Oilers at risk of losing player they acquired in trade, for nothing.

The Edmonton Oilers are at risk of losing a player they acquired in a relatively big trade earlier in the season, although whether or not they would be bothered by that eventuality remains to be seen. 

According to a report from National Hockey League contract database CapFriendly, the Edmonton Oilers are now incapable of playing goaltender Anthony Stolarz for the number of games that are required to be played in order for Stolarz to retain his status as a restricted free agent in the NHL. This means that, in theory, on July 1st Stolarz will become an unrestricted free agent instead of a restricted free agent, a distinction that will have a major impact on what the Oilers can do if they wish to retain him.

Traditionally if Stolarz had played the required number of games to retain his status the Oilers would have exclusive negotiating rights outside the possibility of an offer sheet from a rival team, and Stolarz simply is not good enough a player to warrant an offer sheet of that nature. On the other hand should Stolarz become an unrestricted free agent he will be free to negotiate with absolutely every team in the National Hockey League, assuming of course that they would be interested in acquiring his services.

Stolarz of course was acquired by the Oilers in a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers, a trade that sent former Oilers starting goaltender Cam Talbot to Philadelphia in a player for player trade. Now to be fair to the Oilers the expectation when they made that deal was that Talbot would walk away as a free agent at the end of the regular season, so if you do lose Stolarz you have not suffered much of a net loss at the end of the day. However if the intent from the Oilers was to keep Stolarz under contract, possibly even as just a player they could expose in the upcoming expansion draft for the Seattle franchise, the situation is now more complicated. 

To be clear here the Oilers could in theory solve this scenario if they do wish to keep Stolarz, they would merely have to come to terms on a new deal with him prior to June 30th of this year. That being said, the Oilers only used him for 4 games after the trade and his 4.25 goals against average and .891 save percentage did not exactly inspire a great deal of confidence. Outside of a signing designed for expansion protection I'm not sure that signing Stolarz would be in Edmonton's best interest moving forward.