Klefbolms back next year

Hall isn't signing for that. Is Kassian really the only option for seattle to take?? because EWWW *valley girl voice*

If Klefbom is forced to retire or is exempt the list for Seattle to pick from is very thin (Neal, Turris, Kassian, Lagesson, Benson, Archibald) if Klefbom is coming back then that opens up maybe Jones for them to select.

Ah I see, that's thin for sure.

If Edmonton doesn't have a good season, I would be surprised if RNH stays. If they were to miss the playoffs, he will have spent 10 seasons with the Oilers and only 2 post season appearances.

If the Oilers do well, I could absolutely see him staying though. It's just a matter of, do the Oilers want to pay him north of 7? I think he could easily get the Kevin Hayes deal on the open market.

The oilers won’t have to pay more than 7. They will have to go the full 8 year term though. Right now they only want to give him 6 years. Any other team would probably offer 8 million but because they didn’t draft him they can only give him a 7 year term.

Klefbom won’t be exempt he played too many games last year. I think there will definitely be a call with Klefbom about wether or not they expose him or jones. Obviously they know what is going on better than us I mean if Klefbom goes for surgery this summer and will be out next season you expose him without a doubt. I think they lose kahun before Kassian personally.

I think buffalo will keep Ullmark but they will end up with a Columbus goalie. You would see Lavoie before Ryan I think.

Well actually, the 8yr term applies to whether or not that player is on your reserve list by the trade deadline. For example, if EDM traded him today, let's just say to MIN. The Wild would be eligible to give him 8 years. Most recent example of this is Mark Stone getting 9.5x8 with Vegas

Still Edmonton won’t trade him. From what I understand Ken Holland set the price and wants to wait a little bit before he concedes anything. If he waits till after trade deadline from what you are saying he has more leverage. Edmonton would be able to give 8 yrs at any time.

#1 Overall - McDavid
#1 Overall - Hall
#1 Overall - Hopkins
#2 Overall - Ryan
#3 Overall - Draisaitl
#3 Overall - Turris
#4 Overall - Puljujarvi

Seven elite forward selections ... and McDavid still needs to carry this team to a 24th place finish.

I hope so, but at this point we don't know. He's hoping to be healthy for September training camp, but he hasn't had surgery yet AFAIK. So I'm basing this on worst case scenario: he's not ready in September.

Current reports are that Holland is at $6.75M and not budging. I support this.

Nuge is a really hard guy to get a read on - he's either played with crap teammates (with middling results) or with superstars (with good-to-great results). Which player is he? I think it shows that he's a competant player who can't carry weak linemates and compliments high skill very well. Not a driver... that's not a guy you want to go anywhere near $8M into his mid-30's with. Bit of a catch-22 though, as I don't like the options if he decides to sign elsewhere. Hall could be a fit but is injury prone and will be more expensive (without necessarily bringing more production), after that there aren't a lot of good replacements. Ovechkin, Landeskog, Schwartz and Tatar likely resign with their current teams, that leaves guys like Saad and Hoffman. Meh.

In this scenario Klefbom is still unfit to play, so he's left unprotected and Seattle passes on him due to the uncertainty. Kahun, if he plays well this year, can be protected going 7-3-1. I haven't been overly impressed with him so far, but he seems to be settling in a bit. If he does well, I expect they'll protect him and sign him - if I delete Nygard and use the cap space, I can afford up to $2.395M for Kahun. Alternatively Holland can protect him, qualify him and trade him. If he's worth qualifying, he's worth protecting.

I think the Oilers could go 7-3-1 like this:

McDavid
Draisaitl
Nugent-Hopkins (whether signed or not)
Yamamoto
Puljujarvi
Kahun
one of Turris/Benson/Archibald/Kassian/Neal
*
Nurse
Bear
Jones
*
Koskinen

Turris and Benson are absolutely not worth protecting and if they took Neal HYFR. I think it's between Archibald and kassian and I think they protect kassian. Archibald is a favorite of mine but I think he is replaceable and he's also got 1 year on his contract so you could potentially get him back in the short term. I don't know where you find a guy like Kassian who can play and is a goon.

not necessarily.



That's hard to say. I get the impression he just wants to win as long as he's making somewhere over 7 on a long term deal he'd probably take it. If edmonton truly wanted him they could get him. i also think they go full force ahead for Hall if they lose nuge for some reason.

Kassian is clearly the better player, but Archibald has a role and his contract is much lower and much shorter. I think we could replace Kassian's 3rd line minutes AND save a significant amount of cap space at the same time; the same cannot be said for Archibald IMO. I'll wait the season before judging, but at this point I'd lean towards protecting Turris or Archibald over Kassian.

Oh ya, if nuge is gone for sure