The Edmonton Oilers took part in the NHL’s trade deadline by making two separate deals nearly a week apart. The transactions done by the Oil impacted their prospect depth in two areas, as one center was deleted and then a blueliner was added to the mix.
Helminen To Rangers
On the Wednesday before the deadline, the Oilers made their first move and it really came out of left field. Edmonton received veteran scoring center Petr Nedved and an extremely familiar netminder in Jussi Markkanen. The Finnish goalie was a member of the Oilers until last summer when he was initially dealt to the Rangers due to a glut at the position.
In exchange for Nedved and Markkanen, Edmonton gave up AHL rubber stopper Stephen Valiquette, prospect center Dwight Helminen and a second round pick in 2004.
It was the first time in recent memory that the Oilers were clearly buying high-end talent rather than dumping a big contract.
“We were in the situation that, because we have so many good players coming up, that we could afford to trade some away for immediate help,” commented Oiler scout Chris McCarthy. “From our standpoint, you have to give up something to get something and the way Brad Winchester and Joe Cullen are playing in Toronto and Kyle Brodziak in Moose Jaw, we have a lot of depth at center.”
Helminen was sacrificed for much more immediate needs.
“Dwight’s a really good player and it’s a little painful to give him up but in return we get a guy who can hopefully help thrust us into the playoffs,” McCarthy said. “We used one of our assets, of which we have many in that position who are coming along well, and he was a player who was obviously coveted by New York, and we used him to get us a guy who could help us right away.”
Edmonton GM Kevin Lowe was clearly not willing to concede the season yet by adding a rental player of Nedved’s level to his squad. There is some discussion that the Czech center could be persuaded to resign with the team at a much more reasonable rate but prominent Oiler watchers are more certain that this was not a trade with the long term services of Nedved in mind.
What the Ranger deal did provide the Oilers down the road is a new goaltending partnership. Reacquiring Jussi Markkanen allowed Lowe to pull the trigger on the second trade he made, the one that occurred on the morning of the deadline itself.
A Tale Of Two Tommy’s
With Ty Conklin having such a terrific debut this year and the return of Markkanen, the writing was on the wall for veteran Tommy Salo.
“When the situation came that we had three goaltenders we felt that Ty and Jussi could carry the load for us,” commented Kevin Prendergast afterwards in a radio interview.
So with the decision made to move Salo the Oilers needed to find a dance partner who had something of interest to offer in return for their former starter. At least two teams expressed an interest in picking up the Swedish Olympian but after consulting with his scouting staff, Lowe elected to send his goalie to his divisional rivals in Colorado. The Avalanche had earlier moved offensive defensemen Derek Morris and prospect Keith Ballard to Phoenix so Lowe’s choices were a bit limited.
“Colorado had very few players that interested us and the defenseman that we acquired is someone that was high on our list,” said Lowe. “It took some time before Colorado would agree to making him available.”
The player that Lowe finally pried away from the Avalanche is Wisconsin sophomore defender Tom Gilbert.
“(Gilbert’s) a good two-way defenseman who uses his size and he’s good in his own zone as far as playing the man from the corners to the front of the net,” described scout Chris McCarthy. “He’s strong in front and he also has some offensive upside to his game.”
It‘s that offensive upside that attracted the Oilers to Gilbert in the first place because of their need to upgrade that aspect of their prospect depth. In his pre-college days, Gilbert often played as a forward, which obviously has contributed to his ability to register points now from the blueline.
“He plays on the power play for Wisconsin,” continued McCarthy. “He’s got a great shot and he moves the puck around really quickly.”
“He played with (highly regarded Nashville prospect) Ryan Suter when I saw him last and they both are on the power play.”
Gilbert has scored 39 points over the course of his first two years at Wisconsin including 13 goals. This year the native of Bloomington, Minnesota is second on his team for scoring by blueliners but is only a single point back from the leader who has played in five more games.
The Badgers are currently the No. 5 ranked team in the country, according to the latest USA Today poll and will be a team to watch as the NCAA playoff season commences.
“I spoke to his coach (Mike Eaves) this morning and he said that the greatest part of this kid’s game is that he’s extremely competitive,” Prendergast added. “That’s the type of players we want to build this team with.”
Lowe is very pleased to have gotten an offensive minded player for his future blueline and couldn’t wait to share the news with his team’s coach.
“I said to MacT ‘I have good news and bad news,’” Lowe smiled. “The good news is we got a puck-moving defenseman, the bad news is that he’s three or four years away’.”
What the Oilers have done this past week has mostly been consistent with the way they have operated for the past few years. Once again another building block has been added to the system with the post CBA Armageddon coming this summer in mind.
“Gilbert was our guy basically because he’s got two more years of school left so we’ve got a little bit of time,” Prendergast said. “We felt that with what we have right now with Brewer and Semenov, and Woywitka and Lynch in the minors, and Matt Greene coming out of school, we’ve got five outstanding defencemen there and that would let us bide our time with Tom’s progress coming to the NHL.”
“We’ve done a good job of bringing young players into the organization and we now have some outstanding junior, college and European players,” explained Prendergast. “The focus is to try and move forward and get better every day and every year as we are going. We feel that we’ve stockpiled some pretty good players.”
Sooner or later the Oilers are going to have to
address the fact that they are getting overloaded in some positions with very
good prospects.
“I think if you look back at what Colorado’s done
over the years, they were able to stock pile high-end talent and then were able
to trade them to bring in high-end players to get them over the hump and that’s
what the goal of this organization is.”
How and when they decide to move some of their more
attractive players in their system is unknown but one would have to assume that
until the dust settles between the NHLPA and the NHL owners, it will be status
quo in Edmonton.
