Oilers head coach reveals what he wants the team to acquire at trade deadline
As the NHL trade deadline is now just weeks away, everyone across the league is preparing for the coming changes to the roster. In a few recent press conferences, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch has been dropping hints about what he thinks the team needs to acquire, naming speed and depth scoring.
After the tough overtime loss to Boston this week, Knoblauch addressed playing with speed as a primary goal for the Oilers. As it stands right now, that's pretty difficult to do with players like Ryan, Perry, Brown, and Janmark in the bottom six. It could very much be a goal for the Oilers to add more speed to their bottom two lines.
After yesterday's tough loss to the Minnesota Wild, Knoblauch once again brought up the quality of contributions from the bottom six. He implored that the team can't be carried by their top two lines all the time, and that they need more scoring out of their depth players. Again, that's pretty much an impossible ask of Connor Brown and Mattias Janmark, which leads to more credence that they'll acquire scoring depth at the deadline.
»You would like a little more offence from throughout your lineup. Five-on-five, you would like little more contributions from everybody. Your top two lines, as good as they are, can't produce every single night.»
With these hints dropping from the coach, paired with several insiders reporting that the Oilers are targeting a high impact forward, it's pretty clear that the Oilers are looking to double down on their electric offence for this years playoffs. While they could easily improve themselves with a trade for a defenceman or insurance at the goalie position, the team seems to have its sights set on scoring more than 5 goals every game - admittedly, that is pretty unbeatable.
| POLL | ||
Should the Oilers trade for forwards, defence, or goaltending? | ||
| Forwards | 109 | 17.1 % |
| Defence | 202 | 31.8 % |
| Goalie | 325 | 51.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
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