[ricardodw]

By giving RNH the big contract the Oilers have made him a lot harder to trade.

I am pretty sure that there is no Oiler Fan that would argue that a top line of Hall- Eberle and Bobby Ryan would be not better than Hall-RNH-Eberle.

Last year Bobby Ryan in 46 games had 80 hits..... the combined hit total for the Oiler's dream line was 82.

The Ducks had to trade Ryan because he was making 5.1M for the next 2 seasons. That was too much!!

They got back 22 year old #39 overall in 2009 Silfverberg... 19 pts in 48 NHL games and 20 year old Noeson #21 in 2011 who has no NHL games and is coming off a 53 pt in 51 games season in the OHL and the Sens 2014 1st pick.

There is no way that RNH @ 6M / yr for 7 years and Edmonton's 2014 first and 2011 1st round pick #19 overall Oscar Klefbom would get Bobby Ryan.

Maybe RHN on a EL would have been the main asset to get a Bobby Ryan but now the asset base that the Oilers have to deal is considerably weakened by this contract. Assuming the cure to being a bottom dwelling team is Nurse, the only assets the Oiler have to get a top line player with grit is Yakopov.