Oilers Trading Perron to the CBJ?
By Frank Walker
TSN’s Aaron Ward reported last night that the Edmonton Oilers are looking at trading Winger David Perron to the Columbus Blue Jackets for center Artem Anisimov.
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Many Oilers fans have already decried the potential trade as one that would not help the club in the long term. While trading a winger for a center may shore up a position at which the Oilers have been weak for the last few years, it wouldn’t improve the real weakness of this team, which is it’s blueline. The Oilers would also be trading away a semi-regular twenty goal scorer who normally has between forty to fifty points a season for a center who in five full NHL seasons has broke twenty goals once and has started showing a penchant for injuries. There is already more than one outlet saying that this trade is more motivated by comments like this one from Perron after a 2-0 loss to the Devils than anything else:
“Something has to change, when you are making those mistakes, something needs to happen. They are the same mistakes we were doing last year. We keep talking about how much better we are this year, but for me it is the same record now that we had last year. It is not better.
“It is pretty frustrating.”
It seems to be the opposite of what the team should do when they want to run a player out of town for being frustrated over losing. Last time I checked, those are the players you want on the team.
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For the Blue Jackets, this trade could be a positive when viewed under a certain light. The team is struggling for wins this year and injuries have depleted their center depth to the point that people in the arena last night where starting to talk about Connor McDavid. Trading away a center who may be streaky but can make things happen seems like a step in the wrong direction.
Blue Jackets Team President John Davidson has always said that any trade would be made with the long term in mind. He would signal with this trade that the playoffs are out of reach this year. There are a few quality centers that the team has and is trying to develop (Wennburg, Milano, and Dano) but are a year or two away. Adding a quality winger, which the team has few of, will strengthen the team in the long term.