TRADE TALK

Do Oilers move $6M man? And who goes to the desert?

With Jonathan Drouin off to the Montreal Canadiens in the blockbuster National Hockey League trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Habs now have a glut of wingers, unless they think Alex Galchenyuk is a centre or Drouin can play there.

The jury’s very much out on Galchenyuk — the third overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft — playing in the middle because he still seems better on the wing even though he was drafted as a centre, so is it a stretch to consider Galchenyuk for Edmonton Oilers centre Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in a straight-up trade now?

Montreal would love it, but the Oilers? Is that really a fit? Galchenyuk, who’s finishing up a $2.8-million, two-year cap deal and is looking in the $5.5- to $6-million-per-season range, has played a lot on left wing but not on the right side, which is where the Oilers need the most offensive help.

Edmonton has Milan Lucic and Patrick Maroon in the Top 2 slots on the port side for next season.

As a centre, Galchenyuk — former Oilers No. 1 overall pick Nail Yakupov’s teammate with the OHL’s Sarnia Sting — has a 46-per cent success rate on faceoffs over his five NHL years and he’s not a natural playmaker.

From a stats perspective, the 205-pound Galchenyuk for Nugent-Hopkins makes some sense, though.

Nugent-Hopkins, 24, has played 395 games, scoring 95 goals and 265 points.

Galchenyuk, 23, has played 336 games, scoring 89 goals and 204 points.

Frankly, there’s a much better chance winger Jordan Eberle is traded to, say, the New York Islanders after the June 23 expansion draft for any combination of winger Ryan Strome and defenceman Calvin De Haan.

The Isles have been lukewarm on Strome, their former first-round draft pick, for a long time. And if Kelly Buchberger, the Oilers’ vicepresident of player personnel, is joining the Isles as Doug Weight’s assistant coach, he can provide the Isles with the Eberle scouting report.

The Dallas Stars, very weak on the right side, are interested in Eberle, too, and an Eberle for centre Cody Eakin deal has some legs. And, of course, the Avs are sniffing around Eberle, with defenceman Tyson Barrie obviously the player the Oilers would seriously want in return as a power-play point man and a puck-mover even if he had a mediocre season in 2016-17.

FOUR OILERS PLAYERS LIKELY VEGAS TARGETS

The Oilers would like the Vegas Golden Knights to take Benoit Pouliot in the expansion draft to divest themselves of his $4-million salary over the next two years, but unless they have a real sweetener for GM George McPhee to select him, that isn’t happening.

So there’s goalie Laurent Brossoit, defenceman Griffin Reinhart or two wingers — Jujhar Khaira and Tyler Pitlick — who are very likely in the Golden Knights’ sights.

Pitlick is an unrestricted freeagent but only 25, and actually, he might be the most attractive player for them because he scored eight goals in only 31 games last year after a terrific training camp before ripping up his knee.

Vegas has a 72-hour window from June 18-20 to talk to unrestricted free agents left unprotected to see if they’d like to play in the desert. If Pitlick was amenable to signing there, maybe they’d take him and he would count as the Oilers player lost.

“That’s a scenario. I would think that could be a fit (Vegas) for him, but who knows if they’d take a shot at picking him up,” said Pitlck’s agent Ben Hankinson, who wouldn’t be hearing from Vegas until that 72-hour window if they were interested.

“Tyler’s looking for an opportunity somewhere. He’s not looking to sign a contract that’s unfair. He’s just looking for a spot on an NHL team and to pick up where he left off last year.”

In a perfect world, Pitlick would like to be re-signed by the Oilers on July 1, but they have other players (particularly Connor McDavid) to deal with first.

“He’s had nothing but good experiences in Edmonton, including the one last year, but for some unfortunate injuries, some bad luck,” said Hankinson.

Pitlick would easily fit as a fourth-line winger if signed by the Oilers.

KHAIRA SIGNS TWO-YEAR EXTENSION

If the Knights want to take Jujhar Khaira off the Oilers’ unprotected list next week, at least they’ll know the price after the fourth-line winger signed a twoyear deal Friday for a US$675,000 salary-cap hit.

Khaira, Reinhart, Brossoit, winger Iiro Pakarinen, all signed, and unrestricted free-agent forward Pitlick are all exposed. Vegas will likely take one of those young players rather than veteran winger Pouliot or defenceman Mark Fayne because of their heavy contracts.

Khaira has barely scratched the surface with just 25 NHL games played, 10 this past season. He showed some life as a fourth-liner and would likely be taking up unrestricted free-agent Matt Hendricks’ minutes next season if Vegas passes on the 22-year-old who has played 133 American Hockey League games in Oklahoma City and in Bakersfield.