The man currently at the head of the Edmonton Oilers told media the reason his club didn’t make a move before the NHL trade deadline was simply because the deals weren’t good enough.
After the 1 p.m. deadline, interim general manager Keith Gretzky said they were having conversations with other teams, but the deals just didn’t pan out.
“We just felt there wasn’t anything there to make that move.”
Watch below: Monday’s NHL trade deadline saw a flurry of activity around the league but the Edmonton Oilers did not swing any deals. Kevin Karius has more.
Gretzky added that two of the big things the team was looking to achieve – add some character and get rid of a goaltender contact – they did before Monday.
The character came from forward Sam Gagner. The Oilers acquired the Oakville, Ont. native from the Vancouver Canucks on Feb. 16.
The day before, the Oilers traded goalie Cam Talbot to the Philadelphia Flyers for goaltender Anthony Stolarz.
When it came to the conversation around players on Monday, Gretzky said he was being firm with other teams in that he didn’t want a third or fourth-round draft pick. He wanted a player who could be slotted into the NHL right away, specifically looking to acquire a forward or to trade a forward for a forward.
LISTEN BELOW: Keith Gretzky addresses the media before sitting down with 630 CHED
But Gretzky isn’t surprised the team didn’t make any moves and said the players he has now is part of the reason they didn’t. They didn’t want to make a trade just for the sake of making a trade.
“The players that we have, we can still win some games here. We’re close, we’ve played well as of late and that put a little bit of a factor in it too.”
The Oilers are in Nashville to face the Predators Monday night. The Predators made a number of moves before the deadline Monday afternoon, so they may be down a few players.
Puck drops in Nashville at 6 p.m., 630 CHED will have live coverage starting with the Face-Off Show at 4:30.