Buzzinga! Brilliant advice from NHL insider for Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland

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This in from Sportnet’s Elliotte Friedman, a leading NHL insider, some brilliant advice for Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland for this off-season.

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On Oilers Now, host Bob Stauffer put it to the Friedman that if the Oilers were to lose Evander Kane to free agency it might be a good idea to trade for Montreal’s Josh Anderson, a big forward who can skate and provide a physical impetus.

Anderson, 28, is 6-foot, 3-inches, 230-pounds and had 19 goals in 69 games last year, with five years left on a deal that pays him $5.5 million per.

Friedman said teams asked about Anderson at the last trading deadline but the Habs were asking a lot.

Friedman then posited it would be better for the Oilers to try to sign Kane than to trade for Anderson, as Edmonton does not have a ton of picks to trade away.

It was then that Friedman gave the single best piece of advice that Holland is likely to hear in the next few weeks:

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“There’s going to be a ton of players available this summer. I think there’s going to be some free agents who get squeezed. I think you guys should be looking hard at those kinds of fits. There’s going to be good fits out there for players who may get squeezed, or teams need to get some positions. If I’m the Oilers, like, good players should want to come and play with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, especially after these playoffs, and if I were you guys I’d be identifying those players rather than chasing after other guys by trade.”

My take

1. It was a proverbial breath of fresh air to hear this from Friedman. So many others are clamouring for the Oilers to lock into players in their late 20s or early 30s on big dollar and long term deals, which is exactly the situation with Josh Anderson. Anderson, who has missed big part of recent seasons with injuries, may or may not give value on his current contract to Montreal, but it’s an iffy proposition. For Edmonton to give up an asset like a first round pick or last year’s first round pick Xavier Bourgault to take on that iffy bet, well, I don’t get it, and there’s a good reason I don’t get it, the one that Friedman just explained. There will almost certainly be far better bets, far better value propositions than Anderson who come available in the next year.

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2. If there were no salary cap and money to burn, sure, take on that Josh Anderson bet. But that’s not the situation the Oilers find themselves in. They are already pressed up against the cap and they’ve got a huge need to fill in net and numerous young players to sign up both this summer and longer term, if those young players pan out. Ryan McLeod, Kailer Yamamoto and/or Jesse Puljujarvi need contracts this summer, as does veteran d-man Brett Kulak. Next year Evan Bouchard will need a new deal, and the year after that Philip Broberg. How bitter would it be to trade for Anderson, have that bet fail to pan out and face losing one or two up-and-coming players as a result?

3. Expect the unexpected when it comes to which players might end up in Edmonton. We might well be in for some very pleasant surprises, given how sweet it is to play with McDavid and Draisaitl at our gorgeous downtown arena, which has arguably the finest player facilities in the NHL. At the end of the  did you expect the Oilers to have Kane, Zach Hyman, Duncan Keith and Cody Ceci on the 2021-22 roster? I certainly didn’t.

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4. Edmonton has much less money to spend this time summer than last summer — though Stauffer was hinting today that Edmonton might somehow have more cap room than most fans generally expect — but there will be names no one images right now ending up on the Oilers. You can count on it. And as Friedman suggests, not all of those players might cost as much as you might think. In a tight market, they might well look at the massive success that players like Kane, Hyman and Tyson Barrie had in Edmonton and decide to come here on a one year deal. In fact, that should be the Holland specialty in the next few years, bringing in a series of top players on short term deals, so they can improve the Oilers and improve their own bargaining position.

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5. Remember, Plan A for the Oilers now isn’t to improve through trades and free agency. It is — as Holland repeatedly made clear in his year end interview — for the team to improve through internal development, for players like Puljujarvi, Yamamoto and MacLeod to get better, for prospects like Dylan Holloway, Raphael Lavoie, Bourgault, Carter Savoie, Tyler Tullio, Matvei Petrov and James Hamblin to try to work there way into the forward ranks, and for prospects like Broberg, Dmitri Samorukov, Vincent Desharnais and Mike Kesselring try to do the same on defence. A player like Holloway, for example, might well step up and in the next five years score every bit as much as Josh Anderson and at a fraction of the cost. With so many big contracts already on the books, that’s got to be the Oilers’ way for the next few seasons, that and being patient and waiting for the right veteran to come in on a short term deal.

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6. Good luck to Mikko Koskinen in Lugano, Switzerland. Koskinen had a .906 save percentage for the Oilers 171 games for the Oilers over four seasons. He had plenty of great games and let in plenty of iffy goals, always coming across as a gentle giant of a man, calm, considerate, professional. It was time for him to move on, as Stu Skinner is as good a bet as him for next year, but the Three Metre Man will long be remembered in Edmonton, sometimes with great fondness.

7. Over at Daily Faceoff.com, Frank Seravalli has listed Zack Kassian as his No. 1  buy-out candidate for the off-season, with Kane the sixth most attractive UFA and Kulak 32nd. I haven’t given much thought to a Kassian buy-out, but I note Edmonton is already burdened with three more years of James Neal buy-out at $1.92 million per year and one more year of Andrej Sekera at $1.5 million, plus $750,000 retained on Milan Lucic this coming year. Kassian is not worth his $3.2 million price tag this year and next, but he was OK in the playoffs, so Edmonton needs to think hard before it moves on from him. Is there really no opportunity to move him to a team that needs toughness? And would the added cap space for next season really be put to excellent use? I’m uncertain.

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8. Just as I’m not super keen on Josh Anderson, I’m not keen on goalie John Gibson of the Ducks, as he hasn’t played great hockey for a few years, he’s got a big contract and the acquisition cost will be high. If you were trading for the John Gibson of three years ago, maybe that bet would be more enticing. But between acquisition and salary cost, I’m not sure if the Oilers would want to take on such a gamble, even if Gibson were willing to come here.

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