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Oilers Planning As If Oscar Klefbom Will Miss Entire 2020-21 Season

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It has been known for a while that Edmonton will be without Oscar Klefbom when the puck drops on the 2020-21 season but the thought had been that he’d be able to return at some point.  That may not be the case, however.  GM Ken Holland told Postmedia’s Jim Matheson that the current assumption is that the defenseman will not be able to play at all next year:

I’m planning for 2020-21 that Oscar is not playing and anything other than that will be a surprise. A pleasant surprise.

Klefbom is currently rehabbing a lingering shoulder issue that some anticipate will eventually require surgery although clearly, the hope is to avoid it altogether considering how much time has passed.  He has gone under the knife multiple times before so they’re hoping a different approach will provide a better result this time around.  His anticipated absence created a hole that was filled by Tyson Barrie but while he will certainly be able to cover Klefbom’s offensive contributions (34 points in 62 games last season), he won’t be as reliable on the defensive side of the puck.  Although there could be some cap room added by placing Klefbom on LTIR, Holland indicated that he’s not doing that yet nor does he plan to add another defender.

Instead, the Oilers will count on youngsters like Ethan Bear (still a restricted free agent), Evan Bouchard, and the recently re-signed William Lagesson to step up into bigger roles next season.  One prospect that won’t be in the mix at the start will be Philip Broberg as Holland stated that he will remain with SHL Skelleftea until their season comes to an end.  At that point, he’ll then return to North America where the NHL and AHL campaigns will still be ongoing.

Missing Klefbom for a significant portion of next season was already a big blow for Edmonton but Holland’s belief that the 27-year-old will miss the whole year certainly hurts.  But for now, they’ll go with that they’ve got instead of dipping back into free agency to add another veteran.

Edmonton Oilers Sign Dominik Kahun

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Nov 5: The Oilers have officially announced the contract for Kahun, which will be for one year and worth $975K, as Friedman reported. With that deal in the books, Kahun has now been loaned to the DEL until the start of the NHL season. The Czech-born forward group up and developed in Germany, winning the DEL Championship three times before originally signing with the Blackhawks.

Nov 1: It has been a busy offseason for Edmonton with the additions of Tyson Barrie and Kyle Turris plus the return of Jesse Puljujarvi but it appears they’re not done yet.  Jiri Poner, the agent for forward Dominik Kahun, told Michael Bauer of Eishockey News in Germany, that his client has signed a one-year deal with the Oilers.  Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports (Twitter link) that the deal will be worth $975K.

Kahun was surprisingly non-tendered by Buffalo last month as the Sabres were looking to avoid salary arbitration with him but that shouldn’t be mistaken for them not wanting to keep him. Poner indicated that Buffalo was the other team showing considerable interest in Kahun’s services but that they’ve opted to go in a different direction.

The 25-year-old only has two NHL seasons under his belt but both have been productive.  He had 37 points in 82 games in his rookie season with Chicago before being moved to Pittsburgh as part of the Olli Maatta trade last summer.  He was producing at a better pace with the Penguins but they opted to move him to pick up Conor Sheary and Evan Rodrigues at the trade deadline and Kahun fared well with his new team, picking up two goals and two assists in six games before the pandemic hit.  Between the two spots, he had 12 goals and 19 helpers in 56 games and as a result of not being qualified, he was one of the more productive players to hit the open market.

Assuming the deal occurs, Kahun will be reunited with fellow countryman Leon Draisaitl.  The two played together in Mannheim’s junior system before coming to North America to play in the CHL; Draisaitl played in Prince Albert (WHL) while Kahun went to Sudbury (OHL).

Notably, while they added him on the open market, Edmonton will be able to retain Kahun’s rights as a restricted free agent next offseason if they so desire although he will be arbitration-eligible once again.  The minimum age for outright UFA eligibility is 27 and Kahun won’t be able to get there or have the required seven years of experience to become unrestricted in 2021.

The Oilers have just over $730K in cap space, per CapFriendly, though that number would go up a bit as Kahun’s presence would force someone else off the roster so they’ll still be in compliance after completing the signing.  They do have to re-sign RFA defenseman Ethan Bear as well but they will eventually have some extra flexibility on the cap with Oscar Klefbom expected to start next season on LTIR and they’ll need to dip into that to get his deal done.

RFA Notes: Hintz, Dunn, Lagesson

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With new contracts done for fellow restricted free agent forwards Radek Faksa and Denis Gurianov, the Dallas Stars have just one more name to check off the list. Roope Hintz is the lone remaining RFA for the Stars and after two straight solid seasons to begin his NHL career, the young forward is due a sizeable raise from his entry-level contract. However, Dallas is running low on salary cap space. CapFriendly currently projects the club to have just $3.4MM in space for a 22-man roster. While that currently includes nine defenseman, which is not realistic, swapping a blue liner for another forward from the AHL roster will essentially cancel out. This means the Stars have approximately $3.4MM to offer Hintz in terms of AAV, and that is if they don’t plan to make any other additions to a forward corps that lost Mattias Janmark and has not re-signed Corey Perry. However, GM Jim Nill is not worried. He tells The Dallas News’ Matthew DeFranks that the team expects to get Hintz under contract “in the next week or two.” Nill claims that the two sides have had “great discussions” and are close to an extension. If Hintz signs a short-term deal similar to the two-year, $5.1MM pact signed by Gurianov, the Stars will remain under the cap ceiling and may even have room for another addition. If the two sides instead decide that a long-term deal is the better route, the AAV could climb above that of Faksa’s $3.25MM on his five-year deal, which would put Dallas right up against or over the cap. Nill seems confident that a deal will be made one way or another and that the team can sort out the rest.

  • One team that would have to go over the salary cap to sign a key RFA are the St. Louis Blues. In fact, the Blues are already over the cap’s upper limit and are more accurately dealing with the off-season limit on spending over the cap. Yet, defenseman Vince Dunn needs a new contract and right now that seems like an impossibility for St. Louis. However, GM Doug Armstrong believes that it will all work out. Speaking with Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Armstrong stated that two sides are content to wait until closer to the start of the season to finalize and extension. The team may even need to wait until after the season officially starts, when they can place Vladimir Tarasenko and/or Alex Steen on Long-Term Injured Reserve. Once those players’ cap hits are removed from the calculation, St. Louis will have plenty of room to re-sign Dunn and more. The young rearguard has developed into a reliable top-four option for the Blues and will be due a major pay increase, but that will pale in comparison to the potential $13.25MM vacancy created by Tarasenko and Steen hitting LTIR.
  • There may not be much in the hockey news cycle right now, but the Edmonton Oilers made an odd choice to fill the gap by pumping the tires of a player they have yet to re-sign. The Oilers recently released a piece touting the overseas accomplishments of defenseman William Lagesson, who is still seeking a new contract for next season. Lagesson has seven points through nine games with HC Vita Hasten of Sweden’s Allsvenskan and is already looking forward to competing for a regular NHL role this season. Lagesson played in eight games with Edmonton last year, but failed to record a point. He still has a history of solid two-way play in the NCAA and AHL and if Edmonton is agreeing that he is NHL-ready, that could come in handy in contract negotiations. Of course, “NHL-ready” and NHL opportunity are not the same and Lagesson has an uphill battle to crack the Oilers’ roster that already includes five one-way defensemen (not including the injured Oscar Klefbom), a more established RFA in Ethan Bear in need of a new deal, and younger, more elite prospects like Evan Bouchard and Philip Broberg clamoring for a chance.

Latest On Mike Hoffman

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Mike Hoffman, ranked No. 4 among PHR’s Top 50 UFA’s this off-season, is undoubtedly the best player still available on the open market. The topic of almost daily speculation, everyone wants to know where the top goal scorer on the free agent market will end up. Well, the waiting may continue for a quite a while longer. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reports that Hoffman and his camp are willing to be patient and wait for a deal that measures up to the veteran forward’s ability. Just how long will they wait? Potentially until after the season begins, currently projected for early January.

LeBrun notes that there are a number of potential suitors for Hoffman’s services who may “circle back” on Hoffman once they are able to place current players on Long-Term Injured Reserve. That would allow for teams to open up the cap space required to add Hoffman. Among the teams mentioned as potential landing spots in this scenario are the Boston Bruins, Edmonton Oilers, and St. Louis Blues. The Blues and Oilers do not have nearly the space to afford Hoffman currently, but will gain space with Vladimir Tarasenko and Oscar Klefbom, respectively, potentially out for the year. The Bruins have the room to sign Hoffman right now, but still need to re-sign restricted free agent forward Jake DeBrusk and may still address the left side of the blue line. However, they can open up more space and start accruing some cap savings with David Pastrnak likely to miss a month or two.

Meanwhile, LeBrun states that the Florida Panthers, Hoffman’s most recent club, and the Nashville Predators continue to call about Hoffman. It would seem that neither team has been willing to ante up to land the six-time 20-goal scorer, otherwise a deal would be done. If they were to up their offers, Hoffman could certainly sign sooner than January.

Suspiciously absent from LeBrun’s report are the Columbus Blue Jackets, who cleared cap space earlier this off-season and stated their intent to add a top free agent forward. So far, they have not done that. Columbus could be waiting until new contracts are sorted out with RFA’s Pierre-Luc Dubois and Vladislav Gavrikov, but one would think that the team will jump into the mix for Hoffman at some point if they have not done so already.

For now, Hoffman is content to wait out the market. The 30-year-old may wind up settling for a one-year deal and hitting the market again next summer, but he does not seem willing to take a discount on his next contract, regardless of the term. In an off-season that has been filled with team-friendly deals given the ramifications of the flat cap, Hoffman is hoping to be an exception.

Pacific Notes: Sutter, Leivo, Archibald

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One thing of note Saturday was when the Vancouver Canucks passed on a second potential buyout window. A buyout would only have applied to players making more than a $4MM AAV, which meant the only player that it likely would have applied to was center Brandon Sutter. However, the Canucks opted not to make a move to buy him out, according to Postmedia’s Ben Kuzma.

Sutter, who is entering the final season of a five-year, $21.9MM contract that he signed back in 2015, hasn’t been particularly effective the last two years as injuries have kept him to just 70 games over the two seasons, although he did manage to appear in all 17 playoff games during the most recent playoffs. He finished the 2019-20 season with eight goals and 17 points in 44 games. However, at $4.38MM AAV, the team could have benefitted from a buyout with the team’s cap situation extremely tight. A buyout would have saved the team $2.33MM in cap space this season. However, the team wouldn’t have benefitted much, especially considering they would have to replace Sutter in the lineup somehow. On top of that, the team lost a significant amount of leadership after Chris Tanev and Jacob Markstrom left via free agency. Having Sutter in the locker room is worth something as well.

“We have to be careful that we take everything into consideration before we start buying people out,” Canucks general manager Jim Benning. “He kills penalties and plays a match-up role and losing him would be a big void in the room.”

  • Sticking with the Canucks, Kuzma reports that the team and Benning did offer Josh Leivo, who signed with the Calgary Flames on Saturday, a similar deal. The 27-year-old who played parts of the last two seasons for the Canucks decided against staying. He was acquired midseason in 2018 from the Toronto Maple Leafs and missed the second half of this past season after he suffered a fractured knee cap. He had seven goals and 19 points in 36 games. Leivo signed a one-year deal at $875K with Calgary.
  • Much credit went to Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland who signed unqualified forward Josh Archibald last offseason and saw him thrive. Despite being a perfect candidate for the fourth-line right wing position, the Edmonton Journal’s Kurt Leavins writes that with so many right wings on the roster, he wouldn’t be surprised if the team asked Archibald to move to his off wing and take up a spot on the team’s third line alongside newly signed Kyle Turris and Jesse Puljujarvi. Archibald has showed a knack for offense with 24 goals over the past two seasons and could provide that line with some much needed grit.

Edmonton Oilers Sign Kris Russell To One-Year Extension

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The Edmonton Oilers have worked out an extension for veteran defenseman Kris Russell, who is heading into the final season of the four-year, $16MM deal he signed in 2017. Carrying a cap hit of $4MM for 2020-21, Russell has signed a new one-year extension for 2021-22 that will pay him $1.25MM.

Russell, 33, has played in 273 regular season games for the Oilers over the last four years, but saw his role on the team diminished quite significantly in 2019-20. He averaged just under 17 minutes a night through 55 games and saw that number drop even further in the team’s short qualification round. One of the leaders in blocked shots every year, Russell is used extensively on the penalty kill but has turned into something of a liability at even-strength.

Still, at a reduced salary, he is still a useful piece for an Oilers team that is hoping to go on long playoff runs in each of the next two postseasons.

The real reason for a contract like this, however, may lie in the upcoming expansion draft. The team previously had only a single defenseman—Darnell Nurse—that would fulfill the exposure requirements. Oscar Klefbom is just four games away from meeting them, but he is expected to be out long-term with a shoulder injury and may not be able to play those. Neither of those two would be left exposed anyway, meaning the team needed someone signed through the 2021-22 season that also met the games played requirement that they could leave unprotected.

Russell is likely that player now, though that certainly doesn’t mean he’ll be a Seattle Kraken pick.

PuckPedia was first to break the news of the pending extension, while Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported it would be for one year.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Pacific Notes: Fischer, Sharks, Bowey

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With the deadline for players to accept their qualifying offers having passed earlier today, Coyotes beat writer Craig Morgan reports that the Coyotes are still working on a deal for restricted free agent forward Christian Fischer, even though there is no word on whether they requested an extension from the league. The forward does not have arbitration rights.

Fischer struggled significantly last season, seeing his playing time reduced by more than two minutes, going from 13:10 ATOI to 11:01 this season) and scored just six goals and nine points in 56 games. The 23-year-old just wrapped up his entry-level deal where he made $1.08MM.

  • The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz (subscription required) writes that the loss of center Joe Thornton will have a significant effect on the team. While his offense should be able to be replaced, the bigger effect is how the team will fare without his presence in the locker room, where the veterans had quite an effect over the years. Now with Thornton and Joe Pavelski gone, much of the leadership will fall on the shoulders of second-year captain Logan Couture, who will tough shoes to fill in the Sharks’ locker room. “You have to have a whole leadership group,” general manager Doug Wilson said. “It’s on a whole group of players, it’s not a one-person leadership mentality. … Yes, you’ve got some of the veterans that certainly know it’s their responsibility, but some of the younger guys, too — Tomas Hertl, Timo Meier, Kevin Labanc. It’s their time. They need to step up to the next level. We have to be the sum of all our parts.”
  • With Matt Benning gone and prospects Evan Bouchard and Philip Broberg still developing, the Edmonton Journal’s Kurt Leavins writes that one player that the Oilers may consider adding is former Detroit Red Wings blueliner Madison Bowey. The Red Wings opted not to give the 25-year-old a qualifying offer, making him a free-agent. However, Oilers general manager Ken Holland is familiar with Bowey, who he traded for back when he was with the Red Wings and it could be a good fit. The 6-foot-2 blueliner averaged 17:54 last season in 53 games with Detroit, posting three goals and 17 points.

Oilers Sign Mike Smith

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The Oilers have found their second goaltender for next season and it’s a familiar one.  The team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve signed Mike Smith to a one-year, $2MM contract.  CapFriendly clarifies (via Twitter) that it’s a $1.5MM base salary plus $500K in performance bonuses that break down as follows:

$50K in games played bonuses at 20 games, 25, 30, 35, and 40
$125K if they win the first round of the playoffs and he plays in two games
$125K if they win the second round of the playoffs and he plays in two games

The 38-year-old is coming back for a second stint with Edmonton after he played there last season as the second option to Mikko Koskinen.  While he slightly improved on his save percentage from 2018-19 by posting a .902 mark in 39 regular season games, his GAA jumped to 2.95, his highest since 2014-15.

Last weekend, GM Ken Holland indicated that they wanted to see what options there were on the open market before making a decision on what to do for that position for next season.  However, with goalies flying off the board quickly, the remaining free agent options were all short-term possibilities at best.  While a trade was certainly an option, they’ve instead opted to go back to someone that they already know.

Statistically speaking, Koskinen (.917 SV%, 2.75 GAA) out-performed Smith last season and given the latter’s age, it’s reasonable to expect that Koskinen will take on a bigger share of the workload after getting the smaller portion in 2019-20.  His first time in that situation came in 2018-19 and the results were mixed although he does now have more NHL experience at least.

Following this move and the addition of Tyson Barrie, Edmonton now has just over $700K in cap room per CapFriendly with defenseman Ethan Bear still in need of a new deal.  However, the Oscar Klefbom injury will likely make him LTIR-bound which should free up some short-term wiggle room when the season gets underway.

Tyson Barrie Signs With Edmonton Oilers

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1:15pm: The Edmonton Oilers have confirmed the signing of Barrie. The deal is for one year and $3.75MM, a great value even based on his disappointing production this past season nevertheless the immense potential he brings playing with the Oilers elite power play.

12:00pm: Things didn’t work out in Toronto for Tyson Barrie and now the mobile defenseman is going to take a year to revitalize his value. TSN’s Darren Dreger reports that Barrie has agreed to terms with the Edmonton Oilers on a one-year contract. The value is expected to come in just under $4MM, well below Barrie’s expected market value.

When Barrie was traded to the Maple Leafs last season, many expected that the talented puck-mover would excel on Toronto’s skilled roster. Instead, he had one of the worst seasons of his career, posting his second-lowest points per game since becoming a full-time NHLer and recording just five goals, the fewest in a season as a regular player. Suddenly, a player who had typically recorded 50+ points per year with the Colorado Avalanche was heading toward the free agent market for the first time with a sour season behind him, not to mention entering a market dictated by a flat cap and chock full of right-handed defensemen.

Barrie was unlikely to receive the lucrative, long-term contract that many expected prior to last season, but under $4MM as an AAV is still a major surprise. In fact, TSN’s Frank Seravalli reports that Barrie turned down an offer with an AAV of $6MM to join the Oilers on a one-year deal. Why? Opportunity, especially with Edmonton’s Oscar Klefbom expected to miss the season due to injury. Barrie will be given the quarterback role on the power play that was the best in the NHL this past season. He will also become the team’s go-to source of even strength offense on the blue line, as only Klefbom and Darnell Nurse topped 30 points this year. Given the numbers that Barrie produced in Colorado, even in some pretty dismal seasons for the club, he has enormous upside if he can return to form in Edmonton playing alongside their superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. 

Barrie is banking on himself this year. It’s a risk, but it has a high likelihood of paying off. The skilled blue liner has the potential for a career season this year and will enter a 2021 free agent market where his only real competition for the title of top right-handed defender is Dougie Hamilton. A small payday today could transform into a massive payday next summer.

Edmonton Oilers Re-Sign Tyler Ennis

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As expected, veteran forward Tyler Ennis has returned to the Edmonton Oilers. The team has announced a new one-year deal for Ennis, who was acquired at the trade deadline. The contract is expected to be for $1MM.

Everything pointed toward Ennis re-signing with the Oilers. The Edmonton native was excited to join the club last year and stated that he hoped to remain there beyond this past season. Ennis then suffered a catastrophic leg injury in the postseason that will required months of rehab, hurting his value on the open market. With his contract potential capped by his injury, many assumed thathe would rather take a minimal deal in his hometown than anywhere else.

If Ennis can return to health, $1MM will be a bargain for Edmonton. Ennis’ 2019-20 season was his best in five years. With 16 goals and 37 points, the 31-year-old looked like his younger self. While Ennis is unlikely to be ready for the start of next season, or if he is will not be at 100%, Ennis played at a near-20-goal pace and would have surpassed 40 points i he had played a full 82 games this year. Anything close to that level of output would be a great value for the Oilers and could very likely earn Ennis an extension down the road.

 

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