Team: 2023-24 Edmonton Oilers

Initial Creation Date: Oct. 29, 2023

Published: Oct. 29, 2023

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

The crux to these moves would be to ensure that the bench and management is dealt with via scorched earth policy. Likewise, I think the only way to manage Campbell with minimal pain is to ejecto-seat him in July: moving him is too asset-intensive and with the cap going up and James Neal eventually coming off the books, a buyout is survivable.

Flames have s.f.a for RD depth once they unpack their UFA's for picks and prospects. Desharnais probably pairs well with Poirier once the kid gets the recall. Hard to gauge the value on Tanev due to most Flames AGM's having him paired with other assets or taking Myers back. Feedback is very welcome. I wavered on Desharnais vs Kemp here and felt Kemp at least serves as cheap depth for Edmonton next year. Ducks pick up a pick to withhold some salary cap as the third team in.

Gauging the Saros trade was tricky because there's a lot of garbage deals going to Nashville being formulated on these boards. If the Predators are looking at an overhaul, Ceci makes more sense as a live body going back to Nashville than Kulak does as I would expect Barrie and Carrier flipped. Petrov is a really interesting prospect that could have a really high ceiling or be nothing (Bourgault is safer, I think Petrov has more room to wow), and Skinner forms what should be a really solid future tandem with Askarov. Edmonton doesn't have the time left to wait for Skinner to become established, Nashville looks like it has nothing but time. Novak should reasonably fetch a first by the deadline, which leads to this trade breaking down similarly to last year's Ekholm deal and every other low-AAV middle-six forward for a first deal besides last year's Jeannot deal. Columbus takes a pick and a prospect to eat $2.5M of Saros' net worth over the next two winters; Bjork is a live body destined to the AHL based on depth charts and prospects wanting icetime on the Blue Jackets' side.

Caps fans, Berezkin is touted to be a power forward and projects to have a North American ceiling somewhere between Gusev and Radulov. Maybe he wows like the next Panarin, maybe he's another Shipachev. Decent grab-bag for a depth forward. Pick fetches retention, pretty similar to the deal Edmonton made last year for Bjugstad.

Most everything on the roster should remain the same for next year. A Brink's truck for Pesce in July rounds out the team. Not sure if Lavoie sticks around (Bourgault to replace anyhow) and I'd have interest in resigning Novak at Nick Paul money. Kulak may need to be offloaded at a discount and hopefully there's money enough for a 22-man roster next fall.

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