Once again Edmonton Oilers enter the NHL Draft without a full complement of picks

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“In the cap world, you need younger players, cheaper players. Filling from within has to be part of the equation.” — Ken Holland, 2021 July 22

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It’s Draft weekend in the National Hockey League, traditionally a time for renewal and optimism. Over the next couple of days no fewer than 224 make that 223 young men will be selected by the now 32 NHL teams to replenish and stockpile their development systems for the seasons to come.

The -1 is a significant one, as the Arizona Coyotes have forfeited their first round pick, #11 overall, “as the result of a penalty sanction due to violations of the NHL Combine Testing Policy during the 2019–20 NHL season”. Thus every pick after #11 will effectively be one spot higher than their official draft number.

The Edmonton Oilers, for example, technically have the #20 overall selection but will actually pick 19th in Friday night’s first round (6pm MDT). Assuming they hang on to the pick, that is. It’s a pretty safe bet that they will; the last time Edmonton traded away their own first rounder was way back in 2006, when then-GM Kevin Lowe used it as a trading chip to bring on netminder Dwayne Roloson for a playoff run.

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In the years following, the Oilers used their allotted first rounder to (mostly) good advantage, picking Sam Gagner, Jordan Eberle, Magnus Paajarvi, Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, Darnell Nurse, Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, Jesse Puljujarvi, Kailer Yamamoto, Evan Bouchard, Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway. Those names shown in bold, including the last eight in a row, are current members of the Edmonton organization, indeed form the club’s entire inner core and the heart of its prospects group.

A couple of mistakes in there to be sure, but that’s a pretty decent track record in the first round. It certainly helped that 11 of those 14 picks came in the top 10 overall, a direct result of the club’s poor performance over the years. Fans of the club surely welcome the gradual shift down the charts, from #8 overall in 2019 to #14 last season to #20 #19 tonight. Ideally that pick eventually becomes #32.

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But it is on the second day of the Draft, Rounds 2-7, where the Oilers’ record has been dismal. Again they have been well-placed within the individual rounds, typically near the top of the pecking order, but with little to show for it. With yesterday’s confirmation by GM Ken Holland that the Oilers will not issue a qualifying offer to Jujhar Khaira, a third-round pick from 2012, the senior statesman of “Oilers draft picks still with the team, Day 2 edition”, will be headed by William Lagesson, a fourth-round selection from 2014 who has amassed all of 27 NHL games in the seven years since then.

In terms of big-league experience, the leader is Ethan Bear, a fifth-rounder from 2015 who has played 132 games for the Oilers now. With Bear’s contemporary Caleb Jones having been recently traded to Chicago, the list of Day 2 draftees still in the organization who have amassed NHL experience is a short one: Bear 132, Lagesson 27, Ryan McLeod 10, Tyler Benson 7, Stuart Skinner 1.

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One of the issues has been the club’s persistent tendency over a number of General Managers to trade away mid-round picks for more immediate help. From 2013-15, for example, picks in the Rounds 3-5 range were traded for players like Mike Brown, Mark Fistric, Jerred Smithson, Ben Scrivens, Viktor Fasth, Nikita Nikitin, and Eric Gryba. All are long gone from the scene after making what can safely be called “minimal impact”. Some were the Oilers’ own picks, others were previously acquired and then dealt away. but all were spent on experienced-but-borderline players.

In recent years the Oilers have acquired very few draft picks via the trade route, but have continued to trade away a couple each season. The result at this moment in time is that this weekend the club faces its fourth consecutive year with fewer than 7 picks, with a fifth right around the corner in 2022.

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Let’s dig a little deeper:

The Oilers wound up with just five selections in 2018, trading one away outright for netminder Al Montoya (9 GP as an Oiler), while packaging two others to move up to the end of the second round and choose another stopper, Olivier Rodrigue. Some promising youngsters here to be sure, with Bouchard and McLeod having made the first steps in the NHL itself. But that is a great big gap between #62 and #164.

Note that those picks with a blue background represent the Oilers’ initial complement of seven picks,  while “no fill” is a pick acquired from another team.

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2019 was Ken Holland’s first year at the helm, even as the trades were all made by Peter Chiarelli. Forward Cooper Marody has played 6 NHL games and remains a prospect with the organization, at least in theory. Alex Petrovic played 9 games in Edmonton, Hawkey none at all. On the flip side, Chiarelli acquired the pick traded for Marody in the Patrick Maroon trade, and the one spent on goaltender Ilya Konovalov in return for Brandon Davidson. Overall the Oilers made six selections in 2019. The rights to one of them, fourth-round forward Matej Blumel, lapsed when he went unsigned by the team.

Year Two of Holland and almost entirely his handiwork, beyond the easy-come-easy-go sixth round pick that was acquired and then traded by Chiarelli for Jakub Jerabek and Chris Wideman respectively. Wideman played 5 games for the Oilers.

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For his part Holland traded the first of two second-round picks for winger Andreas Athanasiou (9 GP in Edmonton) and a fourth-rounder for defenceman Mike Green (2 GP). Ouch.

On the bright side, he traded down in the Draft, moving out the #76 overall in return for #100 and #126, which the club converted into forwards Carter Savoie and Tyler Tullio. At this point in time, both look like fine selections relative to their draft numbers. Via this Draft Day transaction the Oilers upped their draft harvest from five to six players in 2020.

Which brings us to the situation facing the club today and tomorrow:

This is the situation as of Friday morning with sign-and-trade talks swirling around Zach Hyman which may further lighten Edmonton’s stash of “draft capital”. Stay tuned.

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The Athanasiou deal from the 2020 deadline continues to leave its mark in 2021. So do the expenditures of a fifth rounder dealt for Tyler Ennis and a conditional third rounder as a sweetener in the Milan Lucic-for-James Neal that was controversially awarded to Calgary despite the conditions not being met. Ennis was a deadline rental who re-signed with the Oilers and has played 39 games for the club, while Neal has suited up for 84 games wearing the Oil drop.

On the flip side, the Oilers added a sixth rounder in return for the rights to John Marino, who has gone on to become a top-four defenceman in Pittsburgh.

In all the Oilers will have just five picks this weekend, having traded three away over a year ago. This lack of “draft capital” limited Holland’s ability to make trades during the 2021 season, in its aftermath or at the draft itself.

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The solution was to dip into next year’s pool of picks in pursuit of a couple of veteran defencemen, a process that some call “mortgaging the future”.

At the 2021 trade deadline Holland dealt a conditional fourth rounder in 2022 for Dmitry Kulikov. He played 10 games in Edmonton and now appears poised to leave town as an unrestricted free agent (though I do wonder if the club might circle back to the hardrock rearguard after the recent departure of Adam Larsson). The condition — making the second round of the playoffs — was not met, so the price for Kulikov has crystallized as a 2022 fourth.

Then Edmonton included a conditional third, also in 2022, in the recent acquisition of Duncan Keith. If the Oilers make the Stanley Cup Finals it will be upgraded to a second, a price every fan of the team is surely prepared to pay, but for current purposes I will fearlessly list it as a 2022 third. Either way, the Oil are already down to five picks next June.

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Leaving Holland just ten of the allotted fourteen arrows in his quiver for this year and next, just three of them in the top 115 of their respective drafts. It’s a short deck whether for making selections or for completing deals on the COVID era’s equivalent of the “draft floor”.

It’s a tricky spot for the veteran GM, now at his third Draft since assuming the helm with the “WIN NOW!” imperative growing ever louder. The Connor McDavid-Leon Draisaitl window is already closing, and even a successful Day 2 pick might not make an impact before their contracts expire in 2026 and 2025 respectively. So the

Obviously we don’t know exactly how many picks Edmonton will wind up making this weekend, let alone 2022. Perhaps Holland will trade down again, or maybe the rumour of Zack Kassian being dealt for a pick will come to fruition in the next 24 hours. But as things stand now, the Oilers had, have or will have fewer than the standard seven picks for five years in a row. Make it a net deficit of eight selections, many/most of them in the desirable double-digit district of the Draft.

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When it comes to trading of draft capital, we’ll give Holland a pass for 2019 given his arrival on the scene in May of that year. But from 2020-22 his track record is one of trading away future picks to fill present holes. We can’t predict the future for Keith, and we can decry the NHL’s handling of the Neal file, but the other players acquired in this fashion — Athanasiou, Green, Ennis, Kulikov — did precious little to move the needle. The overall cost? Two second round picks, two thirds, two fourths, and one fifth spent on immediate help, all in a three-year span.

All of which is hard to square with the GM’s stated objective of patience, stability, “filling from within”. But where will those inside fills come from when his club consistently trades away mid-round picks?

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