Edmonton Oilers general manager Stan Bowman didn’t close the door on adding to his roster between now and the start of the regular season. The Oilers have been busy this week making multiple trades and dealing with the fallout of the offer sheet saga with the St. Louis Blues. Bowman didn’t get into any specifics as far as adding to the Oilers lineup but did comment that they have the capability to do so if there is a player out there that makes sense.
Edmonton is pretty set at forward, but their defense leaves a lot to be desired outside of their top pairing. There are a lot of question marks on the bottom two pairings and one could argue they don’t have another top-four defenseman beyond Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm. The Oilers won’t find a second-pairing defenseman in free agency but could look at Kevin Shattenkirk as an option to fill the void. Shattenkirk was just fine last season for the Bruins in a depth role and averaged nearly 20 minutes a game just two seasons ago. He isn’t an ideal second-pairing defenseman, but he is probably a better option than what the Oilers are currently looking to deploy on the right side of their second unit.
In other evening notes:
- St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong spoke today about offer sheets and said he isn’t aware of any GM code regarding the little-used tactic. Armstrong used two offer sheets last week to pry Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg away from the Edmonton Oilers and poured water on the notion that he wouldn’t have done so if former Oilers general manager Ken Holland was still on the job. Armstrong added that he would have tendered the offer sheets to Edmonton even if his own mother was in charge of the team. Offer sheets remain rare in the NHL, and a team using two of them in the same summer is unheard of.
- Vegas Golden Knights writer Gary Lawless spoke with captain Mark Stone recently to discuss the upcoming season. Stone told Lawless that he expects to play 82 games next season after a spleen injury limited him to just 56 games last season. Those 56 games marked a high mark in games played for the 32-year-old since the 2019-20 season when he dressed in 65 games. Stone also added that he’s hoping to make Team Canada for the upcoming 4 Nations Face-off as well as the next Olympics which is certainly a possibility if the Winnipeg, Manitoba native can stay healthy. Stone was terrific in limited time last season, posting 16 goals and 37 assists in the aforementioned 56 games.
Gonna headcanon that Armstrong did the sheets simply to screw over Stan Bowman
“The Oilers won’t find a second-pairing defenseman in free agency but could look at Kevin Shattenkirk as an option to fill the void.” They had him already, but his name is spelled “Barrie”. They don’t need to go that route again. That means GMSB probably will do that.
“Armstrong added that he would have tendered the offer sheets to Edmonton even if his own mother was in charge of the team.” And, his mom would’ve responded, “This is because of that one time I cooked liver and onions, isn’t it? Did you look at the calendar that day? It was April 1st, Doug!”
LOL sure doug We believe you . Had chance to get potential difference maker like Swayman .Unlikely either these guys put your over top to winning stanley cup. . Has a chance to stick it a guy . Worked for you one of your close rivals. You start him off at new job in bad place. Other teams wanted to stick to stan also.
Swayman would have cost them a ton more in money and draft compensation. Then what if no one takes binnington? You’d be stuck with 14 mil at goalie and then hofer back in the ahl. That would have been a terrible situation.
Did I miss something Ceci is not second pair on a good team. Nurse only is because of his contract not his play.
Ceci is a Shark now.
Shattenkirk did alright for Boston last year, but he’s no longer a second-pairing guy, and trying to force him to be won’t work well.
Could say the same for Bowman as GM.
It’s entirely possible Armstrong isn’t lying, Edmonton really presented the league with a unique scenario where they had two NHL-ready RFAs and no cap space. It’s extremely rare this happens, but good on St. Louis for seeing it and identifying a path to sign these two guys for, honestly, less compensation (the two picks going back) than they would be worth in a trade.
For Edmonton… It really feels like a “back to square one” moment. They had struggled to make an impact due to defensive depth for YEARS, and now they’ve gone and lost 2 of their Top 4 guys with only spare parts to replace them. Unless another trade happens, I definitely don’t see them returning to the Cup Final. If the Pacific were more competitive, I could see them missing the playoffs completely. And that’s gonna be the likely outcome as Utah, Anaheim, and San Jose all start trending up over the next few years.
wonder how many more mcdavid years they’ll allow him to waste ?