Since 2007, Jordan Eberle and Oskar Klefbom are the only players drafted higher than 10OA by the Oilers and developed by them who are still regular NHLers.
They also selected Tobias Rieder, Riley Nash, and Erik Gustafsson (now lighting it up in CHI after Edmonton failed to retain his rights), but didn't develop either of them. They might also get some credit for Brandon Davidson, but he's never played more than 51 games in an NHL season...if he comes back from injury and hangs on, Chicago would deserve credit for another reclamation project.
They did turn Riley Nash into the pick that became Martin Marincin how was traded for a pick that they used in part of a package to acquire Eric Gryba, whose buyout will remain on the Oilers books until the end of next season, so I guess that legacy lives on a bit longer. Personally, I might have stuck with the guy who has now played 459 NHL games.
Since trading Eberle, he's scored 38 goals and 87 points
With the Oilers, Strome, Spooner, and Gagner combined for: 18g and 41 pts.
They've ended up with a guy 16 months older than Eberle, who has bounced between 4 NHL and 2 AHL teams...including HALF OF THIS SEASON IN THE AHL. And they owe him 3.15M next year.
Maybe he'll garner a 6th rd pick at next year's deadline, like he did for the Lightning in 2014.
So they turned Jordan Eberle into two seasons of less than half of Eberle's production, and another year of overpaid Sam Gagner.
The same Sam Gagner who they selected 6th overall pick in 2007...developed him into an impressively one-dimensional player, who they were able to trade for 1.5 pretty good years by Teddy Purcell (who was then moved for a 3rd round pick who doesn't appear to be particularly promising (Matthew Cairns - LD at Cornell...couldn't find any news on him since 2017)
It's ever so fun to track the linkages of Oilers transactions, because they are so no good.
I'm not saying that trading Eberle a few years ago was not the right idea, but imagine what he could have returned for them at yesterday's deadline...I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it would be a lot more than Sam Gagner and negative -46 pts
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