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Josh Archibald Signing Immediately Makes Oilers Cup Favourites

July 16, 2019, 1:56 PM ET [195 Comments]
Sean Maloughney
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Wow!

So far the Oilers summer has been a pretty huge disappointment. With Ken Holland so far keeping 90% of the roster that led to a 25th place finish last season and adding a number of 4th and fringe 3rd line players to eat up the remaining amount of the Oilers cap space things were looking bleak.

However earlier in the summer, Ken Holland bought out Andrej Sekera, a puck moving defenseman that now that he was healthy, could be one of Edmonton's four best players on the back end or at the very least, provide the team with some options.

Saving that 3 million dollars for this season made it seem apparent that Holland was gearing up for a big move, likely to add at least one more top 6 forward to take the burden off of RNH, McDavid, and Draisaitl.

However as the days passed by that seemed more and more unlikely... then things took a mysterious turn when Bob Stauffer alluded to the idea that this could be an interesting week for the Oilers.

A trade? A bigger free agent signing? Figuring out how to clone McDavid? What?!

I knew that something big was going to happen but I couldn't fathom in my wildest dreams that it was going to be something like this.

Today the Oilers announced that they had signed coveted free agent Josh Archibald to a one year deal. No word on what the amount is but it sounds like it could come in at just under 1 million.... a steal for acquiring THE Josh Archibald.

Last season Archibald had 12 goals and 22 points in 68 games with the Arizona Coyotes and the only reason he didn't play in more games was because he kept making their star players look bad. Why else wouldn't the Coyotes offer the 26 year old right wing a qualifying offer?

Does he play a ton of minutes? Well 13 is a bigger number than 10 so you bet he does! Did he score those 12 goals at the highest shooting percentage of his career thus far? You can bet on it.

Bob Stauffer has called this player "feisty and quick" that sounds a ton like fan favourite Drake Caggiula. That means later in this season Archibald could be traded for a big physical defender. Talk about a massive return on investment.

Edmonton has now secured all of the 4th and fringe 3rd line players this off-season... now teams will have to come to Edmonton to acquire their own and will have to give up top end players to get them. A brilliant scheme by veteran GM Ken Holland.

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Okay now that I've gotten all of that out of my system....

The signing of Archibald represents another low risk move by Ken Holland that at best provides the team with a few more goals in the lineup however still fails to address the overall issues that still plague this team.

Buying out Sekera was a massive mistake if the cap hit saved from that buyout is only used to add players like this.

Please prove me wrong Holland.
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