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My take

Part of me wonders if Brooks is just trolling the Oilers and their fans here.

Let’s say he’s not. To start the evaluation of his suggested trade, I’ll give Brooks the benefit of the doubt and suggest he meant McDonagh is worth Edmonton’s 1st pick plus one of Draisaitl, Hall and Nugent-Hopkins, but not all three. Or it could also be that Brooks meant any one of those four pieces alone — the 1st, Draisaitl, Hall or RNH — for the McDonagh, but that’s not how I read it. It sounds like you start with the first pick, then add one more piece, though the wording is vague.

McDonagh, 26, is not among the top elite NHL dmen. He’s not in the class of a Brent Burns, a Victor Hedman, an Erik Karlsson, a Drew Doughty, a Duncan Keith or a P.K. Subban.

McDonagh is arguably in that second group of really solid No. 1 d-men, players like Alex Pietrangelo, Roman Josi, John Carlson, Mark Giordano, Kris Letang. If he is in that company, he’s near the bottom of the group. He’s not much of a power play scorer, though his even strength scoring is fine, 0.91 points per 60 in the past three seasons, good for 33rd overall for regular NHL dmen, and just ahead of Edmonton’s Oscar Klefbom, .9o per 60.

McDonagh also has a value contract that pays him $4.7 million per.

But does he work for Edmonton, given the Oil’s need at right defence?

One issue with the Oilers is that McDonagh shoots left, and Edmonton has a glut of left shot d-men including Klefbom, Andrej Sekera, Brandon Davidson, Darnell Nurse and Griffin Reinhart. It’s unlikely that McDonagh is the right fit here, given Edmonton’s limited trade resources and with a market that may well include right shot d-men like Tyson Barrie, Sami Vatanen, P.K. Subban, Justin Faulk, Jason Demers and Travis Hamonic.