From College to coaching to GM to free agency
Jim Matheson: Will be interesting to see if college defenseman John Marino wants to sign with the Oilers. He’s spent three years at Harvard and one year in the USHL. He can become a UFA.
Mark Spector of Sportsnet: Potential general manager candidates for the Edmonton Oilers.
Mike Gillis, Ken Holland (doubtful he’s leaving Detroit), Pat Verbeek (will get an interview), Mark Hunter (top three candidate), Keith Gretzky (will be considered), and Kelly McCrimmon (top three candidate).
Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal: When the Oilers hire their new general manager, he may want his own guy being their head coach.
If Ken Hitchcock isn’t their coach, he still has a consultant role with the team for two more years.
“This is a very unique situation for all of us (assistants Glen Gulutzan, Trent Yawney, Manny Viveiros), we’re going to work our butts off until the end of the year, then it’ll be 100 per cent in somebody else’s court,” said Hitchcock “They’ll make a decision from a general manager’s standpoint on where they want to go and the pecking order is the general manager gets to hire who he wants.
“We’re trying to get every ounce out of this. I love the way the team’s playing right now. I think I feel like the players that we don’t want the season to end.”
The list of GM candidates for the Oilers is going to be long. Tampa Bay Lightning assistant GM Pat Verbeek and Detroit Red Wings assistant GM Ryan Martin are names that have come up.
Allan Mitchell of The Athletic: The Edmonton Oilers buying out defenseman Andrej Sekera may be more efficient than buying out forward Milan Lucic.
Keeping Sekera may be good for mentoring a young defensive partner though.
The Oilers could use a second pairing right-handed defenseman next season, but it may cost them too much to acquire and they don’t have a lot of salary cap space.
The Oilers may need to find a backup goaltender in the $1.5 million range. Potential options could be Petr Mrazek, Anders Nilsson and Brian Elliott.
Potential free agent options that could play on the wing: Gustav Nyquist, Jordan Eberle, Micheal Ferland, Brett Connolly, Alex Chiasson, Joonas Donskoi and Brandon Pirri.