Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli was among the first insiders to confirm that Evander Kane would be returning for the Edmonton Oilers as they take on the Seattle Kraken Tuesday. He also broke the news that Kailer Yamamoto would be going on LTIR for the Oilers, thus kicking their salary cap can down the road a little. He’s also reporting that there is trade interest in forward Jesse Puljujarvi, who is coincidentally (or perhaps not) a healthy scratch for the Oilers.
Mike Gould writes, “Seravalli indicated the Oilers have made a trio of forwards available in trade discussions, with one, in particular, generating notable interest: Jesse Puljujarvi, who has 10 points in 45 games this year.” Seravalli notes that the Yamamoto LTIR solution will only last for so long and at that point, the Oilers will need to make another move. That move could be a Puljujarvi trade.
Seravalli explained, He’s [Yamamoto] eligible to come off of LTIR on Feb. 12 and so that is the target date to circle, because if the Edmonton Oilers remain healthy otherwise to that point, then they’re going to have to make a corresponding salary cap move then to be cap compliant and continue to ice the same roster.”
Seravalli went on to note that the Oilers have dangled names like Warren Foegele and Derek Ryan out there but Puljujarvi is garnering the most interest. He says, “I’m told the Oilers actually engaged in conversation with a couple teams about someone like Jesse Puljujarvi and I think the conversations were actually pretty promising on that front.”
So, what is Puljujarvi worth? That’s a good question because until now, no other team has stepped up to try and give a decent price to acquire the winger. He’s been on the trade block for some time and the Oilers have been open to dealing him as long as they weren’t “giving him away.” That no team has given GM Ken Holland something to seriously consider might be telling .
Are the Oilers at a point in time where just moving his salary is enough? Will they have to add a sweetener to make this deal work? Seravalli said that Puljujarvi did generate some interest from a handful of teams and that’s good news for Edmonton. If there is more than one buyer, the Oilers might be able to avoid giving up an asset in an effort to shake loose of his $3 million cap hit.
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