Oilers Superstars Post Emotional Goodbyes to Their Teammates Who Were Traded Away on Tuesday

Today, the Oilers finally broke the ice and managed to move two of their roster players off to new teams Jesse Pujujarvi and Tyson Barrie. The Oilers traded Pujujarvi to the Carolina Hurricanes for forward Patrik Puistola.

This was a cap move to clear salary since the Finnish winger holds a $3 million cap head. The Oilers did not retain any money in the trade.

Later on that afternoon, the Oilers made another trade by moving defenseman Tyson Barrie along with forward Reid Schaefer, a 2023 first-round and a fourth-round in 2024. The Oilers received defenceman Mattias Ekholm in return.

As part of the business of hockey, it's hard for teammates to see their friends leave to go to other organizations. In this day and age of social media, their former oiler teammates left messages wishing them the best.

Time will tell if this series of moves will help the Oilers, with $3 million opened up in cap space and bringing in a defenseman such as Mattias Ekholm certainly will help stabilize the left side of their defensive core. I am however curious and confused as to why they would move Tyson Barrie who is the quarterback of their power play and is also a right-handed shot defenseman.

I would have felt they would have kept Barrie and offered maybe one of their prospects to keep building their defence rather than subtract.

We will have to see what will happen and if the Oilers are not done doing their moves as the trade deadline ends on Friday at 3:00 PM.