I think the kind of tweaking is going to be the Riley Nash, Derek Ryan, Matt Calvert type. Guys with some offensive upside who won’t break the bank in dollars or command too much term. Perhaps an Antoine Roussell, and/or guys a bit younger like Brandon Pirri or Mathew Peca. All experienced UFA’s and none your giving up assets for.
Any trades will involve our number 10 depending on whose available and will bring in a ready to play offensive defenseman.
None of these impacts our young still developing depth we have so far and allows us to move the dial forward now while being cap realistic.
That’s my sense of reading the tea leaves that we’ve been hearing from Chia.
I think the three guys you initially mentioned are well out of our price range. Riley Nash just put up 41 points in Boston and is looking like he might be a solid option for some teams as a third line center in the prime of his career. Derek Ryan made some decent dollars last season and looks poised for a nice raises in the $2-3m range. Calvert made $2.9m in cash/$2.2m cap last season so his price tag is probably somewhere beyond what he's worth to us. Same goes for Roussel.
I've mentioned them already but I think Jannik Hansen and Shawn Matthias are good value gambles. Both are Gulutzan PK guys from Vancouver. Hansen is a quick skater, has a good shot and has scored the majority of his points in the NHL at evens. Considering the year he just had, 2-14-16 in 46 games, he's probably due for a significant pay cut from the $3m take home/$2.5 cap he made last season. Matthias on the other hand was a non-factor last year in Winnipeg. He got buried in depth and was never even utilized on the PK at all. But when you look at his shooting percentages in previous years (15.7, 11.9, 13.6), he's a guy who'll probably be a good bet to knock in 10-15 goals from your fourth line, where he's best suited. He can also play both C/W. There's a good chance you can get both of those players for the cost of one of the others.
As for Pirri and Peca, I'm all for signing guys with good offensive pedigree in the AHL. Worst case scenario is they're a good depth addition to the farm that's looking poised to be very solid offensively next season. I'd add Austin Czarnik to that list as well considering he's a Chiarelli/Gretzky add from their Boston days.
My point is that I can't see the Oilers going even medium-sized fish hunting considering their cap situation. The Oilers main issue last season organizationally was a significant lack of depth--especially at forward. I think this summer, we'll see more volume added organizationally than big name signings.
