NHL trade rumors: 5 teams who should trade for Darcy Kuemper

4. Edmonton Oilers

I know, I know, the Edmonton Oilers are in the same division as the Arizona Coyotes. Why would they send a Vezina Trophy-caliber goalie to a division rival? Well, in my opinion, it would be silly for the Coyotes to take away some of Kuemper’s strongest suitors. The Oilers could really use a goalie like him.

They already have Mikko Koskinen signed at $4.5 million annually. Yes, the same price as Kuemper. It’s clear they need to have a tandem of sorts. Koskinen’s simply not a number one goalie. The numbers show it. You could say the same thing about Kuemper because of his injury history. A Kuemper and Koskinen tandem could be really good, albeit a bit expensive at $9 million a year.

Much like the Avalanche, the Oilers would probably have to make other moves to make going after Kuemper make sense. They’d likely have to trade someone making fairly substantial money. Darnell Nurse might make the most sense.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins could be an option as well, although if the Oilers want to be Stanley Cup contenders, I don’t think there’s a RNH trade out there that would make them better next year than they are with him.

Again, the Oilers would have to get creative to trade for Kuemper, but I could see it making sense.