Simpleton
Joined: Jun. 2017
Posts: 1,365
Likes: 502
This summer, Holland purposefully brought in proven bottom six NHL forwards and older European players, all on one-year contracts. He also signed a goaltender he can afford and then gave the organization's top prospects a legitimate shot to compete for an NHL roster spot. He has a couple albatross contracts that expire at the end of this season, and also all of those one-year deals. It looks to me as though he is trying to build a more competitive, if still grossly imbalanced, line-up this season. The objective appears to be getting through this year with enough improvement to keep fans engaged, while allowing prospects to develop in the system.
Nurse is the one player Edmonton has who will command a significant salary increase next season; Kassian might get a pay increase too, if Holland doesn't move him before the trade deadline. Holland also has to figure out how to protect players like Bear, Jones, and Lagesson, all of whom will not be waiver exempt next season. Beyond that, I think he considers the options to be varied. Moving Lucic for Neal did far more than give Edmonton a far better offensive player, it also gave Holland the opportunity to open up a significant amount of cap space, should he choose to trade, or buy-out Neal. That's a huge improvement for the Oilers. Of course, neither a trade, nor a buy-out seem likely at this point.
All this to say, I believe that Holland has set himself up to have reasonable cap space and organizational depth to pursue a more significant player than Perlini. Taylor Hall seems to get a lot of attention right now, but consider that Mike Hoffman and Chris Kreider may also be available at less breathtaking terms. Of course Holland also has assets, in the form of Jesse Puljujarvi and one of Caleb Jones and William Lagesson, that he might be able to leverage into more forward scoring depth. Finally, there are less highly vaunted players than Hall, Hoffman, and Keider who may be available, without the need to snipe another team's RFAs.