Trade deadline goes by quietly for the Oilers

Edmonton Oilers News (February 24th 2011) "Trade deadline goes by quietly for the Oilers"

Despite being a self-announced rebuilding team, and thus arguably a 'seller', the Oilers were unexpectedly inactive at the deadline. General manager Morgan Kowalski made a brief statement to address their plans, lack of moves and season so far:

"We have certainly not lost scope of the overarching philosophy of the season, which is - and has been all along - to rebuild this team to be truly competitive in the years to come. We are fortunate to be ahead of schedule, as it seems, with our team's performances this year. If we do make the playoffs, it will not alter our strategy, but we will obviously seize the chance to get as far as possible. Still, we were not willing to add any players that would not fit the long term plan for the sake of a cup run either. We did make concerted efforts to bring in some young players, but the deals fell through for a variety of reasons. In addition, there were offers for some of our players that were flat out rejected and some that simply were not good enough at the moment. The latter type are deals we may revisit at the draft. Right now I am pleased with the amount of options we have, but we will have to make some choices before July 1st. Negotiations with certain players will start immediately, and some will have to wait until the season has ended."

Edmonton's main pending free agents are:
Anton Axelsson (W), Taylor Chorney (D) Jeff Deslauriers (G) Ryan O'Marra (W/C) all RFA
Ethan Moreau (W) UFA