The Edmonton Oilers keep popping up in Kirby Dach talk, and Elliotte Friedman says the reason is simple. They have no right-shot centres.
"That's why you hear a lot of Kirby Dach," Friedman said, which is insider shorthand for a name that isn't going away.
The timing is awkward. The Oilers open their season tonight against Vancouver, and the hole Friedman described is still sitting there.
A team heading into opening night without a single right-shot centre has a roster problem, and a 4-0-0 preseason doesn't paper over it.
The Oilers also took a long look at Shane Wright, according to Friedman, but it didn't get to the finish line.
Friedman said he would have liked to see that fit. The Oilers now have to live with the version where it didn't.
It's a toolbox where every wrench turns the same direction. You can still build plenty, but some jobs take longer than they should.
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Oilers' biggest roster weakness could lead to Kirby Dach trade
Is Dach the fix, or just the name with the easiest connection? Friedman flagged his history with Stan Bowman, and in trade chatter, that kind of link is never a throwaway line.
Any move has to work around the $37,000,000 the Oilers already commit to Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard.
The chatter surfaced Tuesday, the same day Mike Babcock said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins got hurt in practice. The approximate timeline on that one is two weeks.
Friedman's comments didn't connect the two. Still, losing a body before the opener makes every gap on the depth chart look bigger.
Babcock coaches his first regular-season game since the Oilers hired him in June, and per Friedman, there's still no right-shot centre on his lineup card.
His last look at that group came in a 4-1 win over Calgary last Saturday, and the result didn't change who takes the right-side draws.
After tonight's home date, the Oilers visit Vancouver on Thursday and host Seattle on Saturday.
The gap is public now. Whether Bowman fills it with Dach, somebody else, or nobody at all is the question that follows the Oilers onto the ice tonight.
Should the Oilers go all in on Kirby Dach to fix their right-shot centre problem?
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