Oilers acquire experienced right-shot defender in Troy Stecher

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For the fifth trade deadline in a row, Ken Holland has acquired a veteran defenceman for the Edmonton Oilers. Welcome to Edmonton, Troy Stecher!

Not sure yet what year that fourth round pick is from, the Oilers seem to have traded a few of them this last while.

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Stecher carries a cap hit of $1.1 million, with none being retained in this deal as per hockey insider Chris Johnston.

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First report on this was from Jordan Schmaltz, the brother of long-time Coyote Nick Schmaltz, who is himself an insider on the Arizona scene.

An 8-year NHL veteran with just over 500 NHL games of regular season and playoff experience. Stecher is best characterized as a right-shot, puck-moving defenceman. At 5’10, 184 pounds, he’s small, especially among the “tall pine trees” that currently populate the Edmonton defence. But he certainly checks a lot of other boxes: veteran, right-shot, affordable. If no toher changes are made to the blueline, it will now consist of 3 lefties and 4 righties, with another lefty in Philip Broberg in waiting. That’s a more balanced, more playoff-ready group than it was yesterday.

In 47 games for Arizona this year, Stecher has amassed 1-4-5, +5 while playing 18 minutes per night, almost bang on his career average ice time.

He’s played for 4 NHL teams over the years, including 2 stints with the Coyotes who traded him to Calgary last deadline in the famous “Ritchie for Ritchie” trade, then re-signed him this past summer. He’s best known as a member of Vancouver Canucks, with whom he played over 300 games including playoffs. He thus joins a fairly exclusive group of players to suit up for all 3 of the Cancuks, Flames and Oilers.

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This positive review from Canucks insider Thomas Drance:

Stecher is already familiar to at least 2 of his new teammates, the trio having achieved remarkable success together with Team Canada at the 2021 IIHF World Championship. Adam Henrique was the captain of that club and centred its first line, while his right winger Connor Brown led the tournament in scoring (true story!). As for Stecher, his spectacular overtime assist in the quarter finals eliminated heavily-favoured Russia and proved the springboard for an underdog Canadian crew to ultimately scale the top of the podium. Having started the tourney 0-3 and needing outside help simply to make the medal round, it was surely the unlikeliest of this country’s 28 goal medals over the years. I have to admit I became a fan of all 3 players during that improbable fortnight.

With this move, Holland has used almost the entirety of the cap space that was available to him as the day began; however, the reassignment of Dylan Holloway earlier Thursday means that there remains about $1 million in cap space for a further deal. If the Oilers are in fact done, as The Athletic‘s Daniel-Nugent Bowman suggests, it seems probably that Holloway will simply be recalled in short order.

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