Article content

The Edmonton Oilers are not officially eliminated from the 2016 playoffs, but the situation is grim enough that general manager Peter Chiarelli should make decisions based on the assumption that they are. The period leading up to the trade deadline is thus about preparing for next season rather than the playoffs.

One of the decisions the team will need to make is with regard to Eric Gryba, a pending unrestricted free agent who has served the team rather well during his half-season in Edmonton. My friend David Staples made the case for the Oilers to keep him on Sunday, arguing that he’s a big, tough, reasonably effective right-shooting defencemen still in the prime years of his career and that all of those things make him a good fit for Edmonton’s third pairing.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Cult of Hockey: Why the Edmonton Oilers should choose to keep Mark Fayne over Eric Gryba Back to video

In a vacuum, I would agree, but all of these deals need to be considered from the perspective of what the Oilers already have on the books. In this case, the complicating factor is the presence of Mark Fayne. I mentioned this in the Cult of Hockey discussion we ran this morning, but I wanted to expand it in detail.