A few days ago, arguably the best defenceman available at the NHL Trade Deadline was taken off the board when Chris Tanev was traded to the Dallas Stars. Plenty of contending teams interested in acquiring a defenceman were making calls on Tanev, and according to reports from Elliotte Friedman, the Oilers had an offer that got pretty far down the road.
According to Friedman, Tanev was interested in the possibility of a trade to the Oilers. However, it was the Flames organization that put a nix on the deal. It's believed that the player with term the Oilers offered was Cody Ceci, and the Flames weren't interested in taking his contract, even along with a first round pick.
Now that they clearly took a big swing with the offer for Tanev, the Oilers will likely pivot to look at making another impactful addition on defence. They've been linked to defenceman like Sean Walker and Alexandre Carrier, but neither of whom are as good as Tanev. Maybe now that they've missed on the best defenceman available, the Oilers go back to looking for a forward. Honestly, the Oilers could go in nearly any direction at this deadline and it wouldn't be surprising - they're interested in making the best addition possible to give this team the extra push needed for the Stanley Cup.