How should Edmonton Oilers spend their potential Evander Kane jackpot?

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Let’s take it as a given for a moment that Edmonton Oilers power forward Evander Kane will not be healthy to play until the 2025 playoffs, which will free up $5.1 million in cap space for the Oilers at the trade deadline.

I’ll suggest this isn’t much of a stretch given that everything about Kane’s medical history has been slow, long and drawn out this season, with him not getting abdominal surgery until October, and not getting knee surgery until January. It’s becoming hard to imagine things will suddenly speed up and that he’ll be back for the regular season, especially given the obvious advantage to the Oilers if he sits out until the playoffs.

And, in fact, for Kane’s recovery, that may well be the best bet.

On Oilers Now, NHL insider Frank Servalli suggested the Oilers now have a great argument to bring back Kane only for the playoffs. “I can’t speak for the Oilers and what they’re thinking, but if I’m Edmonton and I’m looking at this situation, this latest knee surgery for Evander Kane, that clears up to me any question about whether or not anyone would put up a fight or challenge if Evander Kane was out until the playoff started,” Servalli told host Bob Stauffer. “That abdominal surgery (earlier this season) was no joke. And he, you know, even before this popped up, when I had asked around about what the timeline was for Kane, I was told sometime in mid-March was kind of the earliest of where he was trending. And so if you tack on four weeks to that or you tack on six weeks to that, whatever this timeline is for the new surgery (on his knee), well, that puts you sometime in the playoffs. And so to me, what this does is really kind of resets the clock. It gives the Oilers additional support to make any medical claim that they might need to do on the LTIR if anyone, including the league, were to challenge this.”

If the Oilers do have $5.1 million in cap space where might they spend it?

I see the main need on the Oilers being one forward and one d-man, both of them able to make and take a pass, but also able to throw a hard hit.

Edmonton could use one more tough two-way forward and one more tough d-man, but both of these players have also got to be able to hang in with a team that is defined by it’s outstanding puck possession.

Now it could be that the Oilers will go fishing for one star player and one or two role players but I see it as more likely they’ll look for at most a second-pairing d-man and at most a third-line winger to help the cause.

Today, let’s look at which second or third paring d-men might help. I’ve come up with a back-of-the-envelope list of potential d-men acquisitions, ranking all NHL d-men on their points scored in 5-on-5 play combined with their hits at 5-on-5.

I’m using points as a crude proxy for puck-moving ability and hits as a crude proxy for physical play. At the same time, I’m only listing players here who are veterans on teams that might not make the playoffs, along with being players on reasonable contracts.

When I utilize this method, it churns out a number of names that have been mentioned in Oilers trade talks already, such as Chicago’s Connor Murphy, Montreal’s David Savard, and Pittsburgh’s Marcus Pettersson.

Murphy is an interesting name here.

He ranked fifth overall in the NHL for points/hits per 60, ranking 54th in points and 31st in hits.

I’m no credible judge of any of these players, not having put in the many hours it would take to go over video of their recent games, but Seravalli offered up this on Connor Murphy. “He’s pretty mobile. He is low maintenance. He gets along with everyone. He’s kind of a coach’s dream in the sense that he competes, he works, he shows up. I think his skill set overall is somewhat limited… If the Hawks are willing to retain, particularly the fact that he’s not a rental, makes him a really intriguing option. And I do think for the right price, if they could put the right package together, Murphy and another player, you might be able to solve and fill for a couple of holes in one transaction.”

At the Cult of Hockey

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