Rumor: Rumblings of a potential trade between the Oilers and Red Wings.

The Edmonton Oilers have been searching for a way to bolster their offense since the start of the 2019 - 2020 National Hockey League regular season. The reality for the Oilers is that their offense group, outside of superstar forwards Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, have simply not been performing well enough and their is a widely held belief that Oilers general manager Ken Holland must make a move or risk wasting another year in the prime of Connor McDavid's young NHL career. 

The question of course is where will Holland find a player that he will be able to acquire at a reasonable price and what is it going to cost him to do so? There has been all kinds of speculation linking the Oilers to players like Tyler Toffoli of the Los Angeles Kings and even Chris Kreider of the New York Rangers, however one Oilers insider believes that Ken Holland could be looking at more familiar territory for his potential acquisition. Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal recently made comments that suggest he believes Holland and the Oilers could be targeting a player currently on the roster of the Detroit Red Wings, a player that Holland would be intimately familiar with given his history as the former general manager of that organization. That player is none other than former Ken Holland draft pick Andreas Athanasiou.

"You can bet Holland is eying Athanasiou in Det too," said Matheson. "Loves his speed. His hands don't quite match his top 5 wheels but he's restricted free-agent, and Wings' Steve Yzerman didn't draft him."

This is certainly some extremely interesting speculation as there are a lot of reasons to suspect that this is a trade that could actually go down. As I stated Holland is intimately familiar with this player so that is taken care of right there, and additionally there is no doubt that Holland still has strong ties to the Red Wings organization. Additionally the man who replaced Holland as general manager is none other than Red Wings legend Steve Yzerman, a man who has a long history with Holland given their previous relationship as general manager and player. 

Athanasiou will be a restricted free agent at the end of the season and given just how bad the Red Wings have been it is anyone's guess whether or not they currently view the 25 year old center as part of their future plans for the organization. Athanasiou was not drafted by Yzerman and is currently have a rough year with 5 goals and 14 assists for a combined total of 19 points in 36 games played. That is a huge drop off in his goal scoring pace from the previous season in which he recorded 30 goals in just 76 games, and he currently boasts a league worst plus minus rating of -35. The million dollar question here is how much of that is a directly result of Athanasiou himself dropping off a cliff in terms of his performance, and how much of it is a result of the fact that the Red Wings have been one of the worst teams in recent memory this season.