August 17, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Edmonton Oilers were already in a tight cap situation before Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg signed their offer sheets. Now, they’re really in a bind.

If you remove the two offer sheet signees from the conversation, the Oilers currently have twelve forwards and seven defencemen on the active roster. Evander Kane is likely heading to LTIR, which would bring it down to eleven forwards. So, if the Oilers have to make a trade to create cap space, it will likely be a defenceman heading out the door. 

Related: Deep Dive: Oilers cap scenarios with Holloway and Broberg

Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard are untouchable. Darnell Nurse has a giant contract with a no movement clause. Troy Stecher and Josh Brown can easily be buried in the minors, so moving them solves nothing. That leaves Cody Ceci and Brett Kulak as the tradable options that could save the Oilers some money. I’ll explore the merit in trading each of them below.

Cody Ceci

There’s no sugar coating the fact that Ceci has played terribly in two consecutive playoff runs. 

Ceci has played with Nurse for the vast majority of his three years with the Oilers. They were tasked with being a top pairing in 2021-22, which they handled admirably. Their regular season results in 2022-23 and 2023-24 were merely average. They didn’t really hurt the team, but they certainly weren’t driving the team forward either. 

It’s fair to want more out of a second pairing. The Nurse-Ceci pairing shouldn’t be the plan anymore.

The perception around Ceci is that he’s going to be impossible to trade because of his horrendous performance in the playoffs in the last two years and because of his cap hit. The fact that he went 126 games without scoring a goal between October 15, 2023 and February 13, 2024 also didn’t help that perception. 

Despite what many Oilers fans believe, Frank Seravalli believes that Ceci could be moved. He said this on Oilers Now on July 8, 2024:

“…I can tell you with 100% certainty that there is a market for Cody Ceci. Right shot defencemen in that pay range are always in demand, and just go look at the free agent market this summer and look at some of the money thrown around. Cody Ceci at that number is really quite palatable. In fact, probably to some teams that are cap strapped, interesting. So, there’s a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ if Jeff Jackson and the Oilers want it…”

Well, the Oilers are now dealing with an emergency. If Seravalli is to be believed, then getting rid of Ceci shouldn’t be an issue. The issue would be replacing him. Someone would need to play the right side on the second pairing in Ceci’s place, and that option would need to be a cheaper option.

Related: Blues sign Broberg and Holloway to offer sheets

The first place to look would be internally because an internal replacement wouldn’t cost the team extra money. Broberg played on Nurse’s right side in the Stanley Cup Final, and Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson has hinted that the plan for Broberg should he be in Edmonton this fall would be for him to play on the right side. Broberg and Nurse outscored the Florida Panthers 4-2 at five-on-five in the Stanley Cup Final, but they also had an atrocious 30.21% expected goals percentage. None of their underlying numbers were good.

Honestly, playing Broberg on Nurse’s right side is a poor plan. Neither Broberg nor Nurse excel at breakout passes. That’s a huge reason why the duo had such a low xGF% in the playoffs. Their inaccurate passes resulted in them having to defend more often than they should have to have defended. Broberg is also just better on his left side.

Related: The Blues see something in Broberg

Kulak can also play both sides, but his preference is the left side. My thought would be to put the veteran in the more challenging role of playing on his off side on the second pairing rather than putting a young prospect that’s just breaking into the league in that role, but that’s just my opinion.

The crazy option would be to split up Ekholm and Bouchard, and to put Ekholm on the second pairing. I’ll dive into this in a future piece, but that would involve Nurse and Bouchard playing together. Ekholm would play with either Broberg or Kulak on the second pairing in this scenario.

Regardless, all of the possible internal replacement options for Ceci on the second pairing are left handed. Stecher and Brown are right-handed, but they’re not viable second pairing options. Replacing Ceci internally is a bit awkward for that reason.

There aren’t many intriguing external replacement options left on the market right now. The potential replacements are either uninspiring or former Oilers that wouldn’t likely be willing to come back to Edmonton. Tyson Barrie might be willing to come back, but he falls in the “uninspiring” category for me.

“Wait until the trade deadline”, says the Oilers fan. Well, here’s a quick look at some of the right-handed defencemen that will be unrestricted free agents in 2025-26:

There is only one name on that list that could be a legitimate top four option, wouldn’t be too expensive for the Oilers in 2025-26, and that could potentially be available at the deadline as his team might not be in playoff contention: William Borgen of the Seattle Kraken. Adam Larsson is on the list as well, and the Kraken might choose to keep the younger Borgen next summer. No, Larsson will not come back to the Oilers, so get that thought out of your head. The strategy can’t be to rely on something better shaking loose at the deadline.

Consider this about Ceci. Broberg’s new deal makes Ceci’s the 114th highest cap hit among NHL defencemen. Math says that there are 128 top four defencemen on the league’s 32 teams. According to Moneypuck, Ceci ranked 58th among NHL defencemen in five-on-five ice time last season. He ranked 64th in five-on-five points (20), 109th in goals for percentage (51.8%), and 48th in expected goals for percentage (53.9%). Ceci ranks as a top four defenceman in all of those categories. Those numbers suggest that Ceci is actually good value that would be worth keeping. He’s likely to be cheaper at 31 years old in 2025-26, which could be helpful for the Oilers.

Brett Kulak

Moving Kulak would certainly be an unpopular choice. Kulak has been a great addition to the team since joining the Oilers at the 2022 trade deadline. He’s a reliable veteran that rarely makes mistakes. His underlying numbers are consistently good. He’s a tremendous third pairing defenceman, and he’s a local product to boot. I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about how he has elevated his play in the playoffs in all three of his Oilers playoff runs.

I’ve said this a few times before, but Kulak is a luxury that the Oilers might not be able to afford going forward.

Kulak is the one player that’s really blocking Broberg right now. The ideal spot for Broberg is as the left defenceman on the third pairing, and that’s Kulak’s spot. I don’t care that Broberg’s cap hit is $4,580,917, or that the future expectation is for him to be a top four defenceman, or that he was deployed on the second pairing in the playoffs last season. If Broberg is expected to develop into a second pairing defenceman, then he needs to start with a consistent role on the third pairing on his natural side.

Kulak is a rangy, smooth skating defenceman. He’s a strong rush defender. He kills penalties. He can play on either of the bottom two pairings, and he can play on either side of the ice. 

I can say the exact same things about Broberg! I feel that having Kulak and Broberg is redundant. They’re versatile players with useful skill sets, but having both isn’t necessarily a must.

Kulak is obviously more polished than Broberg is today. However, Broberg has proven that he can handle the third pairing role, and he has a much higher upside than the 30-year old Kulak. Broberg’s edge work is better than Kulak’s. Broberg is a more talented and creative offensive defenceman than Kulak is. Broberg is also only 23 years old. He has plenty of room to grow, and he’s NHL ready now.

Aside from being more proven, Kulak’s biggest advantage over Broberg at this point is his $2.75 million cap hit. The challenge in moving his contract would be the two-year term. That might deter some teams from acquiring Kulak, but getting Kulak’s money off the books would make life in 2025-26 easier if the Oilers were to decide to keep Broberg.

I’m not trying to run Kulak out of town, but moving him would solve a couple of big issues. It would help with the Oilers’ cap crunch this season and in 2025-26; and it would create a spot for Broberg on his natural side, which would provide the best chance of the Oilers’ potential bet on Broberg paying off for them.

Wrap

You could easily argue that moving one of these two established veterans just to be able to pay the largely unproven Broberg his monstrous new salary would be a poor choice in a year where the Oilers are expected to contend for the Stanley Cup. If I had to trade one of Ceci or Kulak though, my choice would be Kulak all day every day. 

The Oilers have five years and a first round draft choice invested in Broberg though, so they might decide that the future is now with Broberg despite the obvious overpayment that it would take to keep him.

Remember that trading one of Ceci or Kulak is only a must if the Oilers decide to keep both Holloway and Broberg, or if they keep one of the two and they have to activate Kane off LTIR at any point during the season.

I’ll share my opinion on what I think the Oilers should do in tomorrow’s piece.