{"id":79966,"date":"2020-07-11T19:54:32","date_gmt":"2020-07-11T23:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/?p=79966"},"modified":"2020-07-11T19:54:32","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T23:54:32","slug":"edmonton-oilers-mike-green-opts-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/07\/11\/edmonton-oilers-mike-green-opts-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton Oilers Mike Green Opts-Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/oilers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a> will return to the ice without veteran defender <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=greenmi03,greenmi02&amp;search=Mike+Green&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Green<\/a><\/strong>. The 34-year-old informed the team of his decision as uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 continues to exist in the world. Edmonton was chosen as one of the league&#8217;s bubble cities for its restart but Green indicated the health of his family is behind the move. The team announced the decision early Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Mike Green has informed <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Oilers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Oilers<\/a> President of Hockey Operations &amp; General Manager Ken Holland that he will be opting out of the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NHL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@NHL<\/a>&#39;s 2020 Return To Play Program. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dV241FVuyz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/dV241FVuyz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EdmontonOilers\/status\/1282087235957870592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 11, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Oilers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=greenmi03,greenmi02&amp;search=Mike+Green&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Green<\/a> Opts-Out of NHL Restart<\/h2>\n<p>Green played in only two games in 2019-20 for Edmonton before the league ceased play in the spring. He <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/2020\/02\/24\/detroit-red-wings-trade-mike-green\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">joined<\/a> the team via trade with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/red-wings\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Detroit Red Wings<\/a> in late February. He was traded to Edmonton by Detroit for<strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/brodzky01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyle Brodziak<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and Edmonton&#8217;s 4th round (conditional) pick in 2020 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n<p>Green had three goals and 11 points in 48 games with the Red Wings while averaging 21:04 of ice time per contest.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/capitals\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Washington Capitals<\/a> originally selected Green in the first round of the 2004 Draft. He played with Washington for 10 years before signing a contract with Detroit in 2015. Green has 150 goals and 501 points in 880 games. His best season came in 2008-09 when he scored a career-high 31 goals and 73 points in 68 games. He has also been a fine puck possession defender with a career 52.6 Corsi For but he has started to decline in his 30&#8217;s with below-average numbers for the past several seasons. It didn&#8217;t help that Green was on a fading Detroit team that has failed to accumulate even 80 points since a 93-point campaign in 2015-16.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>Green was scheduled to reach free agency this season where he will try to convince a team he can still contribute as he moves into his mid-30&#8217;s. He hasn&#8217;t been a good player for several years but a contender might sign him as a spare veteran. His spot will go to one of Edmonton&#8217;s existing defensive options.<\/p>\n<p>Green is also the third player to opt-out so far. Both <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/baertsv01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sven Baertschi<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/hamontr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Travis Hamonic<\/a><\/strong> will stay home as well. More players could make the same decision in the coming days despite efforts to maintain safe environments.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"OVUOzKEOTxR8gZVCMUDpZQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1208963788\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'OVUOzKEOTxR8gZVCMUDpZQ',sig:'m9xs1xWTLdK8as6AryRPSjCQso6tfU1FOUyuBSWzghw=',w:'594px',h:'435px',items:'1208963788',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Edmonton Oilers will return to the ice without veteran defender Mike Green. The 34-year-old informed the team of his decision as uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 continues to exist in the world. Edmonton was chosen as one of the league&#8217;s bubble cities for its restart but Green indicated the health of his family is behind the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":79978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,4547,34,4548],"tags":[138,755],"class_list":["post-79966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oilers","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-mike-green"],"modified_by":"William Grigsby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}