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.
You’d probably get Ryan on a dollars over term deal that should fit into our cap providing the cap is in the 80-81M range I would think. Nash wouldn’t come here anyways, I forgot he has bad blood with the Oilers OBC. Calvert is coming off a so-so year and not sure he gets into the dollars, here you could probably do a term over dollars deal that would fit in nicely under the cap.
But yeah I see your point and don’t disagree. I would think we will target a Peca/Pirri type, if only to give us depth and some more experienced offensive players for our AHL kids in waiting.