Edmonton Oilers
Insider: Oilers Had Other Trade Lined Up Before Adding Ekholm
The Edmonton Oilers made a great trade adding Mattias Ekholm, but one insider says they almost traded for a different defenseman first.
The Edmonton Oilers made a fantastic trade when they landed Mattias Ekholm from the Nashville Predators. The Oilers acquired Ekholm and a 2024 sixth-round pick in exchange for Tyson Barrie, Reid Schaefer, a 2023 first-round pick, and a 2024 fourth-round pick. But, the Oilers had another deal in the works before finalizing that deal.
According to Frank Seravalli, the Oilers were in deep conversations with the Arizona Coyotes to acquire defenseman Jakob Chychrun.
"In the last hour before making the deal, I had the tweets queued up ready to tweet that the Oilers were getting Jakob Chychrun." – @frank_seravalli
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Seravalli says the wildest part about the Ekholm deal is that the Oilers almost made a trade for someone else and he had the tweets all lined up and ready to post because that’s how close the Oilers got to landing Chychrun.
He explained:
“I can take you inside the Oilers’ war room at the time because the statute of limitations is expiring. In the last hour before making the deal, I had the tweets queued up, ready to tweet that the Oilers were getting Jakob Chychrun, or they had been in deep discussions with Arizona to get Chychrun. So even as much as the deal feels like a slam dunk now, and I think Ken Holland specifically always leaning more toward Ekholm than Chychrun, it came down to like a value thing, of like, ‘Hey you know Nashville keeps kind of pushing this along are we willing to pay as much’. It was never like even that day it was never 100% Ekholm.”
Imagine the Difference for the Oilers Without Ekholm
How interesting things would have been if the Oilers had traded for Chychrun instead of Ekholm. Ekholm has fit like a glove and has been one of the best trades the team has made in the last decade. He’s a leader, he’s playing a huge amount of minutes, and he’s been an incredible mentor to Evan Bouchard.
On the other hand, Chychrun has been great in Washington, but he made a stop in Ottawa first and didn’t stick. It’s hard to know how he would have fared with the Oilers.
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