Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff was on Oilers Nation this week and discussed what the Edmonton Oilers might be looking for in terms of trade deadline acquisitions ahead of the March 3rd deadline. Noting that the Oilers are missing three key ingredients to being as competitive as they’d like to be, he notes that GM Ken Holland is looking around the marketplace for specific types of players.
First, the Oilers need a top-flight center “that you can add to this mix, as the number one need or priority.” He adds, “The second would be a true defensive defenseman that is strong defender, think along the lines of a Kris Russell, an Adam Larsson, that type of defender.” He goes on to suggest that Vladislav Gavrikov would be an ideal target for Edmonton. Finally, Seravalli says, that the Oilers probably should have already addressed this need by now, but that they should try “to find a piece for your bottom six that is difficult to play against.”
He suggests that the easier of the three deals to make is to add the physical bottom-six forward. As for the other two things, he wonders if the priorities flip between now and the deadline. Logically, the Oilers should need defense more as they have three of the best centers in the NHL and they should be getting Ryan McLeod back, who can also play down the middle.
The Oilers aren’t playing as well as they would like and it’s clear they are missing a couple of ingredients. They also don’t have a lot of salary cap room with which to play and go out and add all of the pieces they need. At some point, they’ll have to decide what their priorities are and understand they may not be able to accomplish everything on their list.
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