{"id":509598,"date":"2026-03-02T14:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T14:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/509598\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T14:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T14:44:07","slug":"the-connor-mcdavid-reason-the-oilers-have-to-make-a-big-trade-by-fridays-nhl-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/509598\/","title":{"rendered":"The Connor McDavid reason the Oilers have to make a big trade by Friday’s NHL deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

A window can only stay open for so long.<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> have the best hockey player on the planet, Connor McDavid. They’ve yet to win the Stanley Cup with him, coming agonizingly close each of the past two seasons. And now with the NHL trade deadline looming on Friday, they’ve got another chance in front of them.<\/p>\n

ESPN’s Arda Ocal<\/a> summed it up in four words in a new article on Monday: “The clock is ticking.”<\/p>\n

Ocal was listing teams that should take “big swings” before Friday’s deadline, and the Oilers were atop the list.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Elias Pettersson breaks silence on Canucks benching before deadline<\/a><\/p>\n

It all has to do with McDavid.<\/p>\n

Before the season, this was due to be the superstar’s last season under contract with the Oilers.<\/p>\n

He eased concerns temporarily by signing a two-year contract extension that will take him through the end of the 2027-28 season.<\/p>\n

But that’s two years, not eight. That isn’t an infinite amount of time.<\/p>\n

If Edmonton doesn’t figure this out in that period of time, it seems likely McDavid would leave to chase a Stanley Cup elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The Oilers have firepower, but this season’s team needs to stop giving up goals.<\/p>\n

“The Oilers are bottom 11 in the league in shots faced per game, but have given up the most high danger-goals (55), despite giving up middle of the road high-danger chances,” Ocal writes. “A shutdown defender could help further prevent those chances coming through, which would certainly help.”<\/p>\n

If McDavid’s contract situation was different, maybe the Oilers could be more measured.<\/p>\n

But a contention window can close quickly. While Edmonton still has No. 97 on their team, the Oilers have to make the most of it.<\/p>\n

More NHL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A window can only stay open for so long. The Edmonton Oilers have the best hockey player on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-509598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}