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Edmonton Oilers vow big changes, will they involve Nugent-Hopkins?
Teddy Purcell and Justin Schultz were both held out of the Edmonton Oilers’ game against the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night, so they’re as good as gone at the NHL trade deadline. The question is how far the cuts will go as the Oilers enter another annual franchise rebuilding.
"I've used this season to evaluate this team," GM Peter Chiarelli told ESPN.com this week. "I have a good sense of what needs to be done. I'm not happy. There will be changes. We are sellers before Monday's deadline, although I think the bigger decisions will come this summer."
Meaning, of course, the NHL Draft, where the Edmonton Oilers will once again have a place in the lottery.
For now, it appears pending UFA Purcell will end up being a valuable depth winger for a contender. Schultz, who will be an RFA, is likely going to be sent to a team as a reclamation project after his disastrous stint with the Oilers. (Oh, how life would have different had he chosen any of his other suitors. Well, outside of the Toronto Maple Leafs.)
Pierre LeBrun speculates that the Oilers will pick up part of Schultz’s $3.9 million cap hit to facilitate a trade. A logical fit? The Boston Bruins, who could use a young mobile defenseman. But would Chiarelli cut a deal with his former team, and the guy who replaced him? And would they do the same?
The bigger story for the Oilers is the shattering the core, which is something Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins all believe is on its way.
From the Edmonton Journal, Hall said:
“I could be gone, it could be Jordan, it could be Nuge. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but the fact of the matter is that nobody, aside from Connor (McDavid), has played well enough to solidify a spot on this team, and everyone realizes that.”
Said Eberle:
“There’s no point in sitting around trying to guess. We’ve always been in the same situation the last five or six years, losing guys at the deadline, changes being made, and guys do start to worry about it, but there’s nothing you can do.
“You can play really well and your trade value goes up. Or you play really bad and it goes the other way (they want to get rid of you). There’s nothing you can do. Just compete and play to the best of your ability and see what happens.”
Hall went on to say that he’s seen the Oilers play well enough to match the home fans’ enthusiasm “for maybe two games my whole career,” which is the saddest thing we’ve heard since Adele at the Grammys.
The general thought is that Nugent-Hopkins will be the one that’s moved. He has the most value as a center. He's signed at $6 million per season through 2021. We happen to think his two-way game has improved steadily -- whoever lands him has landed a player that can help a good team become great.
Yes, trading, for example, Nugent-Hopkins will leave the team looking for a centre to replace Nugent-Hopkins, and that’s less than ideal, but it’s also the reality of making trades in a salary cap world. With limited dollars to spend, every dollar spent on x is a dollar not spent on y, so it’s unlikely that you’ve been able to stockpile so much of x that trading it for y doesn’t create a hole. So long as the team as a whole is better after the trade, the new hole isn’t a reason in itself to not make a trade. The Oilers aren’t one trade away from being a contender so worrying about having to replace the player traded away is, at this point, premature.
The Oilers have McDavid for the next two decades and Leon Draisaitl right behind him. So at the risk of the Nuge becoming the “Jordan Staal” in this center log-jam, you move him now.
There’s still a chance the Oilers move a Nail Yakupov or Nugent-Hopkins at the deadline. But the draft seems to be the target. If nothing else, Chiarelli has had a year to understand how large the task ahead of him is.
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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
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