OILERS IN WIN-NOW MODE
Keith deal shows urgency: Jones
Like a long ago provincial election campaign of Peter Lougheed, it announces one thing: “NOW!”
Despite winning only one of eight Stanley Cup playoff games in the last two years, Oilers GM Ken Holland just announced that the Connor Mcdavid and Leon Draisaitl Stanley Cup windows are now wide open.
And by trading defenceman Caleb Jones and a third-round draft pick for two-time Stanley Cup champion Duncan Keith — with two years remaining on the US$11.1 million contract he signed with the Chicago Blackhawks — Holland announced no more tinkering while wearing the salary cap handcuffs he predecessor left for him. He certainly didn't get the deal he wanted.
The cap hit is $11.1 million over two years, but owner Daryl Katz is paying $3.6 million in actual dollars over the next two years.
So it's not a free-agent bigbucks payday for Keith himself, a sure-thing Hockey Hall of Famer who won the Norris Trophy in 2009-10 and again in 2013-14 and also won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 2015.
Holland is obviously betting Keith has enough left to come close to doing what an aging Chris Chelios did when he acquired the veteran defenceman for the Red Wings and won a pair of Stanley Cups with him.
But it is $5.5 million of a salary cap hit and I'm not sure how many people would figure Keith to be a $5.5 million hockey player at this stage of his career.
Not to be devalued here, however, is that Keith wants to be here.
He waived his no-movement clause and effectively campaigned to be here.
All that said, you have to figure that Chicago GM Stan Bowman got everything he wanted.
There was no salary retention by Chicago on the deal.
And the Oilers GM didn't get to dump his much-maligned goaltender Mikko Koskinen and the final year of his $4.5 million per year contract, either.
Now for sure, you have to figure, Holland is going to have to buy that out and/or the contract of James Neal. Indeed, Neal is as good as gone at this moment.
So make no mistake. Holland put his butt way out the window on this one to get the defenceman who turns 38 on Friday and will enter the season as the only rearguard in the league younger than Zdeno Chara and Andy Greene. Both become free agents later this month.
But the clock was ticking with lists of protected players to be declared for the Seattle Kraken expansion draft due Friday and obviously, the Oilers had made the decision that Jones was not going to be protected.
He would almost certainly have been the player Seattle would have taken. So the timing basically put Holland on the hot seat to do the deal now.
The trouble with having an opinion on this deal for your average Edmonton fan is that the 56-game schedule featured a Canadian division with play involving only the seven franchises north of the closed Canada-u.s. border.
Few fans had the opportunity to watch many games involving the Blackhawks on Canadian networks.
And the Hawks were so bad, not many people would have wanted to watch them anyway.
Holland never once crossed the border, so he didn't have even one live look at Keith this year.
His last look, however, definitely was live and in person the previous year, when Chicago upset Edmonton three games to one in the best-five qualification series to proceed to the traditional best-of-seven series. All those games, of course, were played in the Rogers Place bubble.
Obviously, Archie Henderson's Oilers pro scouting staff watched a significant slice of Keith's season.
And the eventual evaluation of this deal may end up putting some of their jobs on the line.
Essentially, Holland is hoping for the Chris Pronger effect from GM Kevin Lowe's acquisition of the defenceman who played a massive role in the Oilers getting to Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final.
Not many people would compare Keith at this stage of his career to prime-of-his-career Pronger that season.
Pronger obviously left at the end of that season and the entire team that quite likely would have won a sixth Stanley Cup if goaltender Dwayne Roloson hadn't been injured in Game 1 of the Final, collapsed like a house of cards to begin the decade of darkness. At least when Keith departs, the Oilers should not collapse.
There is no lack of developing defencemen in the organization, including Even Bouchard, Philip Broberg and Dmitri Samorukov. The developing D should get plenty of playing opportunities with mentorship under Keith because the Oilers certainly won't be burning him out in the season. There no doubt will be plenty of pressure on Keith to perform, but the proof will be in the playoffs.
And Holland is gambling big time on him to become a leader in helping to get Mcdavid and Draisaitl there NOW.
I think it's a bad bet. But I also think it's his best bet to make it happen now.