sign for the 2019 first-round pick. Bjornfot shocked quite a few people when the team opted to keep the Swede on the NHL roster. He played the first three games, picking up a minus-four plus/minus, but much of that can be attributed to the team’s lack of defense. However, general manager Rob Blake said that the initial talk during training camp was to return Bjornfot to his SHL team this season. With Bjornfot being instead sent to the AHL, it suggests the team still feels that the youngster might have a future in the NHL still this season.
- Eric Francis of Sportsnet reports that forward Andrew Mangiapane did not join the Calgary Flames for their road trip against the Kings and Ducks this weekend. However, the scribe suggests that Mangiapane should be available to play at some point next week, possible early as Tuesday against the Washington Capitals. Mangiapane has been out with an undisclosed injury. The forward scored a goal in each of his last two games before taking injury.
Lol Hall isn’t going back to Siberia.
Edmonton doesn’t have the cap space to sign Hall, who will be seeking lucrative contract. Regardless what they offer in return.
They do if they trade nuge for hall though. Would then help keep Dri off mcdavids line
RNH doesn’t want out of EDM, so trading him to re-acquire Taylor doesn’t make sense. And, the high risk of being unable to extend Taylor? They’d lose RNH AND Taylor for basically nothing. They are already suffering with lower ticket sales and fan disgruntlement, in spite of the strong start. Making the team worse isn’t in the cards there. They do want to be players in the Taylor Hall sweepstakes, but lack of cap room means being more along the lines of minor players.
Well would have to get him with the agreement already in place in a Nuge trade, he’s really the only one on the team that is expendable with a high cap hit that would net them an asset and not hurt their D.
Agreement in place with a possible cap hit of $10MM or more, means they would have to pitch a $4-5MM guy overboard and replace him with a league minimum guy. That doesn’t improve the team, and Ken Holland is committed to improving the team as much as possible in the short term, and set it up for longer-term success. While some would like that $4-5MM guy to be Koskinen, most of the league saw that overpay as a blunder by Chiarelli. They definitely don’t want to weaken the D depth, so that leaves you with what? You can’t move two guys and replace them with a $750K guy, so your options are (seemingly) pretty limited. EDM doesn’t have a lot of aces in the deck to deal with.
In the event they do trade Ryan Nugent Hopkins , he would play 3rd line center in New Jersey with Hughes and Hischier in top center slots, thou it was originally Oilers for him play 3rd line but you see where that went. Doubt very seriously it happens , for various reasons mentioned by Mac.
The problem with Nuge on the 3rd line, is that he’s a top-6 guy on most teams. So, NJ would have to shuffle personnel to put him in the “proper” position.