I disagree on your approach with Kassian. Nobody will dispute that he had a terrible season.... injuries definitely had an effect on that. His game looked good in the playoffs last year and based on write-ups he's looked good in camp and had a decent outing in the Winnipeg game. The Oilers are a better team if you get Kassian going, it's worse for the team if you just bury the contract and/or buy it out. At least give the guy a chance to turn it around before you just commit to dead cap.

The oilers are not a better team when kassian gets going because he NEEDS top 6 minutes to actually get him started. Hes an invisible player when he's not playing with superstars. Hes not going to turn it around he's a bad player. He has one year of good results and it was during a contract year lol.

He had back to back 15 goal seasons before he signed that contract and the good playoff run in 2017. The contract was way too heavy from day 1 in both term and dollars. Even with those numbers, top end should've got 3x $2.5 or 2x $3mil range. Obviously he'll have better numbers playing top 6 but has the size and speed to make the Oilers bottom 6 tougher to play against. He's not the guy from before the contract was signed anymore but when they playoffs come around and the games get tighter, guys like Kassian can make a difference. When push came to shove in a tight checking series against Winnipeg, he was playing well and was still getting ice time as the bench was shortened.

He's not going to score at the 47P/82GP pace he was in the contract year but he's pretty likely to outscore the 15P/82GP pace he scored at last year.