TALKING POINTS: Holland addresses the media at the midway mark

EDMONTON, AB - Oilers President of Hockey Operations & General Manager Ken Holland held a media availability Thursday to discuss a variety of topics.
Holland provided his assessment of the Oilers campaign, explained the challenges of the looming NHL Trade Deadline and also gave insight on contract talks with players such as Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Tyson Barrie.
Read the main talking points of Holland's media availability below or watch the interview in its entirety.

On the willingness to move draft picks for potential Trade Deadline acquisitions:

"I look at our team this year versus last year and I believe we're deeper this year than we were last year. That part was by design. We've got a team of 29, so we went out and signed lots of veteran NHL players. Last year I don't think we were quite as deep. We're deeper on defence this year than we were a year ago. We've got 16 or 17 NHL forwards that are on our 29-man list.
"I'm not looking for depth. Last year I made a couple of moves for depth and tried to swing at the fence a little bit on (Andreas) Athanasiou. I don't think we need depth. I feel good about our depth. If there's a player out there that we think can go into our lineup and have an impact more than depth, probably that would be something I look at."

On the progress being made over contract talks with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins:

"The only progress for me would be if you're having a press conference. I guess the answer to the progress part is you're either talking or announcing a deal. I don't have a deal to announce. I have been in contact with his agent Rick Valette. When you look around the League with the pandemic, the flat cap appears it's going to be flat for the next, if I'm not mistaken Gary Bettman said recently it's going to be flat for the next three to four years.
"It's trying to find a solution that works for the player and also makes good sense for the team. It's a different and sort of new marketplace. That's all added up to the slowness of the market. In Ryan's case, I would like to have him part of our team going forward but a deal has to make sense for both sides. There's an unknown here because we've never been here with a flat cap looking forward for the next few years and how it's going to affect the decisions that everybody makes in this League."

Update on the status of Oscar Klefbom:

"He's going to have surgery in March. There is a surgery date booked and it's March 20th or 25th, or somewhere in that timeframe in Cleveland."

On making deals work salary cap-wise at the Deadline:

"We're in LTI (Long-Term Injury). When a team is in Long-Term Injury, we were in Long-Term Injury on opening day when we put Klefbom on Long-Term Injury, we're in Long-Term Injury the entire year. When you go into Long-Term Injury, you in effect set your cap that day. Then, we don't accrue any space. If you're not in Long-Term Injury, you can accrue space.
"So, let's say you're a million dollars under the cap and you're not in long-Term Injury. Over an 82-game season, the numbers are going to be different a little bit because it's a 56-game schedule, but over an 82-game schedule, it's probably four-to-one. One million becomes a four million-dollar player. When you're in LTI, that million dollars just continues to be one million dollars from the start of the season until you get to the Trade Deadline. You don't accrue any space. We are dollar-in, dollar-out from the first day of the season until the last day of the season."

On the difficulty of making deals this Trade Deadline:

"I think it's going to be difficult. When we got the rules, you knew that you could carry anywhere from 20 to 23 players on your roster. We decided to go with 23. A taxi squad had to be a minimum of four to a maximum of six. We went with six. We decided to basically have 29 players so that when we got to the Trade Deadline - we knew there was a quarantine in January, but nobody knew the situation in March, April or May - you had to project that there is a possibility the quarantine would still be in place. That's why we carried 29 people. That's the reason why we picked up (goaltender) Alex Stalock. We called up (defenceman) Theodor Lennstrom. We're trying to stay at 29 so that we don't need depth and we have the depth built-in.
"If I do something at the Trade Deadline, it won't be for depth. We've got depth. It would be to try to bring in a player that's going to have a bigger impact on the team. When you go that route, it brings you back around to the LTI dollar-in, dollar-out. Is it going to be difficult to do a deal? Much, much more difficult than in the past."

On contract discussions with Tyson Barrie:

"To this point in time, we're playing our way into the playoffs and I haven't reached out. I haven't really reached out to anybody right now but just am sort of assessing our team. Tyson got off to a bit of a slow start but has played really, really good. It looks like he's been a really good fit to our team.
"At some point in time, I'll obviously talk to his agent about what Tyson is thinking. To this point in time, I want to see how it all fits. Certainly, we're happy here over the last 19 games. We've played our way into a good spot. If our team looks like they're going to miss the playoffs, I'd probably have to be under more pressure to do something. The No. 1 goal is to try to qualify for the playoffs. That's the No. 1 goal for me and for the Edmonton Oilers this season."