As far as Nurse goes, if we're going to acknowledge that debate, we kind of know his name came up at the draft and Toronto was the team kind of kicking that can. I'd CONSIDER some kind of Nurse and Kadri deal, in spite of my initial feelings against it. For lots of reasons:
Kadri is cost controlled @ 4.5M for 3 years, Kadri solves for the Oilers 2line winger problem by moving RNH over. He'd be the best match-up guy the Oilers had while having 20-30 goal upside. The Oilers two best wingers would be injury coverage at C. Having 4 guys who could all line up down the middle is an insane luxury I'm not sure any team in the league has now. Unlike the Larsson-for-Kadri idea, I think Toronto would actually do this, and I think the Oilers could absorb a hit to their left side much better than their right with Klefbom, Sekera and Russell & possibly Jones/Lagesson competing for an Oilers position. Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing backflips about it, but I can see a world where a cap compliant second line of RNH-Kadri-Connolly or whatever is worth a second pairing of Sekera-Russell as opposed to the Nurse-Russell it would be otherwise.
I don't see any world where they're willing to trade Nurse for Connor at his expected cap. A huge part of this would be that it's cap positive in 2020 and 2021. I'm not sure about Ehlers, a serious defenseman feels like it could be the ask from Winnipeg and if that's the case, a first isn't going to be the difference between a Russell-Pulju offer and, say, a Brett Pesce offering.
Failing something on that level of scope, I'd be very curious to hear about Russell's ten teams trade list. I wonder if there's a desire to stay in Canada in general, or just close to Alberta. If he wants to keep his family in this country, could Ottawa find it's way on the list? That might be a place they could flex for cap.
