MONTREAL, QC - DECEMBER 09: Max Pacioretty #67 of the Montreal Canadiens skates against Connor McDavid #97 of the Edmonton Oilers during the NHL game at the Bell Centre on December 9, 2017 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Edmonton Oilers defeated the Montreal Canadiens 6-2. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

Edmonton Oilers: Keep the Powder Dry Unless You Can Get This Player

Edmonton Oilers: Keep the Powder Dry Unless You Can Get This Player by Pelle

There have been some rumors and innuendo regarding potential trades that the Edmonton Oilers might be thinking of doing. Could one of them be with Montreal?

If you’ve been listening to Oilers Now this week, you’ve probably noticed the uptick in questions from Bob Stauffer to his guests regarding the future of Max Pacioretty and the Canadiens’ 1st rounder this year (3rd overall). Usually, the question was followed with a short diatribe on how the Habs need a center and that Bob doesn’t think Jonathan Drouin or Alex Galchenyuk is good pivots.

Now, this could be Stauffer being Stauffer. Sometimes he likes to throw things out there to see what sticks and sometimes he’s flat out full of it.

In this case, I’ll lean to the former than the latter just because the Habs and Oilers have been connected in the rumor mill before when Hall was going for Subban, and it seems every year a Canadiens blogger has Ryan Nugent-Hopkins going to Montreal. I even think that Yakupov to the Habs was a thing for a bit.

Elliotte Friedman and Ray Ferraro have spoken about Edmonton and Montreal getting together in the past.

But anyways, I want to throw my idea out there and get your feedback.

I don’t know if scoring will be a problem next year. I think that the Oilers could score around 270 if all things go well and that’s because I feel like the PP and the PK will be back to normal. With normal being top 10 in the league.

Of course, all of that is predicated upon the health of the roster, and I’d be willing to bet someone of note is going to get dinged up. I’m also a bit concerned how the beginning of the year will go given that the Oilers will start in Europe and then come back to North America.

Anyways, back to how the Habs and Oilers could strike a deal.

What if Montreal sent Pacioretty and the #3 to the Oilers for RNH and the #10?

This would accomplish a few things:

It would replenish the Oilers depth on the wing. Adding a perennial 30 goal scorer to Connor‘s left and possibly the draft’s best sniper in Filip Zadina to Leon Draisaitl‘s right would surely be the kind of quality craved by fans.

It would give the Habs the no.1a/b centre they’ve been craving.

Montreal could use that pick to draft Finnish centre Jesperi Kotkaniemi. A player that has risen up the rankings due to his outstanding U18 performance and has been compared to Alexander Barkov and Mikko Rantanen.

It would provide some temporary cap relief for Edmonton. In the area of around $1.5M. Add that to the $5M, or so they’ll have available after re-signing their RFAs (Benning, Nurse, Caggiula, and R.Strome).What might they do with an extra $6.5M this summer? Go for Erik Karlsson or Oliver Ekman-Larsson?

Pacioretty would bring some desperately needed veteran leadership (and scoring of course) to the forward group, and I believe being a captain for the Montreal Canadiens is one of the hardest jobs in hockey. There’s value there, especially when applying it in Edmonton.

This deal would force Jonathan Drouin to the LW most likely, and he’s probably better off at that position. Especially with a player like Nugent-Hopkins as his centre.

The most significant drawback for the Oilers here in a deal like this is that Max Pacioretty is a UFA next summer. So they’d get to test drive him for a year, and if all was good, they could re-sign him before he hits the market. That said, what is he going to command? Especially when Lucic is making $6M a year.

Another angle

On the bright side, the clauses in Andrej Sekera’s and Kris Russell’s contracts make it a bit easier to move them in the off-season as they can submit a 10-team list (Russell) or a 15-team list (Sekera) of teams they’d be willing to be traded to the Oilers.

Some Oilers fans might merely decline based on the play of RNH and McDavid at the end of last season, and if there were an injury to one of Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl, the team wouldn’t have the necessary cover if they traded Nugent-Hopkins.

Personally, I feel that Filip Zadina is going to score at least 20 goals next season for whatever NHL team he’s playing for. If that team is the Oilers, where would that put Kailer Yamamoto and Jesse Puljujarvi?

Lots of questions to be asked for the Oilers and the Canadiens are going into the 2018/19 season but make no mistake about it, the GMs of both clubs are on thin ice and need to do something about it.

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What do you think? As a Habs fan, is that offer enough for you to part with your captain? As an Oilers fan, do you think the proposal is too much given Pacioretty’s pending UFA status?