Ken Holland and making bad decisions by signing players to bad contracts or acquiring players on bad contracts is nothing new. He has done this repeatedly when he was the general manager of the Detroit Red Wings in the latter half of his tenure.
Now he is doing the same thing with the Edmonton Oilers. It's not just him taking on the contracts of James Neal, Zack Kassian, and Adam Larsson.
Recently, he just traded for a washed-up defenseman making $5.5 million per year and had just 15 points in 54 games in 2021.
The trade is as follows: The Oilers acquire the entire contract of Duncan Keith (you read that right, the entire contract; no salary was retained) and Tim Soderlund from the Blackhawks while sending promising young defenseman Caleb Jones and a conditional 2022 3rd round pick the other way.
The pick will turn into a 2nd round pick if the Oilers make the 2022 Stanley Cup Final and Keith is among the Oilers' top 4 defensemen in terms of average time on ice in the first three rounds of the playoffs.
How would this impact both teams?
Edmonton Oilers
This would be a good addition to the Oilers if this was 2014. The fact that none of his $5.5M salary is being retained screams a massive overpay for the Oilers.
The only positives that he brings to the Oilers are leadership and championship experience, which the team lacks.
The original offer was Keith for Jones, a 4th round pick, and Mikko Koskinen, as originally reported by Mark Spector of Sportsnet. Regardless, it feels as if Peter Chiarelli never left Edmonton.
Keith is a negative asset, and Holland made this trade because he still believes that Keith is an impact player, which he is not. Jones is a higher impact defenseman than Keith is now, and with the Oilers getting Keith, they're adding the worst defensive defenseman in the league to the 21st ranked defense in terms of expected goals against per 60 minutes in 2021.
A one-for-one deal is bad enough for the Oilers, but throwing in that conditional 3rd round pick makes this trade even worse.
However, he could still be of some value in a lesser role.
At his current stage of his career, he is a 2nd-pairing left-shot defenseman. In his final seasons in Chicago, the Blackhawks forced him to play close to 20 minutes a game, acting as if he is still in his prime, when, in reality, it can be argued that their best defenseman is either one of Connor Murphy or Adam Boqvist.
What the Oilers are doing is a huge gamble on a player who has nothing left to prove. It is still possible that the Oilers' gamble could pay off, but it is not likely.
If the Oilers want to utilize him correctly, Keith should be on the Oilers' 2nd defensive pairing and be playing less than 18 minutes a game.
Even if that happens, the contract is still a massive overpay. And even though the chances of Oscar Klefbom playing in the 2022 season are slim, that does not excuse this trade.
Chicago Blackhawks
Getting Caleb Jones and a 3rd round pick is a massive win for the Blackhawks.
Although it is hard to see Keith go, given that he has won two Norris Trophies and was a huge part of the three Stanley Cups in six years, hard decisions have to be made and that is the truth of going on a rebuild.
The 24-year-old Jones put up some okay results with the Oilers, with the most games having played there being 43, which was during the 2020 season, where he put up 9 points.
In the 2021 season, he put up 4 points in 33 games, although his first 3 games of the season weren't all the best, and were marred by defensive errors, including an ill-advised interference penalty against the Habs in the 3rd game.
After being benched the next four games, his second stretch was a little better, but was undone by some lapses on the penalty kill when he twice failed to close down the shooting lane, leading to goals from Auston Matthews and Drake Batherson. The latter had Oilers head coach Dave Tippett bench him while Kris Russell, Slater Koekkoek, and William Lagesson shared the left-side minutes behind Darnell Nurse, with Tippett citing their ability to kill penalties as a factor.
Only when Koekkoek broke his clavicle in the 20th game of the season did Jones get another chance, but in a limited role. If the Oilers were defending a lead in the final 10 minutes, that meant that Jones would be sitting on the bench.
It's safe to say that he didn't earn Tippett's full trust.
The deployment numbers support that. In the 33 of the 56 games he played, he has not crossed the 20-minute mark, and has played at least 15 minutes in a game just 9 times. His average time on ice this season was 13:36. That was a step back from 2020, where he played in 43 of the Oilers' 71 games, with 2 games where he played over 20 minutes, and 18 games of over 15 minutes of time on ice, averaging 14:08.
Another aspect of this trade that should come to mind is that the Blackhawks are reportedly one of the teams interested in trading for Caleb's brother, Seth. So, in the case that the Blackhawks do trade for Seth Jones, that may be an aspect of Seth wanting to sign a long-term contract with the Blackhawks, given that he is a UFA next offseason.
Arguably the best asset that the Blackhawks got from this trade is cap space. Even if Caleb Jones doesn't do well in Chicago, or if that draft pick turns into a fringe NHLer, this trade is still a win for the Blackhawks, given that they got rid of a bad contract and didn't have to give anything else up.
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