Oilers Impose Deadline on Heatley and the Senators

The Oilers have sat patiently and waited. They've endured criticism, they've been the butt of league wide fans jokes that "nobody wants to play in Edmonton", and they've held off on making other significant improvements while Dany Heatley decides where he wants to play hockey next season.

But as is now being reported by Chris Stevenson of the Edmonton Sun, "an NHL source indicated yesterday the Oilers' patience is wearing thin to have Heatley agree to a deal and they could give up and move on perhaps as early as today. At this point, the Oilers appear to be the only viable trade option. With Edmonton out of the picture, returning to Ottawa and an ugly reception from fans could be the Heatley camp's only option."

For readers of this site, assuming the poll results on what fans would like to see the Oilers do in respsect to Dany Heatley suggest, any sort of deadline by the Oilers would be considered good news and a sign that the Oilers might finally be fed up with this whole strange and somewhat ugly situation.

News broke yesterday that more teams were beginning to ask questions about Heatley and what it might take to pluck him from the Senators. The Oilers offer was and is still the only tabled offer; but Minnesota, San Jose and possibly even Columbus were starting to show some interest.

Oilers GM Steve Tambellini knows that should this information be true, it doesn't bode well for Edmonton as Healtey was really just waiting to see if another offer, a more attractive offer, was out there for him to accept. Rumblings also suggest that Tambellini may have other trade options available for viable top line left wingers and if so, the longer this drags out, the more it negatively affects his ability to make a necessary move in that direction if need be. It ionly makes sense now that the Oilers would like an answer.

Should this deadline be accurate, fans can only expect that quickly this either removes Edmonton from the running or allows Heatley to become an Oiler.