The Edmonton Oilers would like to congratulate the Pittsburgh Penguins on winning the Stanley Cup. As well, we wish to thank the city of Buffalo and it’s fans for their hospitality and endless string of material for Calgary’s morning show care of the Robyn Regehr segments.
With the 4th overall pick, the Edmonton Oilers select… from the OHL London Knights, Matthew Tkachuk.
**Explanation**
Edmonton spent their time ahead of draft day looking to find a suitable trading partner to turn their 4th overall pick into an established defencemen to no avail. Additional efforts to trade down but stay within target of their perceived best D in the draft also failed to come to fruition. As such, the Oilers turn their focus back to the 4th overall selection within the draft and elect not to go off the board with their pick to fill their obvious omissions, but rather, select the BPA and re-visit their defence issues after the dust settles. Tkachuk is their man. Smarts, toughness, high compete level, ferocious competitor. Another bigger/tougher player to further distance themselves from their softer/brittle stigma.
With rumblings that he may have just been the benefactor of playing alongside highly skilled players like Dvorak and Marner in the OHL, the Oilers reason they have a few fairly highly skilled players of their own at the NHL level to match that same winning formula for him to mesh with and yield similar results.
After the draft, Edmonton uses RNH, Yakupov and Eberle as primary trade bait to find a resolution to their defensive woes. Trouba? Shattenkirk? If they can land a solid defender like this using RNH as their key piece, it’s a double win as RNH has been usurped at centre anyway. I would then see them looking to move Yakupov to Montreal to reunite him with Sarnia Sting buddy Galchenyuk. Not sure off hand what they could command for him, but that seems a likely landing place for him.
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