Again, if you had looked into the situation, you’d know that the Oilers may actually lack players to protect depending on how their seasons go:
Protection Locks: McDavid, Draisaitl, Yamamoto, Puljujarvi, Nurse, Bear, Koskinen. All should be obvious.
UFAs: RNH, Ennis, Barrie, Larsson, Chiasson, Smith- Oilers can make a handshake deal with RNH to sign him after the ED. The same applies to any of the others they may want to keep, and there’s nothing the Kraken can do about it.
Sure Take Them: Neal, Khaira, Russell, Archibald- Enough said, go for it Seattle.
Depends: Kassian, Klefbom, Turris, Benson, Jones- For various reasons. Kassian, because he has a longish contract for the kind of player he is and might start to slow down offensively as early as this upcoming year. Klefbom, because his shoulder may be broken beyond repair. Turris, since he’s the new kid in town and he could easily underwhelm in his role as overperform. Benson and Jones are the only two youngish players with any sort of upside we risk exposing. If either shows enough they get protected. Otherwise then it won’t matter if they are lost.
“Best” case for Edmonton, all of the Depends group guys play badly/aren’t worth hanging onto and are all left unprotected. That leaves six total skaters from the Lock group, meaning the Oilers could look for Schmidt-esque bargains on guys other teams are pressed to protect but don’t want to lose for nothing.
Worst case, RNH says sign me or lose me, so the Oilers go McD/Drai/RNH/Yamamoto/Puljujarvi/Turris/Kassian/Nurse/Klefbom/Bear and lose one of Jones or Benson. Either way, it’s not worth moving the team’s only healthy top-four veteran for middling pieces. Hope that helps, now please stop spamming the thread about it.
