It was back on Thursday when general manager Ken Holland held his pre-trade deadline scrum and was surrounded by a dozen media members just outside the Edmonton Oilers dressing room.
The doors to the room opened and out clomped coach Dave Tippett, headed to the ice for practice.
Tippett stopped, leaned in, and stage whispered to the media guys.
“Who we getting?”
In a way, with the dealing done, that’s still the question.
Are the Oilers getting the two Detroit Red Wings who have been having horrible seasons with the worst team in the NHL? Or are they getting two about-to-be rejuvenated players who should be expected to make a significant difference in Edmonton’s drive to the playoffs and their performing in the post season, if they get there?
Can Andreas Athanasiou be the missing-link line mate for Connor McDavid and turn around the totally terrible season he’s been having in Detroit by coming here to play with the greatest player in the world?
Can Mike Green, at age 34, for the final 20 games of the regular season as a rental, even remotely resemble the puck-moving defenceman he used to be, but definitely hasn’t come close to being this year, with the Red Wings?
And can Edmonton native Tyler Ennis be an upgrade to the bottom-six forward group escaping Ottawa?
Again, Athanasiou has been having just an absolutely awful season with the worst plus-minus in the entire league. Green hasn’t looked remotely like the Norris Trophy finalist he once was with Washington. And Ottawa couldn’t get anything more than a fifth-round pick for Ennis. Take each of them and their individual seasons and there is all sorts of room to be suspicious.
But ask yourself one question: Are the Oilers, with 20 regular-season games to go, any better than they were when they stepped on the ice in Los Angeles Sunday evening?
The answer is yes, yes and yes.
Yes, with Athanasiou.
Yes, with Green.
Yes, with Ennis.
And credit Holland for living up to his promise from a one-on-one interview with your correspondent a month earlier and swearing that if this group put themselves into the position they are today that he’d come through for them.
Quote-unquote, Holland: “My message today is I’m here to win. I’ve come to Edmonton and this team has played hard to put us into a good position. No risk. No reward. I could have sat around and done nothing but I felt like I had an obligation to pitch in and help a team that’s worked extremely hard.”
Green and Ennis are here until the end of this season. They cost a mere fourth- (third if Edmonton makes the Western Conference final and Green plays half the games) and a fifth-round pick.
Athanasiou is not a rental. He cost a second-round pick in June and a second in 2021, plus Sam Gagner to Detroit (mostly to move out his contract to make way for the Athanasiou contract).
He has 10 goals and 14 assists and a whopping minus-45. That hardly announces the second coming of Jari Kurri.
Holland developed this kid in Detroit and obviously believes in him despite the shabby season he’s been having, saying Athanasiou has high-end skill and quote-unquote: “We hope his best years are ahead of him.”
The bottom line is McDavid has to be far more excited about the prospects of playing with the 25-year-old than any of the choices Tippett had to put on his line when McDavid returned from injury in L.A.
One thing for sure with Athanasiou. The guy can fly. And he’s put up points before. Last year, he scored 30 goals.
Job 1 at this deadline was to acquire a top-six forward to go with McDavid and Zack Kassian and the combination of Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kailer Yamamoto.
Holland did that despite the restraints of the Oilers’ salary-cap situation. And he kept his first-round draft picks.
Job 2 was to add an experienced depth defenceman rental. Green checks several boxes.
Again, he’s been having a horrible year with three goals and 11 points and a minus-32. At the front end of his career, he had 18, 31 and 19 goal seasons and 56, 73 and 76 point seasons with Washington.
This is a get-out-of-jail card for Green who, again, Holland knows well from Detroit and believes will be a good off-the-ice fit in terms of being the kind of guy he is, an excellent mentor for Ethan Bear and Caleb Jones and has had the offensive skills to service McDavid and Draisaitl as a right side puck-moving defenceman who can play the power play.
He has 20 regular-season games plus playoffs to reboot his career. And with the Oilers putting Kris Russell on long-term disability, they needed the depth defensively.
Ennis is a 30-year-old Edmonton native who gets out of jail in Ottawa and, with 14 goals and 33 points, helps the bottom six.
Again. Are the Oilers a better team for the final 20 games of the season than they were when McDavid returned to the lineup?
Yes. Yes. And yes.
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On Twitter: @ByTerryJones
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