Oilers Not in on Kaberle. But Who Is?

TSN and a number of hockey insiders are reporting that a handful of teams have expressed interest in Tomas Kaberle of the Toronto Maple Leafs. One comment involves a team calling Brian Burke and asking him to name his price.

Is Edmonton in on this sudden, somewhat surprising interest in Kaberle? Despite Kaberle's name being thrown around at the time Lowe was looking to trade Chris Pronger, the answer is a resounding no -- for many reasons.

Despite the fact that Burke and those involved in management may still be at odds and a trade is less likely involving our respective GM's than maybe any other teams, the Oilers are not in the need for a defensemen of Kaberle's ilk like they were when trying to move Pronger. Visnovsky, Souray, Grebeshkov and Gilbert were hardly specks on the Oilers radar at that time and there seems to be no reason to add another $4.25 million dollar cap hit to the team on defense.

A fine d-man in his own right, Kaberle had missed a number of games last year due to injury and at his best put up 67 points in one year. While that outweighs the production of our d-core with the exception of Visnovsky who was able to match that point production with 67 in 2005/2006 or Souray who came close in Montreal with 64 points in 2006/2007; it isn't something the Oilers feel would improve the team.

Rumours are abound at this years draft and starting to really heat up, but Kaberle and the Oilers is not something fans should expect to see or frankly even consider.

Teams to think about might be Florida to replace Jay Bouwmeester and have a fairly good pick in this years draft to use as bait, Anahiem who we know plans to move Pronger at some point, and Atlanta who could use a puck moving defenceman like Kaberle at a respectable cap hit. Only time will tell, but expect a lot of movement, which seems to be obvious is now going to overshadow the draft itself.