Usually, you need to wait until much closer to the NHL trade deadline to see a deal of this consequence, but the Edmonton Oilers' decision to trade winger David Perron to the Pittsburgh Penguins Friday for a first-round draft choice and centre Rob Klinkhammer sends important messages to both organizations.
For Pittsburgh, Perron's acquisition fills the need for a top-six forward, a natural winger, to play with one of their top two centres, Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin. The Penguins have been a front-line forward short for a long time now, and with Patric Hornqvist (leg injury) out indefinitely and Pascal Dupuis (blood clot) perhaps done for good, that left just too much weight on the shoulders of the two centremen.
Perron is an intriguing commodity – a 28-goal scorer last season who has recovered from concussions that plagued him earlier in his career. He was having a difficult time finding a place in the Oilers' lineup this season, and Teddy Purcell had taken his spot on the team's top power-play unit along with the usual first-line guys. It is one reason Perron had managed just the five goals so far, on pace for a career low. That should change in a hurry, no matter where he happens to start Saturday versus Montreal – either on Crosby's line or Malkin's.
In Perron's place, the Oilers reinserted Benoît Pouliot, back in the lineup after a six-week recovery from a broken foot. Pouliot was scheduled to play alongside a new centre, Derek Roy, acquired this past week from the Nashville Predators.
The Oilers are shuffling the deck as the season nears the midpoint. In the next few days, rookie centre Leon Draisaitl will be returned to junior – he may end up getting traded from Prince Albert to Kelowna, a team with Memorial Cup aspirations.
Playing with his peers again can only enhance Draisaitl's development, and keep him away from the doom and gloom around the Oilers, who are destined to finish near the bottom of the NHL standings again. With another year of growth under his belt, Draisaitl might be readier to compete at the NHL level next fall, though in recent games, he's shown some of the skill that led the Oilers to draft him third overall a year ago.
Taking Perron out of the mix might set the Oilers back in the short term, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. They are lagging so far back in the standings, ahead of only the Carolina Hurricanes, that they would have to be extremely unlucky not to land one of the top two picks – Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel – in the 2015 NHL entry draft.
The first-rounder acquired from Pittsburgh is going to be much lower, and to get any value from it, the Oilers' managers will have to be sharper than they have been in the recent past; their inability to find decent prospects beyond the obvious choices at the top of the draft has led to the team's current woes.
The one possible exception is defenceman Oscar Klefbom, taken 19th overall in 2011, who is playing an increasing number of minutes with the Oilers. Though he is prone to the sorts of errors that young defencemen make, he looks as if he has a second-pairing upside.
Roy is on an expiring contract, and if he doesn't pan out, the Oilers can give his roster spot to whomever they land in next June's draft. Winger Matt Fraser, added this week on waivers from the Boston Bruins organization, is from Red Deer, Alta. and was part of the Tyler Seguin-Loui Eriksson deal a couple of years back; the 24-year-old made the American Hockey League all-star team in 2013. Klinkhammer, 28, is from Lethbridge, Alta., and is expected to add some grit.
Perron was gracious on his way out of town, noting: "Even if the Oilers are struggling right now, they'll get out of it eventually and be a top team in the league. Looks like I won't be part of it. Hopefully, I'll be part of something special in Pittsburgh."
At this juncture in his career, Perron said, "winning was all that mattered," and that in Edmonton, winning is still a ways away.
Craig MacTavish has turned the bench over to head coach Todd Nelson full-time and is working his general-manager portfolio hard, three transactions in a week, changing the make-up of the team and its culture in hopes it can get it right. This week's moves signals the beginning of the rebuild within the rebuild, a tacit acknowledgement that eight seasons out of the playoffs have left the Oilers with little more than a handful of prospects who are starting to grow weary of all the losing.