No big splashes as Oilers choose to go the safe route
Ken Holland spent his shopping day trying to buy some time.
With the Edmonton Oilers waiting for some of their homegrown prospects to ripen and some of their cap troubles to expire, their GM addressed the here and now with three shortterm deals on the opening day of NHL free agency.
He signed goaltender Mike Smith to a one-year contract worth $2 million in base salary and another $2 million in possible bonuses, added depth forward Markus Granlund (one year, $1.3 million) and re-signed Alex Chiasson (two years, $2.15 million per).
In a market that’s missed the playoffs 12 times in the last 13 years, where the mood usually fluctuates between pessimism and gloom, none of those acquisitions moved the needle much. Not to suggest they’re bad moves (short term and small money is always a safe gamble), but when the fans expected more and the team needed more, this is a bit of a letdown.
Holland’s hands were tied to some extent because of cap issues and the fact Edmonton isn’t an attractive market for free agents. Also, overpaying for free agents on July 1 usually leads to more problems anyway.
So with an experienced GM brought in to clean up the mess left by his predecessors, Edmonton’s limited haul on Monday is understandable. It allows younger players in the system room to grow and doesn’t lock the Oilers into contracts they will come to regret.
He protected the future very nicely.
It’s the here and now that looks a little shaky.
This is a crucial year for the Oilers. Frustrated season ticket holders have begun turning their backs on the team and there’s an underlying fear in the community that some of the key players are losing patience with the never-ending rebuild.
A roster that, so far, hasn’t changed much from last season does little to calm the water.
GOAL
The biggest consternation surrounds the goaltending situation, where responsibility for making the playoffs rests with Smith and Mikko Koskinen, a duo that doesn’t inspire a tremendous amount of confidence right now.
Both were strong in stretches last season. Koskinen can get hot at times, like he was in the 27 games before signing his threeyear, $4.5-million contract, and Smith was the best player on the Flames during their first-round exit from the playoffs.
But consistency over the long haul on a team that hasn’t given much help to its goalies over the years remains a question. Smith is 37 and posted an .898 save percentage on a good defensive team last year, while Koskinen watched so many pucks sail past his left shoulder he needed a chiropractor to fix the neck damage.
A weak netminding tandem can sink a season in a hurry. If the Oilers aren’t strong in net, then nothing else they’ve done is going to matter.
So they’re gambling heavily on Koskinen having ironed out his glove hand issues and/or Smith being able to maintain the form he showed down the stretch and in the playoffs last year for Calgary.
FORWARD
Chiasson, a hard-working character guy who likes it here, is a safe add. It’s no guarantee he’ll be able to duplicate the career-high 22 goals he scored last season (nine better than his previous best), but even if he does, the Oilers needed offence on top of what he already brought.
They didn’t get it. At least not yet. And it’s hard to imagine how they’ll be able to take the next step without it.
When you start out with Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and four years later offence is still a weakness, it’s a miserable reflection on how things have been run around here. This isn’t Holland’s fault, but it’s his problem.
At some point, he has to find a second-line scoring winger. For now, he’s trying to address the goal-scoring issues by bolstering their lower-price bottom six.
Adding Granlund is another low-risk, low-cost option, but the upside is limited — 12 and eight goals over the last two seasons with the Canucks. That’s not much, but Edmonton’s secondary scoring is so weak that eight goals would have been sixth among forwards last year. He could also help a penalty kill that finished 30th in the NHL last season.
DEFENCE
Buying out Andrej Sekera on Sunday opens a spot in the bottom six for a younger player to step in, but that also comes with some uncertainty. Your sixth defenceman isn’t a throwaway position. It’s 14 minutes of ice time a night that, if you’re not sure about your goaltending, could be costly if you have a weak link in there.
But, at some point, Edmonton’s young prospects are going to need a chance. That time appears to be now.