Nowhere did I say they go out and spend another $6m on that right away. My thinking is they already have a $6m 2nd pairing LD, so they don't really need a $9m one—and I was mostly questioning if Nurse would be palatable to another team at that price, so hell, if there's no sweetener needed then it may be worth moving one of those two to get the breathing room for much larger deals:
I think the Oilers need a major, major roster makeover if they want to get anything out of the 3 seasons left on McDavid's contract. They're just chock full of uncreative one-dimensional doofuses who need their hands held to produce. Even Hyman and Kane, who have done well there, are basically only as good as the C you put them next to.
In my head it's just trying to rerun Carter/Richards trades of 12 years ago, but seeing if you can do that with one Draisatl instead. The Flyers at that point identified that Giroux would be the centerpiece and that it was about building depth and cap flexibility, so they turned 2 All-Stars into 4 future ones (Schenn, Simmonds, Voracek, the pick that became Couturier) and had a really great season, though that trajectory was derailed by Pronger's career ending injury and a series of other bad moves that handcuffed them (Bryz over Bob, AMac and a dozen other crappy defensemen...).
To me, the Oilers should be trying to turn Draisatl into a huge package of young NHL-ready contributors at controlled prices—at least 2 Fs and 1 D. They have the best centerpiece player in the world in the form of McDavid, and RNH can be a great bang-for-the-buck 2C behind him. But they need more speed and skill and creativity throughout the lineup, guys who are effective, cheap for now, and still have future upside to grow into.
Where do you go looking for that? Who knows—I wonder who is on Leon's 10-team list and if anyone can cook a package that fits the bill. Might be a 3+ team operation. Ideally you're looking for an impatient rebuilder. But I feel like the Oilers need to operate with Paul Homgren-sized balls and abandon in the short term, because otherwise...what is there to do? Holland sucks.
