The Edmonton Oilers traded a second round pick to the Buffalo Sabres Wednesday afternoon for Ales Kotalik? And I suppose Brian Burke was waiting on line two.
Strange times indeed but the big story of trade deadline day in Oil Country is the arrival of Patrick O'Sullivan. By all accounts, the 23-year old is a young, chippy centre with a heavy shot that knows how to finish. And at $2.9 million for the next two years, he's got time to grow into a system that his old teammate, former LA King Lubomir Visnovsky had very little trouble assimilating into this fall. Different players from different positions, but reason to believe that the transition to Edmonton's game will be a smooth one, unlike it was for Erik Cole, who goes back to Carolina in the three team deal.
Now, there is some talk that O'Sullivan has some maturing to do away from the rink. But given his on-ice upside, it was clearly a risk the Oilers were willing to take with a $2.9M cap hit for the next two years.
As for Kotalik, the Oilers get a forward from the Czech Republic named Ales with goal scoring ability but doesn't shoot the puck nearly enough. Remind you of anyone Oiler fans? Kotalik has averaged 20 goals over his last five years in Buffalo, and needs four more to hit the mark again this season. But he's an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, so odds are he's ikely a rental player down the stretch.
At the end of the day, the Oilers lost 16 goals worth of offence when they traded Erik Cole on Wednesday but added 27 in acquiring Kotalik and O'Sullivan. They appear to be a team on the bubble in need of a vote of confidence. If that's the case, they got one from management on trade deadline day without mortgaging any of the future.