There were plenty of rumors surrounding the Edmonton Oilers at last season’s trade deadline. Before the team acquired Brett Kulak from the Montreal Canadiens, GM Ken Holland was rumored to be kicking tires on a few players. It wasn’t clear how close a deal was or how serious conversations got, but a new post on Twitter by a fan who attended the team’s Locker Room sale and Fan Day on Saturday suggests things were extremely close on a few names.
Oil in Goal account was at the sale — where fans can buy all sorts of memorabilia items closely linked to the team — and uncovered four very interesting jerseys. All four were for players who never officially became members of the organization but all four were names rumored to be in the mix when it came to potential trade deadline deals.
The four jerseys were Carson Soucy, Jacob Middleton, Justin Braun, and one of Eric or Marc Staal. Soucy is a defensemen out of the Seattle Kraken organization that many insiders linked to the Oilers. He was deemed potentially the best fit for what Edmonton needed on their back end to make a playoff push. He has one year left on his current deal at $2.75 million and will be a UFA at the end of this season.
Jacob Middleton was traded from the San Jose Sharks to the Minnesota Wild and eventually signed to an extension by the Wild. He would have been an interesting addition since the Oilers acquired Kulak and extended him much like the Wild did with Middleton. It’s a big “what if” if a deal would have ever been struck between the two sides, but the money would have worked for the Oilers this season.
Justin Braun is a player with a ton of experience and likely would have been a rental for the Oilers. He went back to the Philadelphia Flyers this summer after being traded to the New York Rangers at the deadline last year.
As for which Staal the Oilers were looking at, both Marc and Eric would have made sense. Eric would have been a nice addition as a depth center and could have replaced the acquisition of Derick Brassard while Marc could have been a nice depth blue line add. Both brothers have found their way to Florida, even if their situations are slightly different (Eric is on a PTO).
These are interesting “what could have been” scenarios and the jerseys don’t really provide proof that these respective deals were ever on the verge of being done. At the same time, one would have to assume things got pretty close. It would make sense considering a few of these players were on teams the Oilers did talk to and eventually made trades with. The GMs were clearly already doing business and making the trades bigger wouldn’t have been too difficult.
In the end, Edmonton added Brett Kulak and it’s worked out quite well.
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