Overestimating Oilers Trade Value

Oilers fans (and for years, Oilers management) have had a problem with valuing their players’ trade value – there , I said it. As we near the quarter point of the season, the Oilers defense again looks like it needs at least 1 or 2 top end additions. But who from the Oilers is there to trade for a top 4 defenseman? Or better yet, a Top 2 dman? Overvaluing what they have to offer may be a prime reason why the Oilers haven’t pulled the trigger on a trade yet.

Overvaluing Assets in Real Estate

In the Edmonton real estate business, I see sellers over value their property all the time – and it rarely ends up well. One of 2 things usually happen:

1 – Sellers get little or no interest from the market when the time to sell is right, and they never get a deal done.

OR

2 – Sellers get little or no interest from the market when the time is right to sell, they panic, and then they drop the price way under what they could have originally got.

Do these scenarios sound familiar, Oilers fans?

(Cough…..Jeff Petry…..Cough……)

Fans Are Part of the Problem

Listening and reading what Oilers fans have to say, most want the ‘core’ to stay intact – McDavid, Hall, Eberle, Nuge, etc. Then we have the players that cannot be traded because of no movement clauses or because their contracts are ridiculously overvalued (Nikitin, Ference, Sekera). Then there is the argument amongst fans about the players who just need seasoning before they will become stars, so the Oilers can’t trade them either (Yakupov, Nurse, Draisaitl). So by my count that leaves about 5 guys who fans expect the Oilers to trade to get a 24 or 25 year old dman with upside – the most recent rumors being Travis Hamonic from the New York Islanders.

The reality is that won’t get you what you need.

The Solution

Instead, here’s what I hope the new Oilers management decides to do:

Short term – create a trade value for EVERY player – from McDavid down. Not that you would want to trade every player, but so that there is a clear value to each player and that they correctly value the assets they have. For you football buffs, think the Herschel Walker trade in the NFL a few decades back. I would also have our 1st round pick for next year on the table immediately.

Long Term – Make it team policy to have no more than 2 no movement clauses at one time – and never to a player older whose contract will expire after they turn 34 years old. Let every player know that anyone is tradeable. Make the players know that they become untradeable by their results on the ice, not because a contract says so.

How Fans Can Help

And I think that Oilers fans can help by stop overvaluing the players as well. Would I trade Hall? Yep. Nuge? Yep. But it would need to be for a comparable assets. It has become cliche that ‘if Gretzky can get traded, anyone can’, but maybe fans should stop worrying about the fact that the Oilers had a fire sale with the their top end assets when they couldn’t afford them 20 or 25 years ago and instead realize that if done correctly, 1 or 2 keys trades can turn a team around (see Pronger, Chris).

Here’s hoping that today’s top 6 dman on the Oilers aren’t the same on New Year’s Day.