The way the rumor mill has been churning during the last week, if I told you the Edmonton Oilers had traded a struggling right winger you probably would have assumed Nail Yakupov was on his way out of town. And you would be wrong. Instead, the Oilers dealt Mike Brown to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for a fourth-round pick on Monday night, causing a small ripple rather than the tidal wave some had expected.
Brown is about as vanilla as everyday NHL players get. Scoreless through eight games while averaging 5:49 of lackluster fourth-line play, he had limited scoring chances, fisticuffs, and oohs or ahhs. The arrival of bigger, tougher fourth-line options such as Luke Gazdic and Steve MacIntyre made him an expendable piece, and nobody will kick up much of a fuss over his departure. However, it's interesting to note that the return for Brown -- a fourth-round pick in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft -- is exactly the same price the Oilers paid to acquire him from the Toronto Maple Leafs last season.
Actually, the most interesting aspect of this trade might be the timing, as the Oilers forwards are currently a band of walking (or limping) wounded. Taylor Hall is slated to undergo an MRI to assess any structural damage to his left knee after being knocked out of action during Saturday's win over the Ottawa Senators, Ryan Smyth returned to Edmonton with Hall due to an undisclosed injury, and Jordan Eberle is questionable for tomorrow night's game against the Montreal Canadiens.
Add MacIntyre, Ryan Hamilton and Sam Gagner, who remains sidelined with a broken jaw, to the list of banged-up Oiler forwards and the decision to ship out an NHL-caliber forward is oddly timed, regardless of how limited his role is or how he's performed recently. Don't get me wrong, when the most notable aspect of a player is his mustache I'm all in favor of dealing him for anything you can get. Just thinking out loud here. However, Craig MacTavish was able to secure a decent return for a player with little actual value, and continues to show the ability to make trades that benefit the hockey club.
For the conspiracy theorists out there, another side effect of this move is that it reduces the Oilers' total number of contracts to 48. That could open up the possibility of MacTavish pulling the trigger on a widely-rumored Yakupov deal for a package of players. Of course, I'm not saying anything's imminent, you just have to look at the situation from each angle and that happens to be one of them. I'll delve into the Yakupov situation a little more tomorrow, but it's very intriguing and the Oilers aren't short on needs at the moment.
Speaking of the team as a whole, its current six-game road trip ends tomorrow night in Montreal and the conclusion can't come quickly enough. Devan Dubnyk stole two points against the Senators on Saturday, snapping the team's five-game winning streak and giving the Oilers something positive to write home about, but things are going from bad to worse from the faceoff dot to the trainer's table. Being outchanced or outplayed is one thing, but if injuries are going to prevent the team from icing something that resembles an NHL roster the season could effectively be over by the middle of next week.
That's short on positivity, but the reality is awfully bleak. Already down Gagner, Hall and Smyth, the Oilers are going to be in dire straits if Eberle can't go tomorrow night. With all these players filling up the infirmary one thing's for certain though, Yakupov won't be sitting in the press box against the Canadiens.
[email protected]
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»