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Edmonton Oilers Reassign Markus Niemelainen

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The Edmonton Oilers have sent Markus Niemelainen to the minor leagues, clearing a roster spot for the imminent return of Evander Kane. Speaking with reporters including Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic today, Kane – who was a full participant at practice – explained that he is meeting with doctors later today.

Of course, the Oilers will have to make some other moves to activate Kane from long-term injured reserve. The team currently does not have the cap space to fit him back in, and will need to be rather creative to open it.

One easy way would be moving Kailer Yamamoto to LTIR, though that would require him to miss nearly a month. Yamamoto is still being evaluated, according to head coach Jay Woodcroft, after missing the last couple of games.

They could also just waive a player like Devin Shore, who also wasn’t at practice today. Ryan Murray, who hasn’t played since November, could also be shifted to LTIR depending on what other moves they make.

Either way, it’s the end of Niemelainen for a while, after he was essentially passed on the depth chart by Vincent Desharnais. The last two times Niemelainen appeared, he received just five and six shifts respectively. The 24-year-old defenseman will try to polish his game further in the minor leagues and wait for his next opportunity.

Edmonton Oilers Reassign Calvin Pickard

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Jan 15: With Skinner now back with the team, the Oilers have returned Pickard to the Bakersfield Condors, per the team. As expected, he didn’t see any game action.

Jan 10: The Edmonton Oilers will be without Stuart Skinner for a couple of days, as Mark Spector of Sportsnet reports that he is flying home to be with his expecting wife. In his place, the team has recalled Calvin Pickard from the minor leagues under emergency conditions. Given the team was already at the maximum of 23 players, they will likely move Skinner to non-roster status while he is away.

Pickard, 30, is the definition of a journeyman goaltender. Starting his career with the Lake Erie Monsters of the AHL, he then played for the Colorado Avalanche, San Antonio Rampage, Toronto Marlies, Toronto Maple Leafs, Philadelphia Flyers, Arizona Coyotes, Tucson Roadrunners, Grand Rapids Griffins, Detroit Red Wings, and Vienna in the Austrian league before joining the Bakersfield Condors this season.

The veteran netminder has posted a .909 save percentage in 10 appearances for Bakersfield this season, and will likely just serve as backup while Skinner is away.

That means Jack Campbell will get the start, as he continues to try and get his season back on track. After signing a five-year, $25MM contract in the offseason, Campbell (who turned 31 yesterday) has an .877 save percentage in 19 appearances, allowing at least three goals in 13 of them. The Oilers, who are struggling to even stay above .500 these days, will face the Anaheim Ducks tomorrow before back-to-back games against the San Jose Sharks and Vegas Golden Knights starting on Friday.

Skinner Unlikely To Return For Saturday

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  • Stuart Skinner’s personal leave is likely to be extended a little longer than expected as Sportsnet’s Mark Spector relays (Twitter link) that his wife has not yet given birth. Accordingly, it’s looking less likely that he’ll be able to rejoin the Oilers for tomorrow’s game in Vegas.  Jack Campbell could start both ends of the back-to-back or AHL recall Calvin Pickard could see his first NHL action of the season.

Edmonton Oilers Linked To Matt Dumba

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It seems as though Minnesota Wild defenseman Matt Dumba has been on the trade block for years on end. Now, rumors are once again starting to build up regarding the 2012 seventh overall pick. TSN’s Darren Dreger reported on today’s edition of Insider Trading that both the Ottawa Senators and Edmonton Oilers have shown interest in Dumba, who is a pending unrestricted free agent.

Ottawa seems to have a larger hole of the two teams mentioned on the right side, but they do sit further out of playoff positioning than the Oilers. With Minnesota solidly in playoff positioning, they would undoubtedly be looking for roster players in return for the 28-year-old Dumba.

Latest On The Edmonton Oilers

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The Edmonton Oilers have been one of the most-watched stories in the league this season. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl continue to put up generational scoring numbers. Still, old issues have reared their ugly heads, and the team remains on the fringes of the playoffs as the calendar turns to 2023.

Edmonton has two big dates circled on their calendar over the next weeks: the return of elite power forward Evander Kane to the lineup and the NHL Trade Deadline on March 3.

In terms of making trades, the Oilers are “working the phones” well before the deadline, writes Pierre LeBrun in a piece for The Athletic. LeBrun says Edmonton has been connected to Arizona’s Jakob Chychrun, as well as Montreal’s Joel Edmundson, and about “every selling team you can think of with a defenseman potentially up for grabs.”

With the team’s swath of promising young defensemen, it does seem that adding just one bigger name into the mix could offer Edmonton the ability to optimize their pairings and solidify defensive issues that have plagued them for years.

However, they can’t expect to keep pucks out of the net without goaltending, which is still somewhat of a concern. Jack Campbell still hasn’t been able to figure things out in Edmonton, now completely losing the starting job to Stuart Skinner just months after signing a five-year, $25MM contract. Skinner himself has been passable at worst and lifesaving at best, maintaining a .914 save percentage through 25 starts.

Kane’s return from a horrifying wrist injury could shore up another issue – depth scoring. Edmonton’s fourth-ranked offense in the NHL comes courtesy of McDavid, Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Zach Hyman, who have scored 95 of their 147 goals (a staggering 65%). No other Oilers forward has more than five goals – which is Kane, who’s played in just 14 games.

His return is likely coming this month, meaning his activation (and salary cap implications) remains untouched by any potential deadline trade.

PuckPedia outlined potential scenarios for the cap-strapped Oilers today, which would allow Kane to come off long-term injured reserve. It would be a tricky scenario, requiring them to place defenseman Ryan Murray on LTIR, assigning Devin Shore and Vincent Desharnais to the minors, and sending one more player down who makes more than $1.125MM against the cap. This would likely be Mattias Janmark, who has nine points in 28 games and failed to make the team out of training camp.

Edmonton Oilers Recall Vincent Desharnais

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Perhaps the Edmonton Oilers can find their defensive stalwart from within. Today the team has recalled Vincent Desharnais from the Bakersfield Condors, the first NHL recall of his professional career.

The 26-year-old defenseman signed a two-year, two-way contract with the Oilers last spring, after a long grind through the college and minor league ranks. Selected 183rd overall in 2016, Desharnais played four years for Providence College, then one in the ECHL, and two more in the AHL before earning his first NHL deal. Now, the team will hope that his 6’6″ frame can translate to the NHL and give them a more effective option for their struggling defensive unit.

Desharnais was excellent in the AHL last year. Racking up 27 points in 66 games, he led the entire league in +/- with a +36 rating. There are times when that statistic can incredibly misleading, but from all accounts, the massive defenseman was a big reason why the Condors were such an effective group. This year hasn’t been quite as good, with Desharnais recording just two points in 13 games, but it isn’t his offense that the team needs.

Edmonton continues to leak scoring chances and goals at a concerning rate, including Saturday night when they gave up two third-period goals to the Colorado Avalanche, before losing in overtime. The team had seven defensemen dressed, but still relied on Darnell Nurse to play more than 28 minutes. Three of Philip Broberg’s ten minutes were short-handed, while Markus Niemelainen saw just a handful of shifts.

While they continue to look for potential trade candidates, it will be interesting to see if Desharnais gets a chance to play. The Oilers are in Los Angeles to take on the Kings tonight.

Edmonton Oilers On Jake McCabe's No-Trade List

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  • When discussing potential defense targets for the Edmonton Oilers, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet’s 32 Thoughts podcast touched on Jake McCabe of the Chicago Blackhawks. Friedman believes that Edmonton is on McCabe’s no-trade list, which could be the end of any speculation that he could be acquired at the deadline. McCabe holds a seven-team NTC, carries a $4MM cap hit and is signed through the 2024-25 season.

Should Edmonton Deal Their First-Round Pick?

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  • There are teams that will need to move first-round picks over the next couple of months to add a missing piece or two. While the Oilers typically haven’t been one of those lately, Allan Mitchell of The Athletic argues (subscription link) that they should be much more willing to do so this time around.  Whoever they get with that selection if they were to keep it likely wouldn’t be ready to play in Edmonton before the contracts of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl expire.  Accordingly, with the team in win-now mode, acquiring someone with that pick that can help the current core might be the better way for them to go.

Oilers Notes: Kane, Broberg, Defense Options

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The Oilers suffered a big loss back in early November when Evander Kane had his wrist cut by a skate, resulting in emergency surgery that carried an expected recovery timeline of up to four months.  Instead, as Kurt Leavins of the Edmonton Journal notes, the veteran appears to be well ahead of schedule, speculating that he could be back by the end of this month.  Kane is in his first full season with Edmonton and had gotten off to a strong start prior to the injury, picking up 13 points in 14 games while chipping in with 51 hits.  His eventual return will certainly add another gear to their attack and while it would force some cap-shedding moves to activate him from LTIR, it would also allow GM Ken Holland to have a bit more time to evaluate his top six group before the trade deadline to help determine if any moves need to be made on that front.

More from Edmonton:

  • While many expect Edmonton to make a move to add a left-shot defenseman before the trade deadline, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported in the latest 32 Thoughts segment (video link) that they plan to give prospect Philip Broberg an extended look first. The 21-year-old has spent a good chunk of the season with the Oilers with his only AHL time being a six-week stretch early in the year (which he was injured for part of).  Broberg, the eighth-overall pick in 2019, has two assists in 15 games with Edmonton this season but is averaging just over 12 minutes a game.  Ideally, he’s able to step up and lessen their need for help from outside the organization so it makes sense that they’ll try to give him a stretch of games first before pondering a move.
  • If and when Edmonton does look elsewhere for a left defender, Arizona defenseman Jakob Chychrun has been a speculative candidate for a while. Sportsnet’s Mark Spector and Adam Vingan examine how the 24-year-old might fit with the team, noting that while, on paper, adding the top blueliner available makes plenty of sense in theory, he might not be the best fit for Edmonton.  Instead, one scout posits that a more physical stay-at-home defender such as Montreal’s Joel Edmundson or Vancouver’s Luke Schenn might be the better type of player to try to acquire.

Ryan Fanti Assigned To ECHL

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  • The Oilers have re-assigned goaltender Ryan Fanti to Fort Wayne of the ECHL, per the AHL’s transactions log. Edmonton signed the 23-year-old to an entry-level deal back in March but he has struggled in his first full professional season, posting a save percentage below .900 in both the AHL and ECHL.  He had a 3.46 GAA and a .895 SV% in seven games with AHL Bakersfield during his seven-week stint with the Condors.

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