Report Reveals SURPRISING Oilers Trade Update....

Jake Walman has been a healthy scratch in five of the Oilers' last seven games. He is 30 years old and he is one month into a seven-year $49 million contract. In the games he sat, the Oilers went 6-1-0. A trade is now being talked about and three teams keep coming up. The problem is he has a no-move clause and Edmonton is $0 in cap space. So who is going to take on Jake Walman's contract and what does Edmonton have to pay to move him out? Our Oilers Digest team has him at 0 goals, 1 assist, and a minus 8 so far this season. He plays under 15 minutes a night when he dresses, and Evan Bouchard plays 25-38. Ryan Shea is up to 23-07 a night in the top 4 spot Walman was brought in for. Behind them, Matthias Ekholm plays 21-09 and Connor Murphy plays 20-59. Those are Edmonton's four defensemen with the most minutes, and Wallman is not one of them. That is a big drop from where he was. I mean, in 2025, one Oilers writer called him the best defenseman during their Stanley Cup Finals run. Last season was already a step down, 20 points and a minus 17, the worst on the team. The Oilers, meanwhile, are 14-3-3, and they went 6-2-3 in the games he played. Nothing is broken in Edmonton, just one contract is out of place. Edmonton gave San Jose a conditional first-round pick, Karl Berglund, to get him in 2025, and then signed him to a seven-year deal. Edmonton paid a first-round pick to get him, and now they're looking to pay a pick to move him out. The contract is where the trade gets hard, though. Wallman has a full no-movement clause. According to the Planner's cap sheet, it holds for the first four years and drops to a modified no-trade for the last three. That means Edmonton can't send him anywhere. He has to say yes, and if he's not playing, I'm sure he will waive that clause. He is owed $7 million a year through the 2032-33 season. After this one, that is six more years and $42 million. A $7 million cap hit is 6.7% of the team's cap. It stays at that size every year no matter what. It doesn't matter if they sit him for the next seven years. They are still going to have to pay this guy $7 million a season. A team taking him on is not just renting a defenseman, they just signed him now for six more seasons after this one. Think about what he would be saying yes to. Edmonton is 4-3-3, Chicago is 4-13-1, Philadelphia is 5-10-6, and Vancouver is 3-16-1. Not one of the three teams on this list is a contending team. Wallman will be waiving a no-move clause to go to a worse team. The other problem is money. Edmonton has $0 in cap space per SportTrak. So any team that comes in on this deal has to do three things. Take on his $7 million a year contract, Wellman has to approve this deal, and Edmonton has to pay to make it work. Edmonton can pay in picks its own first rounders in 2028, 29, and 20, 30, and a 20, 27 second. The 2027 1st and 2028 2nd are already in Chicago. Edmonton has done this before. In June of 2025, it traded Evander Kane to Vancouver and got a 4th round pick back. Kane's $5.125 million cap hit had 1 year left, and Edmonton kept none of it. That is the whole difference. Wellman's contract has 6 years left after this one, not 1. Years is what a team charges. If you're dumping the cap hit of 1 year, that costs nothing. But you're dumping a cap hit of 6 years in this deal, so that means Edmonton's going to have to fork up some picks. Edmonton has a second tool, salary retention. A team can keep up to 50% of a traded player's cap hit, and Edmonton has all three of its retention spots open. Keep half of Wellman and the other team takes $3.5 million a year instead of $7 million. The catch is that that other $3.5 million will be on Edmonton's cap sheet for six more seasons. So retention clears half the room, but not all of it, and Edmonton would have to pay in smaller picks and not big ones by doing a retention deal. So each of these three teams have two ways of doing it. Edmonton either keeps half of the salary or it keeps none. Start with Chicago, where the cap math is the problem. The Blackhawks are 4-13-1 with 9 points through 18 games. Wellman would help their blue line, but a team that's 4-13-1 is not buying a 30-year-old defenseman for seven more seasons. The kids are already there. Artem Leshchenov, Sam Renzel, and Kevin Korchinski are all on Chicago's roster. Chicago has $909,000 in cap space per SportTrak. Walman costs $7 million, so Chicago has to send at least $6.1 million back. Ian Cole at $4 million and Arvid Söderblom at $2.75 million. Both expire after this season. So if you send those guys back in this deal, it would make Chicago fit under the cap in this, and the cap would work for Edmonton as well. If Edmonton keeps half, Chicago only has to send back $2.6 million, and Cole alone covers it. Chicago has been here before. It still carries $2.5 million a year of retained salary from the Seth Jones trade for four more years. It also holds two first-round picks and two second-round picks in 2027, so it does not need picks. It needs a reason. Chicago is going to want to be paid for taking on a player for seven seasons. My number is a second-round pick, and Edmonton gets two expiring contracts back. Walman holds the clause here, and a 4-13-1 team is a hard sell, but playing with Connor McDavid maybe makes it a little bit easier. Philadelphia is the cleaner fit. The Flyers are 5-10-6 with 16 points through 21 games. Philadelphia has $13 million in cap space per Sportrack, so it can take on Walman with nothing back. That is the cleanest of the moves because they can just send Walman there and they don't have to send any players back to Edmonton in this deal. They can just take picks. Their defense already has Travis Sanheim at $6.25 million and Jamie Drysdale at $6.5 million. Cam York is at $5.15 million, so the top of that blue line is already paid. Walman would be a fourth big contract on the blue line, not a rescue. The years are not the problem for the cap, Philadelphia has about $85 million committed for 27-28, so $7 million more still fits. Philly holds two first round picks in 2027, its own and Toronto's, and Toronto's is conditional. They don't need Edmonton's picks, so the price is about the years. My prediction is a 2027 second and a prospect with an Edmonton first being the fallback. If Edmonton keeps half of the salary, then it just falls to a second on its own. The last team has the most room, but has the worst record also. The Vancouver Canucks are 3-16-1 with 7 points through 20 games last in the Pacific Division. Vancouver has $15 million in cap space per Spotrac. If they take on Wallman's contract, they still have $8.9 million left this season. The Hockey Writers argues a rebuild is the perfect time to take on a contract for picks and prospects. Vancouver has been collecting picks with second-rounders from Dallas, San Jose, and Columbus. It also has Quinn Hughes' new deal coming at $9.39 million from 27-28, and still has about $71 million committed that year. Vancouver has done this with Edmonton before. It is the team that took Kane. But Vancouver already pays Philip Hassan $7.25 million and Brock Boeser $7.25 million for six years, both with no move clauses. That is two contracts like Wallman's on a 3-16-1 team. Vancouver keeps its own 2027 first this year in a lottery year for them, so the price has to come from Edmonton. My number is an Edmonton first round pick to send Wallman here to Vancouver to eat his cap, and if Edmonton does retain 50%, then that pick would probably drop down to a second and a prospect. The Hockey Writers' pitch to Wallman is that he would get consecutive minutes here, and he would play every night. Edmonton doesn't have to move him this week, and there's good reasons that they won't. The Oilers are 14-3-3 with him scratched or not, so nothing is forcing a decision. A coach scratching this player five times in seven games is a coach telling Wallman exactly where he sits, and that is the leverage for a trade only if Wallman agrees to leave. The trade deadline is the real date because Edmonton and contending teams are going to be squeezed for cap, and right now they have zero dollars, they have no moves to make at the deadline, so trading Wallman away would give them that extra cap space that they need to add the right player to their roster. The harder part is the price rising. A scratch player with six years left costs more and more every week that he sits out because his play is the only thing that can make a team want him. If he plays well in games, his price will drop. If he sits, then Edmonton's price will go up. And obviously, Edmonton needs two yeses in this, a yes from Wallman and the yes from the other team. Kane costs Edmonton nothing because he had only one year left. Wallman costs a pick because he has six left. That is why Edmonton would also look at Chicago, Philadelphia, and Vancouver in the same week and take the cheapest price that Wallman could get. Put three side-by-side, Chicago has $0.9 million in cap space and Philadelphia has $13 million. Vancouver has the most room at $15.9 million. Chicago has to send back $6.1 million back. Philadelphia and Vancouver said nothing. On price, Chicago asks for a second and gives back two expiring contracts. Philadelphia asks for a second and a prospect, and Vancouver asks for a first. On the standings, Philadelphia is 5-10-6, Chicago is 4-13-1, and Vancouver is 3-16-1. Philadelphia wins the cap, they win the price, and win the best record, so that's three things, and that's why they're first in my rankings on where Wallman will go. So here's how I rank the three. Philadelphia is first because they have the cap room, and they could be a team that gets to the playoffs as soon as next season. Chicago's second because it only works if the era can send players back in this deal. Vancouver last, they do have the most room, but Edmonton is going to be wary to give up that first round pick because they're going to want to trade it for somebody else at the deadline. And none of this happens unless Jake Wallman says yes, and the clause is the story here. Edmonton is 4-3-3, so they're not in a rush to make this trade, so we'll have to look in again closer at the deadline to see if this deal is going to happen. Which team do you think Wallman is most likely to say yes to, Philadelphia, Chicago, or Vancouver? Let me know in the comments. Whoever it is, the price will be picks, and Edmonton has the picks to pay. And this has been another episode of NHL Digest. If you're enjoying the video, let's see your gram below. Hit that subscribe button. It's completely free to do so.