Not only the Edmonton Oilers get themselves out of a pickle by bringing in a useful middle six winger when they signed unrestricted free agent Andrew Mangiapane on July 1, the Oilers also beat out Canadian rival Toronto for the player.
This is intriguing news in a hockey-mad nation where hardly a month goes by without a Toronto hockey commentator for blogger agitating for Oilers star Connor McDavid to sign with the Leafs.
But this is on Mangiapane, news from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, hockey’s most credible insider (who does an admirable ob of reporting on the NHL in a fair, measured and unbalanced manner even as he’s based in Toronto), Friedman’s report from his 32 Thoughts podcast that two teams hot after Mangianpane in free agency were Toronto and Edmonton, with Mangiapane choosing the Oilers over the Leafs.
How could such a thing ever happen?
Said Friedman, “Now, one of the things that’s kind of gone on here is that the Leafs have indicated that I think one of the reasons the Leafs didn’t get Mangiapane was because they kind of indicated we have to move some bodies out. And Mangiapane didn’t want to wait.”
Friedman added, “Edmonton’s deal was right there and he took it. And also it doesn’t hurt when you’re going to be playing with (Edmonton centre) Leon Draisaitl, right? It’s going to make a lot of guys look good.”
Mangiapane
My take
1. If I have this right, Friedman is suggesting here that Toronto had to move out players and free up cap space before they could sign another forward. Toronto has about $5 million in cap space, about what Edmonton had when the Oilers signed Mangiapane so I’m not sure I follow that.
But perhaps the notion of playing with Draisaitl was more of the deciding factor than cap space.
2. Mangiapane is also familiar with playing in Alberta, having been a top winger on the Calgary Flames, where he played under Brad Treliving, now the Toronto GM.
Mangiapane is from Toronto and played major junior in nearby Barrie, but once some folks get a taste of Western Canada, they come to love it.
That’s not the case with every eastern Canadian who move out here. From my experience, having worked in an Edmonton newsroom full of eastern Canadians, many of them can’t wait to get back to their home provinces. But about half of them come to love the increased freedom and opportunity that Alberta offers, not to mention the easy livability of Alberta cities, affordable housing prices, lower provincial tax and lack of sales tax.
3. The timing of the Mangiapane signing is also interesting because it’s rumoured that the Oilers were after a trade for Tampa prospect Isaac Howard leading up to July 1, with many in the NHL community thinking that a deal was done between Edmonton and Tampa.
But not to be.
Perhaps after losing out on Howard, a smaller, scoring winger, the Oilers shifted gears and made acquiring smaller scoring winger Mangiapane more of a focus.
The Oilers had previously traded out yet another smaller scoring winger in Viktor Arvidsson, and needed to fill his spot on the roster. With the Howard deal falling through, Edmonton might have been in a pickle if Mangiapane hadn’t signed here.
Fortunately, the skilled, veteran two-way winger chose Edmonton over Toronto, reportedly with calls for Oilers aces McDavid and Draisaitl assisting in persuading him to come here.
At the Cult of Hockey
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