TALKING POINTS: Holland addresses media ahead of 2021 NHL Draft

EDMONTON, AB - Oilers President of Hockey Operations & General Manager Ken Holland took questions from the media via Zoom on Thursday, one day before Round 1 of the 2021 NHL Draft.
Holland discussed several topics, including the loss of Adam Larsson to the Seattle Kraken, rounding out the Oilers roster during the off-season and more.
Read the full transcript of Holland's availability below:

Oilers President of Hockey Operations & General Manager Ken Holland on any potential trades or buyouts following the end of the trade freeze Thursday morning:

"No trades in the books. Potential buyouts, probably we'll do one."

Holland on organizational depth and the potential of drafting a forward with the 20th-overall pick on Friday:

"I would say that we probably won't draft a defenceman. You never know. You do your ratings. Our scouts have been at it for the last month with Zoom calls. We've got a list from #1 to the end of the first round, and if a defenceman that's high up on our board slides to #19, we'll probably take him. But I think if things go the way that we think they're going to go, I see us probably taking a forward. But again, you never know.
"If there's a defenceman at #18 and we're picking #19, then we'll probably lean towards the forward. Obviously, we'll take the best player available with having Bouchard, Broberg, Samorukov, and some other young defencemen. We've got some younger defencemen on our team that would make us lean towards forwards, but we'll see."

On negotiations with Adam Larsson and his decision to sign with the Seattle Kraken:

"[The 2020-21 NHL season] started in the middle of January, so in about the middle of February I reached out to his agent J.P. Barry and told him I would like to sign him. We talked. Somewhere on the road trip, I remember sitting down with Adam for an hour, might've been one night in Calgary, and told him that we wanted to sign him and wanted him back. Like all negotiations, we looked at what the market was for the type of player that he is, the recent contracts, and there was probably 10 or 12. I made an offer probably in March, and we talked through April.
"Then sometime probably in April, J.P. and Adam told me they'd like to shut it down until the end of the season. We picked up and I thought we were very close to a deal, and certainly that was the indication that J.P. gave me a month ago. Then time sort of went by and I asked J.P. where things were at, and Adam just really wanted to be sure of his decision; really wanted to know what his options were. J.P. told him that he wouldn't really know his options until the 28th of July. Then I made three, four or five different offers through June and July, and then added a year.
"Ultimately, a week ago, I went to J.P. and said that if Adam needed an opportunity to explore the market, I would him the green light. I sent him an email giving him the green light to talk to other teams so that he could know what his options were in the hopes that he'd find that his best option was in Edmonton. Obviously, woke up to a text yesterday morning from J.P. saying that the night before Adam had agreed to a deal with Seattle.

On negotiations with free-agent goaltender Mike Smith:

"We've finalized this morning a two-year deal. I texted Mike this morning, so it'll be signed today and officially announced. But we have a two-year deal with Mike Smith."

On holes to fill in free agency and the difficulty replacing Larsson in the line-up:

"Adam was an important part of our team on and off the ice, so important players are hard to replace if you don't have them internally. Obviously, when you go to market, there are 32 teams looking for players. I don't have an answer for you, and maybe I'll have an answer for you a week from now when we go through free agency, but certainly we know that we've got to find a defenceman that can fill that hole.

On negotiations with pending free-agent Zach Hyman and his chances of signing with the Oilers:

"Obviously, Zach Hyman has been given permission from Toronto to talk to whomever he wants to talk to. Only the agents can [complicate] things. He's a player that we're very interested in, so other than that it's hard to answer that question for me.

On the potential to include more term in contract negotiations to reduce cap hit and increase competitiveness:

"The answer would be yes. I think I said that when we had the press conference announcing the extension for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Obviously, Nuge went from a cap number of $6 million to $5.1 million. When you're 28 years of age, in the prime of your career, not too often does a player have his cap number go down, so in return to get a reduced cap number I went to the max length of eight years. I've been here for two years and don't know how many times I've been asked by the media if I feel the pressure that we've got some great young players that are trying to win. And the answer is always yes.
"When I came here, we didn't have a lot of cap space. We obviously filled a lot of holes with players making a million dollars a year. We've got more cap space now, so I'm going to try to maximize that cap space. If a player that I think is going to be important to this team, would I give term? To get a cap number that we like, that's something that I would consider.
"Connor is 24, Leon is 25, Darnell is 26, Nuge is 28. I've got a core group of players that are in their prime now. I don't want to put players on the team thinking they'll be good two or three years from now. It's got to be about being the best that we can be on an every-night, every-year basis."

On pursuing valuable free-agents, balancing team needs at forward and defence and the first-round pick:

"The first-round pick won't be in play on a rental. I guess more so in a hockey trade, yes. My feeling is, part of being good in a salary cap world, you need younger players and cheaper players as part of the puzzle. That's what these first-round picks and prospects do. Maybe not today, but at some point in time that's part of the solution. Would I trade our first-round pick between tonight and tomorrow night? I guess if there was a deal I think made sense. Today, I've got nothing going with our first-round pick, so would I trade the first-round pick? Yes. But I don't see it just for a little excitement for a short period of time."

On filling roster vacancies from within the organization:

"That has to be part of this equation. It has to be one of two things. Either some young players on your roster take a step - Yamamoto, Puljujarvi, Bear, Bouchard, McLeod - take a little step. Or you get a surprise from Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway, Dmitri Samorukov that all of the sudden come in. Ethan Bear was a nice surprise two seasons ago when he made our team out of training camp. Ryan McLeod played so well in Bakersfield, the thought was that I was going to leave him there all year, but he was so good we brought him up for the last 10 games. That has to be a part of the equation.
"If that's not part of the equation, then it gets to be much more difficult."

On free agency and beneficial scenarios for the organization:

"Tyson Barrie's an unrestricted free agent, and I'm in communication with [agent] Pat Brisson. I had an offer on the table for Adam Larsson. Those two right-shot defencemen probably played 40 minutes a night, 20 minutes each. Our expectations are that Evan Bouchard is going to be in there every night and be an everyday player, so maybe he could take some of that. Certainly, I need to do something on defence. I just talked about Barrie and obviously we had Dmitry Kulikov at the end of the year. You think that Kulikov is unrestricted, Barrie is unrestricted, Larsson has gone to Seattle, so I do know between now and training camp that I need to make an addition or two on the back end.
"I had lots of the bottom part of the roster, forwards on one-year deals, that I told many of them I wasn't going to re-sign, so I'm going to go to market and try to find some players that are going to be bottom-part-of-the-roster players that are going to be lower-salary players. Every team has that and it's part of the equation."
"So what would be successful? Fill out our defence, feel good about our defence, fill out the bottom part of our forward roster spots, maybe add a top-six forward, and that's probably what we're looking to accomplish."

On giving Qualifying Offers to Oilers Restricted Free Agents Jujhar Khaira & Dominik Kahun:

"I probably will not offer QOs."

On movement opening up after the Expansion Draft and ahead of the NHL Draft:

"I think the opposite has happened. With Seattle, we submitted our protected list and I did talk to (Seattle Kraken General Manager) Ron Francis a couple of times, two or three times, prior to submitting our list. I talked to him a couple of times over the last three days. I have talked to some teams and when I leave this call, I'll go check around.
"Usually Thursday, Friday, Saturday is when the off-season trading happens, so we'll see what happens. Today, teams are probably starting to reach out and have communication, and we'll see what it leads to. That's what I'm trying to do, talk to a few general managers today. I know what I'm looking for. We've gone over and had our pro scouting meetings three weeks ago. We went over the other 30 teams and identified some players that might be available and if we have an interest in talking. I did have some communication prior to Seattle and in the last four days, things have gone quiet. We'll try again today and see where it leads."

On being aggressive and going big game hunting for a defenceman:

"We won't be big game hunting on the backend if you're talking about an eight-million-dollar defenceman. Part of what I have to factor in is, obviously, Darnell Nurse is an unrestricted free agent. In a flat cap, whether the cap is $81.5 (million) next year or $82.5, I look at the players on our team right now. Ethan Bear is a restricted free agent a year from now, Jesse Puljujarvi is an unrestricted free agent a year from now, Darnell Nurse is an unrestricted free agent a year from now. I just can't go out and spend all this money.
"The big game hunting is going to be term. It's not only going to be cap numbers, it's going to be big term. I have to factor that into whatever decisions I make. I can't just go to $81.5 and have all that $81.5 tied up in the summer of '22. Darnell is at a $5.6 cap number today, Ethan's at a $2 million cap dollar today, Jesse's at a 1.75 cap number today. Internally, I have to make sure I have some money set aside that's going to come off the books as I look towards the summer of '22. We will not be in big game hunting mode on defence."

On acquiring a third-line centre:

"I'd love to have a third-line centre that can chip in 10-15 goals, get 30-40 points, kill a penalty and be a plus player who plays with speed, plays with energy and can get in on the forecheck but that's fantasy hockey material. I got a cap. That comes back to the question asked before about trading the first-round pick. I'm hoping that Ryan McLeod, Evan Bouchard, (Philip) Broberg, (Dylan) Holloway, (Raphael) Lavoie and some of these players over the next two or three years grow into these things. I've got some priorities.
Certainly, a third-line centre would be a priority but we'd love to add a top-six forward. We certainly have talked about a third-line centre. We've talked about signing some defencemen here. If I do a buyout, it'll free up some money and I know how much money I've got but I don't know what some of these players are going to cost. You sign somebody and take that money off your board and see what you got left. Ultimately, as I whittle my way through, we'll do the best that we can to try to get somebody here that can play in the third-line centre spot."

On being satisfied with entering the season without filling certain needs and spending to the full salary cap:

"We're going to be in LTI (Long-Term Injury). Klefbom's going to be on Long Term Injury. You've got to run your team a little bit different, in my opinion, when you're going into LTI. Because we're going to be in LTI, I see us trying to spend as much money as we can in the off-season and try to have some way to have a cushion built in on opening day. If you're in LTI, you do not accrue cap space. If you are not in LTI, you accrue cap space. In LTI, one dollar is worth one dollar at the Trade Deadline. If you're not in LTI, one dollar might be worth somewhere between three to four times the value. With Klef being on LTI, it has to affect, a little bit, the way I think."

On losing Klefbom and Larsson and how that impacts Holland's off-season plans:

"You make a new plan."

On Zach Hyman and whether the preference would be a seven- or eight-year deal:

"First off, I think Zach Hyman has to make his decision. I think it all depends on numbers. By next Wednesday, if all of a sudden, we get the information that he'd like to sign with us and I talk to Toronto and (Leafs General Manager) Kyle (Dubas) and ask what's the cost? I think we're a long way away from that but those are certainly all the things I have to go through in making decisions."