Connor McDavid: NHL superstar in making
Obviously when the first pick is going to be Connor McDavid, not just a can’t miss NHL player but a can’t miss NHL superstar, you really have to consider all options, all manners of keeping your team at the bottom of the standings. Even missing by one spot and finishing 29th is attractive, that would land Jack Eichel, who some analysts say is on a par with McDavid.
All of this is backdrop to the Oilers trading winger David Perron, 26, to the Pittsburgh Penguins Thursday, losing a player who is a proven NHL scorer. In return they get a first-round 2015 draft-pick and Rob Klinkhammer, 28, a journeyman who started the season with the Arizona Coyotes.
Klinkhammer has managed 20 NHL goals in 139 games. Last season Perron scored 28 goals and added 29 assists for 57 points, his best production ever. In 2013-14, like the rest of the Oilers, he’s fared poorly and had just 5 goals and 19 points in 38 games.
But he has 117 NHL goals and if the Oilers were gonna start winning this season then Perron, a former-first round pick of the St. Louis Blues, would have been a big help. Klinkhammer won’t do much to alter Edmonton’s current trajectory and obviously a draft pick won’t, either.
Oilers fighting not to lose McDavid
It all works out well for the Oil, they not only get the Pens first-round pick, which won’t come until the end of the round, but they lose an asset needed to win. ‘Keep playing hard boys, though we’ve taken away another tool.’ It’s a tool lost that makes their chances of beating a slump that has seen them lose 20 of 22 games all the more difficult.
The Oil are tied with the Carolina Hurricanes in the McDavid sweepstakes with 24 points, Caroline having played one less game, 37 to the Oils’ 38, which is to Edmonton’s advantage as the Hurricanes might win that game.
There are others in the mix, Arizona, the Buffalo Sabres, New Jersey Devils and Colorado Avalanche, but it really looks like it’s going to come down to Edmonton and Carolina. It’s comparable to the 1984 race of ineptitude between Pittsburgh and New Jersey that saw the Pens ‘win’ and finish last, selecting Lemieux. The Devils got Kirk Muller.
Oilers: eight seasons with no NHL playoffs
Edmonton hasn’t seen NHL playoffs since 2006 and the eight season without postseason play, the longest drought in the NHL right now (the Winnipeg Jets are a season behind, the Calgary Flames and Carolina three) wasn’t going to be broken this season, even with Perron.
So why not increase the odds of adding to an impressive list of entry draft selections that are a result of other inept seasons? Picks such as Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov, all taken first overall, and Jordan Eberle, Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse.
The lottery done at the end of the season means the last place team may not get that first-overall pick, but the odds of it changing is low and they can’t fall any farther than second. Some NHL fans may be getting tired of the Edmonton franchise’s ineptitude giving them high draft picks (even though they don’t seem to do much with them) but it’s a lock that it’s not as tiresome as missing playoff action has become to the Oilers’ faithful.
With the Perron trade, Edmonton GM Craig McTavish has found a way to help ensure playoff action for years to come. He did it without telling anyone to tank intentionally – he just found another way to achieve the same results.
