Team: 2021-22 Edmonton Oilers

Initial Creation Date: Jun. 4, 2021

Published: Jun. 4, 2021

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

By freeing up cap space through buying out Koskinen, trading neal Russell and turris. The oilers will have almost 36 million in cap space for this offseason. They need to either resign or sign ufas for 2 goalies, a RHD, 3 bottom 6 forwards and 3 top 6 forwards.

1.The goalies. With a bit of limited cap space due to forward needs and not many good options for an elite goalie, the oilers should go with a 1A 1B option. Mike smith had an incredible year and its only fair to bring him back to be a 1B. oilers would look to sign Mrazek as ken holland had him in Detroit and hes been a solid goalie who wont cost too much. Cap space used: 5.5 million

2.the defense core. I believe the oilers should leave Barrie to test out FA and let players like Bouchard and bear take higher roles. The oilers need to invest in their youth and bouchard in his little time, has proven hes ready for some nhl time. For our one RHD dman its clear we need to resign adam Larsson. Hes our best defensive dman and a key leadership part of our team. for the pairings, bear has proven to be great with nurse but as the year goes on I can see Bouchard being our guy to play on the top pair with nurse. Cap space used: 3.5 million

3.the top 6. The oilers need to resign yamo and nuge to fill out the second line and the oilers should go semi long term with yamo as it will be worth it in the future. that leaves them to find a winger for mcdavid which I believe should be hyman. He does everything so well and wouldn’t be too expensive at around 6 million. We could sway him by guaranteeing him being on a line with mcdavid. Pulju seems to always make the right play and will only get better after an amazing return. If the second line performs as they did before the season pause in 2020, this could be the best top 6 in the league. Cap space used: 15.75 million

4.the bottom 6. In my opinion, this is the biggest weakness of the oilers and has to be solved. They need to play young players like mcleod, benson and maybe Holloway but also surround them with proven nhl players. To start, blake coleman would be an ideal 3rd liner as he is great defensively, on the forecheck and can provide depth scoring. Id be willing to overpay for coleman and negotiate to him that hed be playing in a key role to support one of the best top 6s in the league. Next, a shutdown 3rd line centre would be amazing and danault would be solid. Hes proven to shutdown players in the playoffs like Crosby and held Matthews and marner to 1 goal in 7 games. With kassian alongside these 2 wed create a energy/shutdown line and if we can get kassian to buy into that we can have a key line for the playoffs. Our 4th line is a investment in young players like mcleod and benson but if it doesn’t work out we can always throw ennis in there as I signed him for depth. cap spaced used: 9 million

To conclude, with some key, calculated FA signings and team resigning’s. We can create a very competitive team by having proven nhl talent and investing in the youth as well creating a good balance to keep us in the playoffs for years.

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