Yahoo Sports Ken Holland's Worst Oilers Trade No One Talks About
EDMONTON -- Ken Holland was a good GM.
While that might throw some people for a loop, there is no denying that he was better than Peter Chiarelli, Craig MacTavish, and Steve Tambellini for the Edmonton Oilers.
Holland hit a few home run swings; trading for Mattias Ekholm and signing Zach Hyman are two transactions that stand out positively.
One deal that didn't receive enough criticism was one that he made a few days after his impressive Ekholm acquisition.
At the 2023 deadline, the Oilers acquired Nick Bjugstad and Cam Dineen for a third-round pick and Michael Kesselring. The trade was generally well received at the time of the deal.
However, some saw the potential of Kesselring, combined with a lack of faith in Bjugstad, as problematic, and this deal turned out to be exactly that. It turns out that they were right.
Kesselring is a better prospect than Desharnais IMO. That said I was fine trading him, just not for a player I knew wasn’t going to have a prominent role. For Bjugstad, I would have dealt Neemo or a 3rd, but not both. Better depth on the left side.
— bcurlock (@bcurlock) May 16, 2023
Not only did Bjugstad not have a prominent role with the organization, he left that summer and went right back to Arizona.
And then Arizona moved to Utah.
So, to think about it differently, the Oilers traded Kesselring and a third for Dineen. That's a very bad trade. Like, two second-round draft picks for Andreas Athanasiou bad.
Bjugstad played 13:45 a night in 19 games with the Oilers, scoring six points. In the playoffs, he scored three goals in 12 games while averaging 13:34 per game.
Kesselring has been a revelation for the Utah Hockey Club. This season, he has amassed 11 points in 22 games. The 6-foot-4 right-handed defender is playing 19:10 a night.
This trade looks very bad in hindsight, especially with the assumption that the Oilers are searching for a second-pairing right-handed defender, which they had with Kesselring.
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