blow up the back end

Buffalo does not take on all that money without sending you stuff you don’t want back.

Trade isn't necessarily to Buffalo, just anyone who wants those players without taking salary back.

I suspect both Krug and Pierro cost you more than that with both looking for longer term as well. Hard to say how the flat cap this year and the unknown beyond that affects contract values. But have to figure minimum of 5x8.5 for Pieter and likely 5x8 for Krug.

Also with the cap uncertainty no teams are taking on dollars without sending dollars back.

Buying high on the UFA market rarely works. The Oilers should be especially aware of this, as they've been on the receiving end of horrid UFA deals in the past (Khabibulin, Pouliot, Purcell, and Lucic most recently).

This kind of knee-jerk reaction to a small sample size when the team as a whole (beyond McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nugent-Hopkins) was disinterested in competing follows the same fool-hardy line of thought that resulted in Edmonton panic-flipping Hall for Larsson. One facet of the game under-performed and a quality asset was shed below value in order to supply a quick fix. Subsequently, a big-name UFA was used to plug Hall's departure: damn the cost, we want to win today they said.

I do genuinely believe the comparison to Edmonton selling low on Petry is overblown: Petry is and was a much stronger defender than Nurse. I do believe trading Nurse is something this organization could look into, but for the sake of the team learning from past mistakes and remaining competitive this year, trading him this season is folly. Trading Klefbom borders on suicidal: almost in spite of his injury history, he's still one of the best two-way defenders in the game - not quite top-10 good, but he's a top-pairing defender through and through. The risk associated with a big name - either Krug or Pietrangelo works in this scenario - backfiring and resulting in Edmonton inking another anchor contract is too high. This club already struggles with tight salary issues due to the lunacy of the previous regime: adding two contracts that will come in above $8M each for men on the wrong side of their primes costs the team the valuable back years of McDavid and Draisaitl's now-sweetheart deals.

The Oilers also currently lack the kind of assets required to obtain top defenders, at least in expendable quantity. Trades and offersheets don't solve this issue: at best, you've shuffled deck chairs by using the little assets Edmonton has coupled with the return for Nurse in order to acquire a player not too dissimilar to Darnell himself.

Holland has maintained a "we'll do this the right way" philosophy, and it is unfortunately apt to have the potential to cost the McDavid Oilers a Stanley Cup or two. We don't need to look too far into Holland's resume to see why the alternative does not necessarily equate to success: Mike Ilitch demanded the biggest UFAs be brought to Detroit whenever possible in order to fuel the now-unfathomable playoff streak, and every one of those deals that Detroit still maintains has less than negative value. The Abdelkader and Nielsen examples are horrendous with the lens of hindsight. Ask yourself, do the moves you've made here not follow the same damning philosophy?

Yes the blue line needs to play better. Absolutely Edmonton needs so much more out of it's bottom six forwards. You bet that the goaltending needs to improve. But akin to what we saw last post-season, these changes are going to be incremental, at least for this off-season. The expansion draft and the expiration of nearly $3M of dead salary cap is going to free up quality dollars for the Edmonton Oilers: once Nugent-Hopkins and Yamamoto are extended, and Jones has proved competent enough to justify trading Nurse for picks, prospects, or a high-end forward, bold decisions can be had. Edmonton's bottom end will be laden with ELC and cheap deals - Benson, Broberg, and McLeod should all be locks for NHL employment in 2021 - while Bouchard and Jones enjoy another season of high production without actually being paid for it. There may even be odds for Lavoie and Edmonton's top selection this year to feature on that roster in some capacity, at minimum the year after. That parade of sub-$1M deals is going to enable Edmonton to look at adding luxury names and spending up to the cap just as the league is exiting the flat-cap era.

The parade's coming, but being angry about it now and burning quality assets for subpar returns and propping the team up with inflated values isn't the way to get there.

By that logic, no team willing signing UFA's without shedding cap first. I think you could get the trades done for picks/prospects.

Hard to say exactly where the contracts will land but I think I'm within $1M on both players.