Rumor: Ken Holland linked to another former Red Wing.

Details inside.

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HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
Rumor: Ken Holland linked to another former Red Wing.
Oilers/Twitter

The Edmonton Oilers are expected to make some moves prior to the National Hockey League's trade deadline, but with their limited salary cap space, as well as the considerations they must weigh when it comes to the upcoming expansion draft for the Seattle Kraken, the expectation is that their moves will be relatively minor in nature.

Funnily enough when it comes to the trade deadline Holland has shown something of a knack for picking up his former players, in this case from his time with the Detroit Red Wings, and there are rumors he may continue the trend this season. The last trade deadline was in 2020 and at that time the Oilers picked up two of Holland's former players in Detroit and did so on the same day no less. The Oilers gave up a conditional fourth round pick in 2020, which remained a fourth round pick, in order to acquire veteran defenseman Mike Green with the Red Wings absorbing 50% of his salary and the Oilers also picked up forward Andreas Athanasiou in a deal that saw them also grab Ryan Kuffner for forward Sam Gagner, a 2020 2nd round pick and a 2021 second round pick.

Now in his defense Holland inherited a relatively ugly messy cap situation thanks in large part to former Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli, but I think you would be hard pressed to argue that either of those trades paid dividends for the Oilers. This time around it sounds like Holland is once again looking at a relatively small move involving one of his former Red Wings, with the target this time around rumored to be veteran centerman Luke Glendening.

The move would purely be a depth signing and Oilers reporter Jim Matheson has gone so far as to suggest that he believes Glendenning would only be suitable to center the team's fourth line, all the while confirming that the Oilers have indeed been linked to the Red Wings once again.

Although Holland no doubt has an excellent idea of what he is getting from the Red Wings, both because of his personal knowledge of their players as well as his long standing relationship with current Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman, I suspect the thought of bringing in more aging players from the Red Wings was not high on the priority list for fans in Edmonton.


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