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Signature Summer Chiarelli Trade 1

January 16, 2018, 6:19 PM ET [72 Comments]
Matt Henderson
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
It’s the bye week for Edmonton and there isn’t much going on but to watch other teams play hockey. Since most NHL teams are, indeed, better than Edmonton, it can make for a frustrating week. Edmonton is stuck at 46GP and all the team can do is watch while Minnesota, Dallas, San Jose, and Colorado keep making steps towards the finish line.

So, while the Oilers are already 10 points back of a playoff spot with 5 teams between them and that final post-season position, it’s time to look at how we got here.

I think there are 3 moves, made in successive summers, that robbed Edmonton of a future that could have been dynastic. It starts with Peter Chiarelli’s first real move as General Manager of the team. No, not drafting Connor McDavid. Anyone could have drafted the best Jr player since Crosby. Chiarelli’s first chance to make his mark on the team, his opening move, was to trade the 16th overall pick and the 33rd overall pick to the New York Islanders in exchange for Griffin Reinhart.

From the second the trade was announced, it didn’t make sense. The 2015 draft was supposed to be one of the deepest in NHL history. And certainly it’s trending towards living up to that billing. Players that turned out to be available with that 16th pick are guys like: Connor, Eriksson-Ek, Boeser, Konecny, Beauvillier, and of course Barzal. I mention those names specifically, because all of them have more career NHL games played already than Griffin Reinhart.

It’s not that Griffin Reinhart was a poor player, though he was and that was obvious in June 2015. The most damning thing was that the Oilers were flush then, as they are now, with left-handed prospects and players on defense. We didn’t know at the time, but Chiarelli was in the process of adding to that because he was pursuing Andrej Sekera in free agency, who he signed shortly into the UFA period only days later.

Edmonton’s defense was stacked on the left side by September 2015 with Klefbom, Sekera, Nurse and Davidson. All of those players…as they are still doing today…blocked lesser prospects and players from getting ice time. It’s why Griffin Reinhart never stood a chance and it’s why Kris Russell has regularly played the right side when the others were healthy.

After months to evaluate and familiarize himself with the team, its prospects, and its needs, it is still perplexing to me that Peter Chiarelli traded the 16th and 33rd pick in the 2015 draft for a very poor LHD with known skating issues who had already been passed over in the Islanders organization.

At the time it was lauded as a bold move signifying that the Oilers were going to try to “Win Now” and if that means giving up on stockpiling young players then so be it. The problem is that it only works if the Oilers actually win and if the players that they get in return are helping them do that. Now we know only that the move signified to Garth Snow that there was a sucker at the table.

Mat Barzal was the player the Islanders chose with the Oiler pick in 2015. It is forever and always going to be Reinhart for Barzal. The 33rd pick was packaged with a 3rd rounder to move up to the 1st round where the Islanders took Anthony Beauvilier, who has played 100 NHL games already in his career. So this trade gave the Islanders 2/3 of their current 2nd line. The 3rd piece would come 2 summers later.

Mat Barzal is the current favorite to with the Calder Trophy as the top rookie in the NHL. His highlights are ridiculous because he is insanely creative and can skate like he’s alone on the ice despite carrying the puck through a packed neutral zone. Griffin Reinhart was exposed to the expansion draft last summer then exposed to waivers earlier this year. Unlike Brandon Davidson, the Oilers didn’t even bother trying to bring him home.

Griffin Reinhart cant skate, cant pass, has had his heart questioned at the professional level, has been passed over by all 31 teams. And, to make matters worse, Edmonton should have seen that all coming.

Opening move by General Manager Peter Chiarelli: Total Bust

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