Trade Deadline Looms Large for Edmonton Oilers

With just under four weeks remaining before the Mar. 4 trade deadline, the NHL's Edmonton Oilers are finding that what little leverage they may have had in deals is slowly drifting away.

Gone for the season is defenseman Lubomir Visnosky, which takes away a huge offensive threat on their back end. 

Now they have lost Denis Grebeshkov to a long term injury suffered in the Montreal game Wednesday which can take a month to heal. So down two of your best top four defensemen, in desperate need for a scoring left-wing forward or a clutch center, the question is: What do you do? 

The Oilers are not going to go anywhere in the playoffs, if they make it, with the team as it is now. The best position they can finish in the West is sixth, most likely it will be eighth that is not a recipe for success. 

So if I am management, Steve Tambilini and Kevin Lowe, I might need to throw my coach under the bus and prepare for next year. The quick fixes are not there this year and this team is not one or two players from the Stanley Cup final.   

So understanding this, I would trade away contract albatrosses, like Shawn Horcoff, Steve Staios, Ethan Moreau, and/or Fernando Pisani.  Try and get draft picks and prospects and let the chips fall where they may.

Of course, if the GM guts the team there is a chance the fans, already fairly restless, will turn on him to the extent that owner Daryl Katz will turf all of the hockey operations people.

But the other options are just as bad, the team built up the idea that they were contenders this year for the division championship. Coach Craig MacTavish and Kevin Lowe are two of the longest serving management team in the NHL. So they are already on a short leash with the fans.

Fan forums, call in radio shows, and blogs are for the most part looking to get rid of both.  So they can either look desperate, try and fix the situation with a stop gap or make the wiser, tougher decision of letting go of faint hopes and false dawns and settle in for another spring of watching others play hockey in the spring.