Oilers named as leading team to acquire Blackhawks forward having career year
It was reported on Saturday headlines by Elliotte Friedman of hockey night in Canada that the Edmonton Oilers are strongly linked to Chicago Blackhawks center Ryan Donato.
Friedman reports that two Canadian teams are interested in his services as he would give the Oilers more depth in their scoring and especially down the middle as general manager Stan Bowman has mentioned several times that secondary scoring needs to be upgraded.
Donato making case to be traded to a contender
Friedman revealed multiple Canadian teams are in on Donato, with the Oilers named as the only specific team.
- Elliotte Friedman
Donato was drafted in 2014 by the Boston Bruins, in the second round 56th overall. He had played two seasons with the team starting in 2017 and then had stops in Minnesota, San Jose, Seattle and then Chicago.
As Friedman mentioned, he is having a fantastic season as through 52 games, donato has scored 19 goals with 18 assists for 37 points and has 28 penalty minutes through 14 minutes and 55 seconds of average ice time.
Oilers will prepare for trade deadline with extended break
The Oilers organization have worked on being creative and signing two players throughout the season including unrestricted free agent John Klingberg and Kasperi Kapanen through the waiver wire in an effort to stockpile some players at no cost to his draft picks and prospects.
But it's safe to say that he will be shopping and loading up his lines as this winning window remains open and the Oilers have a solid chance of going far in the Stanley Cup playoffs again.
Many questions still reign around this team, but the picture will become clearer as teams drop off from the playoff race and become sellers at the deadline which will give the Oilers more options.
