Foegele keeps tabs on rumours as trade deadline approaches
With Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland in heavy buyer mode in this win-now scenario, on the last year of his five-year deal, everybody wants to see what he pulls out of the hat by Friday’s trade deadline — players, fans and those loud voices on social media in this hard market.
“Yeah, you’ve got a lot of GMS on Twitter,” laughed Oilers winger Warren Foegele, who will be keeping a closer eye on who comes in and who goes out than most, even after setting a personal points high (31) on Sunday, in the blowout of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
With the Oilers now in second spot in the Pacific Division and Holland trying to add and subtract without screwing things up, Foegele will be an interested spectator. He has an expiring $2.75-million contract (without trade protection) and it may be in play for cap purposes, even as valuable a player as he is.
It’ll depend on who and how expensive the Oilers add/adds are at forward with money retained — hopefully using a third-party broker to get the added forward’s cap hit down to 25 per cent.
In 2020, the Oilers didn’t want to move out popular forward Sam Gagner while the team was between games and camped out in Anaheim, but Holland had to make the money work with Detroit.
He dealt Gagner’s $3.15 million, retaining 10 per cent which meant $2.835 million was off the books to go after winger Andreas Athanasiou and his speed, with Holland also giving up two second-round picks (2020 and 2021).
In hindsight, that deadline deal was a swing and a miss.
Athanasiou couldn’t step up his game with better players, and the 2020 second-rounder (45th overall) turned out to be Brock Faber. No guarantee the Oilers would have taken the defenceman if they had kept the pick, but he’s playing 25:07 a night for Minnesota as a rookie.
We’ll see if Holland goes big again with a “wow” pickup, like getting Mattias Ekholm last year. Penguins winger Jake Guentzel, not eligible to return until March 10 from injury, would be the sexy add (58 points in 58 career playoff games, 34 goals), with major cap retention even as a rental.
Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas wants A-level prospects, not so much draft picks, for what has to be a rebuild now but Guentzel would be a long shot.
He doesn’t think there’s any way they could resign the UFA, so with Vegas (with Mark Stone on LTIR) and Vancouver (with their former GM Jim Rutherford running the show for Canucks) they may be Guentzel’s top trade suitors.
St. Louis winger Pavel Buchnevich, who has this year and next at $5.8 million, would fill the second-line right-wing slot perfectly, but he would have to be acquired with heavy cap retention by the Blues. That would qualify as major add (24 goals, 48 points in 58 games).
But there would be many pieces involved in this trade, and the Blues aren’t keen to trade him anyway, unless the deal blows them away with Buchnevich becoming a UFA after the 2024-25 season.
More realistic pickups could be Ottawa’s Vladimir Tarasenko or Seattle’s Jordan Eberle, who are both UFAS this summer. If the New Jersey Devils enter sell mode and offer up Tyler Toffoli — he would be a strong fit.
So, back to Foegele. He ranks sixth on the Oilers at 5-on-5 points (29), just behind Ryan Nugent-hopkins (32) and Evander Kane (30). He shouldn’t be going anywhere, he’s on pace for 40 points.
There are other ways to finagle the cap, depending on how much is retained in any trade deals. Maybe they have to trade Mattias Janmark ($1 million), who has done good work, too, up and down the lineup but is best suited as a fourth-liner who kills penalties. Maybe they waive somebody and put their contract in the minors in Bakersfield, without a cap penalty.
Maybe that’s Connor Brown, who still has no goals (82 shots) after 51 games, or Gagner, who deserves more work but can’t get it, both at $775,000, or Derek Ryan, ($900,000) but Ryan is their only right-shot centre and on their top PK forward unit.
Or they could send Dylan Holloway ($925,000) to the AHL for more seasoning. Anybody making less than $1.15 million can be sent to Bakersfield without a cap penalty.
But, Foegele, who is an unrestricted free agent July 1, makes $2.75 million. And he has said there have been no substantive talks on a new contract, which seems odd, even though he is a valuable, move him around the lineup and can play right wing or left wing.
He fits perfectly on a third line here, as the Oilers have still not settled on who plays there, with 23 games left.