The Edmonton Oilers Have A Big Problem On Their Hands
By Jim Lynch
The Edmonton Oilers are one of the better teams within the Pacific Division. They currently sit behind the Flames and Kings for third within the division, in a playoff spot. The issue for the Oilers is their season was supposed to go a little differently.
The Edmonton Oilers have had a rollercoaster year, and the trade deadline hasn’t even passed yet.
The team had a terrific first month of the season and looked destined for an easy run to the playoffs, so everyone thought. Issues piled up, players got hurt, coaches were fired, and time passed. Now the Edmonton Oilers sit third in the Pacific with some good teams chasing them from behind like Vegas.
Their playoff spot is not locked up like it once was, and the biggest issue is help doesn’t seem like it is on the way. The trade deadline is when teams often can get that last push to make the playoffs. Sometimes deals work and sometimes they fall apart, but the big thing is making a trade to try and shake things up a little bit.
The Oilers do not seem to be committed to making a move, at least with Ken Holland in the position of general manager. Two weeks ago he was up in the air on whether or not the team would be buyers or sellers. A team with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl should do everything they can to make the playoffs, the issue is this team doesn’t have a heck of a lot to trade away and doesn’t have a lot of cap space.
The Edmonton Oilers have dealt a couple of their picks for this upcoming draft and they have under a million in cap space to use. Some of their issues date back to the Duncan Keith trade. They lost a lot of cap space with that move and dealt a third-round pick to the Hawks.
Their pick had a condition on it that it could become a second if the team gets to the third round and Keith plays a certain amount of ice time. No matter if those conditions are met, they need to hold onto the pick and can’t use it in a trade right now. That means they are kind of stuck in a bad spot right now with limited assets and cap space to make a move.
Ken Holland was going to have to be convinced to make a move in the right circumstances and considering he doesn’t have a lot of assets to use that is going to become even less likely. It will be interesting to see how things play out over the next week. The Pacific Division has a lot of room for movement, and a team that capitalizes at the deadline could position themselves better in the postseason.