Quote:
Originally Posted by Firebot
If there's one player I can see getting offer sheeted, it's Nurse. He is clearly worth more than the 3.5 million bridge deal that can be offered by the Oilers due to their hilarious cap management skills, yet cheap enough that you could offer sheet him at 4 million and only give up a 2nd rounder, and screw the Oilers in the process should they match.
A team like the Caps could easily afford to give up a 1st and 3rd rounder if they wished to up it a little, and Nurse at the current level would be worth that.
Either way Nurse is not taking a home discount, he smells blood in the water.
Meanwhile
Russell, Kris NMC LD NHL 31 $4,000,000 $4,000,000 $4,000,000
UFA
Lucic, Milan "A" NMC LW NHL 30 $6,000,000 $6,000,000 $6,000,000 $6,000,000 $6,000,000
|
It's hilarious that the Oilers could lose Nurse on a $4M offer sheet for a 2nd round draft pick. I really hope some team does write one up for him. If he was smart, he would sign it and get out of that tire fire while the gettin's good.
The Oilers' whole salary structure is completely messed up. With a top-heavy salary structure, the team needs to supplement McDavid and Draisaitl with cheap, young assets on entry-level or bridge contracts. If I were Chia, I'd be trading every player over 21 for whatever assets I could get in return, and parlay those multiple returns into top five draft picks. I'm talking about burning the current team to the ground. The loss of veteran NHL players would result in a terrible record and a lottery draft choice. The Oilers really need to have one top five and another top five to ten pick in each of the next three drafts. Those six players should be nearly NHL-ready, and able to step in to fill out the core that retains only McDavid and Draisaitl from the current group. THEN they can supplement with second-tier prospects from the farm and free agent signings.
I think this is the only way to save the Oilers, at least until the end of the Lucic contract, but fortunately, they seem to think that their window to win is open now.
But in theory, it could save them...
(Waits for TextCritic's inevitable rebuttal)
