Oilers players confront GM Ken Holland with special trade demand

The Edmonton Oilers’ players might have made the upcoming trade deadline easier on general manager Ken Holland. They straight up told the GM what the team needs to ensure a long playoff run.

According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Oilers confronted Holland and told him the club needs someone who can bring the puck out of the zone, not someone who just bangs it off the glass but can move it.

“I believe the Oilers are listening at least to their top players who have said we prefer puck moving and they’re going to look into that and the best puck mover available is Erik Karlsson”.

There is no doubt that Karlsson could bring exactly what the Oilers are after, however, just like Chris Johnston explained, sending Karlsson to Edmonton is a difficult trade to maneuver. He knows that there’d be a lot of work to be done between the San Jose Sharks and Oilers to complete a trade with this many moving parts.

On Tuesday night, Pierre Lebrun pointed the Oilers to other options on Insider Trading on TSN seeing that they have zero cap room.

“There’s no question the Oilers will continue to keep tabs on San Jose with Karlsson, regardless of whether it’s a complicated deal to see through March 3, but in the meantime they want to try to make sure they get someone - Vladislav Gavrikov, who was held out of the Columbus Blue Jackets’ lineup, and I don’t think he’ll play again until he’d traded - he is a target for the Oilers as well and he makes $2.8 million and the Oilers are dollar-in, dollar-out with no cap room. If they can move [Jesse] Puljujarvi and his $3 million average annual value contract, Gavrikov at that AAV makes sense, there’s no question Edmonton has talked to Columbus a number of times about him.”

Maybe Holland will need to go back to his players before pulling the trigger on the best move for Edmonton.

Recommended articles:

• Three teams reportedly interested in Tyler Bertuzzi
• Moose Jaw Police comment on the suspension of 4 players, including Oilers prospect Maximus Wanner.
• Arber Xhekaj injured after scrap with Vincent Desharnais.
• Devastating update on goaltender Anton Forsberg.
• Oilers may finally be done with Jesse Puljujarvi.