Matheson: Stecher likely Oilers GM Holland’s last trade deadline move

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So Troy Stecher is the last piece of the trade puzzle, we think, with Edmonton Oiler GM Ken Holland wanting to add at the trade deadline but also not wanting to mess up a good thing with a team that has lost 11 games in regulation in the last 48, with too many new faces walking in the door for the final six weeks.

OK, maybe Holland would take second-line right-winger Tyler Toffoli at the last minute if New Jersey retained 50 per cent, Holland got somebody else to broker another 25, and it only cost him a second-round pick. But, that’s dream stuff.

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This is likely it for Holland in this win-now window, in what is the fifth and final year of his current contract. Again, his team has the best record in the league over the last four months, so his private mantra is not “don’t worry, be happy” as much “don’t screw things up with too many moving parts.”

“When a team plays at a high level, you would like to pitch in, adding a player or two and in this case, it’s three (including Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick in a package deal with Anaheim),” said Holland.

“On defence we’re only carrying six, so adding Stecher is a pretty easy add-on. Certainly in the last 48 hours two guys, Dylan Holloway and Sam Gagner, have had to go down so the two forwards could come in. But we’ve added some pieces and I wanted to add without disrupting things, as much as possible.”

Clearly, Vegas, who added Noah Hanifin and Anthony Mantha, Dallas, with the addition of Chris Tanev, and Colorado, who picked up Casey Mittelstadt, Sean Walker Yakov Trenin and Brandon Duhaime, have been active in this West arms race, and the Oilers are trying to keep up.

“All these questions (whether it was enough) are going to be answered in the next three months. Do I think we’re better than we were a few days ago? Yes. Do I think we’re deeper? Do I think other teams in the West are getting stronger? Yes, I do,” said Holland.

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“The West is loaded and teams coming out of the West is going to have to play at a high level.”

That said, hands up, how many people had that Stecher chess board move — the howling, often angry twitter GMs here or the fans in the building — bringing in this defenceman, who has now been traded three straight deadline years, after the Oilers got the useful and versatile Henrique and hardscrabble Carrick Wednesday to round out the forward group?

For sure, there were other, sexier NHL defenders mentioned more as rentals or players with term — Tampa Cup winner David Savard, who has one year left in Montreal at $3.5 million, Joel Edmundson, Cup winner in St. Louis who is currently in Toronto, Matt Dumba, a UFA and teammate of Stecher in Arizona, or Alex Carrier, an18-minute-a-game, smart, smaller rental in Nashville.

“We’re bringing in a really competitive guy who can pass the puck,” said Holland, referencing the four games Stecher played against the Oilers in the 2022 playoffs, too, as a selling point when he had four points in that Los Angeles series. “He’s also been traded three times now at the deadline so he knows the whole program.”

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The Oilers wanted a seventh D with experience — Stecher has 487 games — and a right shot, not caring how big the guy was. They’re happy with Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard as their top pair, Darnell Nurse and new partner Vincent Desharnais in a second coupling and Cody Ceci and Brett Kulak in the third.

They did their due diligence and opted for Stecher over anybody else still out there, for a fourth-round pick in 2027, which should be long after Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have won a couple of Cups, right?

The Oilers clearly have been remarkably lucky with injuries on their back end with Nurse, Bouchard, Ceci and Kulak playing every game and Ekholm missing just one. They say their prayers every day they stay healthy, and if they do, Holland likes his top six makeup, with Desharnais especially a massive plus with his improved play.

“Four of these defencemen played when we got three (playoff) rounds in two years ago and after adding Ekky last year, we went to the second round. Same teams you play in the regular-season are those you play in the playoffs and certainly this six has played at a high level. I don’t know what the analytics say … but going from my eyes, they have,” said Holland.

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“We wanted to add one more guy today and we did. That gives us seven and we can add Broberg, which gives us eight for the playoffs.”

It’s not exactly a long-down-the-road stocking stuffer this Arizona deal for Stecher because the Oilers are taking on all of Stecher’s $1.1 million, rather than anything retained, but they are left with a shade more than $1 million in cap space as of Friday, enough room to bring back Dylan Holloway, who wasloaned to Bakersfield, Sam Gagner or Philip Broberg to get to the max of 23 contracts in a few weeks.

Arizona has 13 draft picks this June and 11 in 2025 and 10 more in 2026, but never too early to start in on the 2027 haul, eh?

Stecher, who turns 30 in exactly a month, has always punched above his 184 pounds. He’s played in Vancouver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Calgary, Arizona and now here, so of no fixed address. But he plays hard, he skates well, gets the puck moving north. On the 2021 Canadian gold-medal winning roster, Henrique and Connor Brown were teammates, too, if we’re connecting a few more dots. By all accounts, he’s a prince of a guy, too. Different way of saying very good in the room.

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In Arizona this season, Stecher did a lot of underappreciated things that went unnoticed nightly, according to longtime Coyotes’ followers. On an Oilers team full of dog lovers, he also has a beautiful Bernese mountain dog named Phoebe, too, so that will endear him to his new teammates.

For now, Brown is the 13th forward after difficult Holland discussions with the veteran Gagner and the youngster Holloway to send them down. In Holloway’s case, he has gained traction, playing all over, but not enough to stay.

“He’s massively disappointed, which I accept. But are you better served to be in the press box or playing 20 minutes in the minors? We had the same conversation before with Broberg,” said Holland, who felt it wasn’t just the cap relief with Holloway.

“We’re adding people for specific contributions to the team. Dylan’s a young player. We like him and he’s getting better but ultimately we’re trying to make the team the best we can. It’s not like he won’t be back at some point in time.”

The last word from captain Connor McDavid on the additions of Henrique and Carrick, who gave the two thumbs up on both players.

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“Adam’s having a career year and Sam is a hard player to play against, he makes it difficult on other teams. I know when we were in there (Anaheim), he makes it a long night in the faceoff circle,” said McDavid.

Carrick started his first game as fourth-line centre with Derek Ryan and Mattias Janmark against Columbus and Henrique was test-driven on left wing with Leon Draisaitl and Evander Kane over on right. But Henrique is also a 52.9 per cent faceoff man with a long history in the middle and could wind up as third-line centre with Ryan McLeod moving to the wing.

“We’ve got lots of good centreman. It means you’re strong in the faceoff dot, also means centres are usually pretty smart players,” said 97.

So centres are smarter than wingers? Is that what he means?

“Uh, generally, that’s what I’ll say. Doesn’t go for everybody. I better stop there,” he laughed.

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