The Edmonton Oilers are a glitchy piece of legacy software. On the front end, they’re beautiful—a high-speed, high-bandwidth offensive engine powered by two of the most sophisticated processors ever to hit the ice. But open the hood and you’ll find a cooling system that’s been screaming for help since 2015. The blue line is leaking. The right side, specifically, is a bottleneck that threatens to crash the entire system every time the pressure spikes.

Management is in its usual "emergency patch" mode. They’re scouring the market for a Right-Shot Defenseman (RHD) because, apparently, playing defense is a specialized skill they forgot to budget for during the build phase. They don’t just need a body; they need a component that won't overheat under the bright lights of a deep playoff run.

Here are the three modules they’re currently eyeing, and the exorbitant subscription fees they’ll likely have to pay to get them.

First up is Rasmus Andersson. If the Calgary Flames are the rival tech giant across the street, Andersson is their most valuable proprietary tech. He’s 28. He’s mobile. He plays twenty-four minutes a night without his metrics falling off a cliff. For the Oilers, he’s the dream upgrade—a high-end GPU that would actually allow their stars to stop backchecking for five seconds.

The friction here isn't just the salary cap; it’s the "Battle of Alberta" tax. Calgary’s front office would rather set their building on fire than help Edmonton win a trophy. To get Andersson, the Oilers would have to cough up the kind of package that makes GMs lose sleep: multiple first-rounders and probably a blue-chip prospect like Beau Akey. It’s a classic "buy high" scenario. Edmonton is desperate, and Calgary knows it. They’ll keep the Oilers on hold until the price becomes ruinous.

Then there’s David Savard in Montreal. If Andersson is a sleek new MacBook, Savard is a ruggedized ThinkPad from 2012. He’s heavy. He’s slow. He looks like he’s made of recycled industrial parts. But he blocks shots like it’s a religious calling. Savard is the "safe mode" option. He’s 34 and carries a $3.5 million cap hit, which is almost manageable if you squint hard enough at Edmonton’s balance sheet.

The trade-off is obvious. You’re trading for a player whose expiration date is visible from space. He’s a short-term fix for a systemic problem. He’ll eat minutes and clear the crease, sure, but he won’t help with the Oilers' transition game. In a league that’s getting faster every year, Savard is a 3G tower in a 5G world. He’ll keep you connected, but don’t expect him to handle the heavy lifting when the pace turns frantic in May.

Finally, we have Artem Zub. He’s the stealth option out of Ottawa. Zub is the kind of player fans barely notice until he’s gone—a quiet, efficient defensive specialist who doesn't chase highlights. He’s the clean code of defensemen. He makes the right read, stops the cycle, and moves the puck to someone more famous. He’s signed through 2027 at $4.6 million, which gives him the kind of cost-certainty that GMs drool over.

The problem? Ottawa isn’t exactly a charity. They’re a team perpetually "five minutes away" from being relevant, and trading away their most stable defender doesn't fit the roadmap. Moving Zub would require the Oilers to overpay for a player who doesn’t even have a flashy stat line. It’s the kind of move that looks boring on a spreadsheet but costs a fortune in draft capital.

The Oilers are currently trapped in the "Sunk Cost" phase of their development cycle. They’ve invested everything into their star forwards, leaving the rest of the roster to be filled with discount components and aging hardware. Now, they’re forced to shop in a seller's market with a depleted wallet and a ticking clock.

It’s the same old story in Northern Alberta. You can have the fastest processor in the world, but it doesn't mean much if the motherboard is held together with duct tape and wishful thinking.

The real question isn't which of these three they’ll overpay for. It’s how long they think they can keep the fans paying for a product that clearly wasn't finished before it launched.