NHL Rumor Mill – October 8, 2022
The Oilers enter this season with little cap room, the Flames face a decision with Juuso Valimaki, and a lack of tradeable assets could hurt the Bruins this season. Get the details in today’s NHL Rumor Mill.
OILERS SQUEEZED FOR CAP SPACE
SPORTSNET: Mark Spector reports the Edmonton Oilers will enter this season with just $165.00 in salary-cap space for the upcoming regular season.
They could get $1.25 million in cap relief if center Mattias Janmark is claimed off waivers later today. If he’s not, they’ll have to place Devin Shore and his $850K cap hit on waivers to become cap compliant by Monday.
Edmonton Oilers winger Jesse Puljujarvi (NHL Images).
This will affect the Oilers’ efforts to recall players from their AHL affiliate in Bakersfield this season.
Spector points out Oilers general manager Ken Holland attempted to trade winger Jesse Puljujarvi and his $3 million salary during the offseason but couldn’t find any takers. The same goes for winger Warren Foegele, who carries a $2.75 million cap hit but is harder to move because he’s signed through 2023-24.
Holland hoped to get a second-round pick in exchange for Puljujarvi. Spector wonders if the Oilers GM will accept a lesser return to solve his cap situation.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Cousin Mark believes Holland will let the season play out and see if injuries provide some roster relief.At some point, however, the Oilers GM could find himself having to make a cost-cutting trade.
That could mean accepting less of a return for Puljujarvi or Foegele provided he can find a taker for either guy. It’s something worth keeping an eye on as the season progresses.
Speaking of Janmark, Sportsnet’s Ken Wiebe wonders if the Winnipeg Jets might try to claim him off waivers today.
FLAMES FACE A DECISION WITH VALIMAKI
CALGARY HOCKEY NOW: Steve Macfarlane reports Juuso Valimaki could be the odd man out for one of the last two spots on the Flames blueline. If they try to send the 24-year-old defenseman to their AHL affiliate, he’ll have to clear waivers first. There’s a good chance another club could snap up the former first-round pick.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Macfarlane observes Valimaki has had difficulty nailing down a roster spot since Darryl Sutter returned as head coach. Given their blueline depth, perhaps he’ll become a trade candidate at some point.
BRUINS LACKING QUALITY TRADE BAIT
NBC SPORTS BOSTON: A lack of quality assets to make upgrades via the trade market is among Nick Goss’ list of five huge obstacles preventing the Bruins from winning the Stanley Cup this season.
GM Don Sweeney has shipped out a first-round pick in three of the last five NHL trade deadlines. Doing so again this season would further hinder the Bruins’ ability to draft and develop quality young talent. The Athletic’s February prospect pool ranking had the Bruins 27th out of 32 clubs.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: It’s worse than that. In The Athletic’s August prospect pipeline rankings, the Bruins are dead last in part because they’ve traded away so many first-round picks. If Sweeney’s going to make any deals to upgrade his roster this season he’ll have to draw upon players currently on the team or from his shallow pool of prospects.
Sweeney has ruined this team with terrible irrational choices both in trades and horrible draft picks the talent pool is almost non existent. Lohrei Lysell.& McLaughlin that is it. With the exception McLaughlin who they sent down in favour of the skating dead Foligno there’s really not much in the cupboard Lysell isn’t ready Lohrei will play in NCAA . And Mac made the team easily and is sent down to the minors. As usual management has been running amok doing absolutely nothing.
Rick, I am interested, what would you have done realistically for the Bruins. Sweeney had to decide between a blowup or continue to build around his current lineup (and senior management had a say in this as well). The first round picks he traded were all of the late round variety, you were not getting a superstar prospect there. But I do not follow the Bruins so I might be missing something, what could Sweeney have done to stay playoff competitive since he and management were not keen on a rebuild?
Redmonsters
I will be interested in hearing that as well. Should be a nice read 🤔
Ss no they didnt go 0-3 and I believe after this season, it will be flipped to 2-3
Zboril will be a top 4 dman and will get every chance to prove so.
With that said Kyle Connor and Matt Barzal would’ve looked good in Boston.
My issue with Sweeney was hanging onto players. I said before while they were bruins he should’ve moved both Krug and Chara for assets.
Secondly Sweeney been drying out the pipeline in New England and was ignoring the Canadian Major Jr leagues.
He is extremely fortunate that players like Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak took home town discounts
Pastrnak is not taking a discount this time.
Here is central scouting’s final ranking.
Zboril was 12 taken 13th.
DeBrusk 19, taken 14
Senyshyn was the reach, especially because they had early 2nd rd picks available.
I think Zboril will still be a decent D man.
Conner was the guy they passed over, just going by the general consensus.
Deep flippin’ draft, wow.
Bruins went O for 3 in the first round a couple of years back. That was the start of a dry pipeline . Trading all those other firsts has come to roost
A shame if the Flames lose Valamaki for nothing . I think they would trade him for at least something . Only 1.5 salary big body young and a first round pick. Captain of WJ Finland .
0 for 3? Debrusk is a 20-25 goal scorer ???
Not a bust but when you see the next 3 picks (Barzal, Connor and Chabot) the majority of people would take any of those 3 chosen after the Bruins picks over DeBrusk. Just makes him look worst and he did struggle a lot the previous two seasons before last season.
Had the Bruins taken Barzal, Connor and Chabot it would have set them up as a powerhouse for a while more although some players would have had to be traded to fit all the salaries under the cap. I can only imagine if this had happened to the Wings how annoyed i would be looking back at that draft.
Not necessarily. One can’t ever know if said players would have developed into the players they are in a different system.
You can keep Chabot, one dimensional.
I think whatever it took to get rid of Foligno would have helped, 3rd rd pick etc, not sure what it would have cost but his salary needed to be shed
Crrob
Would have be a 1st to move Foligno Not worth it
Ever hear Foligno talking about coming to Boston there were other teams that were interested! Yeah sure and I’ve got some swampland in Florida you might be interested in. No one was interested in Foligno he choose Boston because they were the only team that would have him. What a lemon.
He actually was down to Boston and the Wild. When he picked Boston his brother was upset he picked Bergy over him. If I remember there was a 3rd team as well but don’t remember who
If the inherent ability to develop is there it will surface no matter where they wind up. Would you say the same about a McDavid, Matthews, Mackinnon etc? Barzal, Connor and Chabot were solid picks where taken and clearly the respective scouting departments did a far better job in assessing potential than that of the Bruins. Either that, or the GM simply ignored the scout recommendations and chose who HE thought was a solid pick. I guess we” never know that for sure, but no matter how you look at it, aside from DeBrusk who was at the time a legitimate pick in that spot and – to me anyway – is a solid NHLer – that was a brutal draft for a team having 3 picks in row as Zboril and Senyshyn have played exactly 70 games between them (54 and 16).
Others who have turned out better and were drafted later include Eriksson Ek, Boeser, Konecny and Sebastian Aho (the Carolina Sebastian Aho – not the NYI stiff).
First part isn’t really a fair comparison george. 1st overall picks should develop anywhere. You’d like to think any 1st rounder should. But you can’t know for sure. We can’t know that zboril or sensh wouldn’t be better players or chabot Conner worse had they been drafted differently.
That being said it still reflects poorly on bruins. Either drafting or developing sucked.
But looking at who went immediately after is a poor choice for argumentative factors.
Edmonton boasts city of Champions after seeing Leafs choke upteen times in game 7,s and Blue Jays today wow City of Chokers.