Earlier in the week, I kicked off my offseason series taking a look at the five questions that will define this summer for the Edmonton Oilers.

The first order of business is to address their coaching situation, but after that, general manager Stan Bowman has to turn his attention to their roster.

It is undoubtedly the most important offseason of the Connor McDavid-era, and to make it a success, they need to make some significant additions to their roster, and in order to do that, they must create additional cap space.

So my second defining question: how can they create additional cap space?

There are two very obvious candidates: Darnell Nurse and Tristan Jarry, but each one comes with a very unique set of roadblocks.

Let’s start with Nurse, whose $9.25 million cap hit is going to be very tough to get off the books.

I can’t see a contending team touching it, but maybe the Oilers could find an up and coming team with a lot of cap space that would be willing to bring him in as a minute-eating veteran who could ease some pressure on their young players.

Think of teams like the San Jose Sharks, Chicago Blackhawks, or maybe even the Ottawa Senators. I am curious if teams like Buffalo or Detroit would have interest as well, considering the Sabres were trying to make their blue line bigger at the deadline and the Red Wings are reportedly in the market to add a veteran to their back end.

If you could get one of those teams interested, the Oilers would almost certainly need to hope that they are willing to just take Nurse’s contract for nothing because if the Oilers find........

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