On the Edmonton Oilers …
Jonathan Willis of The Athletic: The Oilers have $64.6 million committed to 14 players next year. Milan Lucic, Andrej Sekera, and Kris Russell have no-movement clauses.
This is part of the reason you hear the names of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Oscar Klefbom in the rumor mill. Those two are the easiest players for the Oilers to move if they want to create some extra space.
If Zack Kassian is not in their top-nine, they could move out his almost $2 million cap hit, creating a potential extra $1 million in savings.
It is possible that pending free agents Mark Letestu or Mike Cammalleri could be brought back next year, but it would have to be at a lesser dollar amount.
The Oilers will be tempted to sign Patrick Maroon to a contract extension, maybe in the four-year, $4 million per season range. He will be 30 in two months and has a similar skill set of Lucic. Maroon carries a $1.5 million salary cap hit, so his value at the trade deadline could be higher.
On the Boston Bruins …
Chris Nichols of FanRag Sports: Bob McKenzie was on NBCSN talking about the Boston Bruins. The Bruins have emerged as Cup contenders, will the Bruins look to add before the deadline?
mentions their young players have filled prominent roles and do they want to mess with the chemistry? But, if they are legit contenders, why not try to address some needs.
“I don’t think there’s any question the Boston Bruins management team and coaching staff, in a perfect world, would love to add a top-six or top-nine scoring winger. The question I would have is how prepared are they to part with draft picks and/or prospects. And they’ve got a lot of prospects, guys that are either playing in Providence or on the way playing college hockey, junior hockey. They are well-positioned, if they want to give up draft picks and prospects, that they could get into that rental market, or they could go out and look for wingers that have got some term left on their deal and do a bigger deal than that.”
If the prices don’t come down, isn’t sure the Bruins will want to pay it.
They could look at adding some depth to their blue line.