In what turned out to be the only actual trade the Oilers made on deadline day, Edmonton acquired Pat Maroon from the Ducks in exchanged for a 4th round pick and Martin Gernat. In addition, the Ducks retained 25% of Maroon’s salary.
Given what the Oilers gave up and the salary retained, this deal looks like it is virtually no-risk for Edmonton.
Well, VIRTUALLY no-risk for Edmonton. Peter Chiarelli definitely bought low on Patrick Maroon. He is having a brutal season so far. Enough so that you wonder about nagging injury or something of that nature. This after coming off the heels of two good years.
Maroon is a hulking giant at 6’3”, 230 pounds. When Chiarelli expressed a desire to get bigger, this is him going out and accomplishing that goal. And even though Maroon has had his ice-time limited, he was still 3rd on Anaheim in hits. Yes, he was playing without the puck a lot, but at least he was bruising the opposition.
This season, Patrick Maroon was 12th of 14 Duck forwards in Points per 60 minutes at 0.87 P/60. He was also 13th of 14 in Corsi For percentage at 49.9 CF%. The story runs the same for Goals For, Fenwick For, and Shots For. Basically, he’s a mess this year. An unqualified disaster.
But it wasn’t always that way!
A year ago Patrick Maroon was top 5 in all of the major fancy stats categories (P/60, CF%, FF%, SF%). He was helping the Ducks. Now, he also played 50% of his time 5v5 with Getzlaf. When he was apart from Getzlaf his numbers naturally decreased. Still, his 3 year HERO chart looks like this.
If this terrible year for Maroon is the result of injury or simply a bump in the road then the team picked up a very useful player with a lot to give. He has been able to play with skill in the past and contribute well. He might find himself with one of Draisaitl, McDavid, or Nugent-Hopkins in the future. If this is the beginning of a decline then Maroon is still only 1.5M on the Cap for the next two seasons. It isn’t a giant overpay for a 4th liner who has been in the league for a while.
LINEUP
Yakupov gets his chance to start the game with McDavid. Cracknell and Hendricks play with Lander.
Hall Draisatl Kassian
Yakupov McDavid Eberle
Korpikoski Letestu Pakarinen
Hendricks Lander Cracknell
Sekera Fayne
Nurse Clendening
Davidson Pardy
Talbot
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) McDavid vs Eichel. This is the first meeting of the two players taken at the top of the most recent draft. Like Taylor and Tyler these two will be linked for a long time. Unlike Taylor and Tyler, there was a consensus number 1 in the 2015 Draft. Eichel has had a very good season for the Sabres and should be a stud for them in the future. His shot is impressive already. Edmonton needs to keep him as far away from scaring areas as humanly possible, because he can release it in a split-second. McDavid has incredible puck-handling, speed, and vision. This kid is unbelievably fast. Teams are starting to really key in on him. If they can slow him down or prevent him from getting the puck in the neutral zone then they take away one of his biggest weapons. Incidentally, McDavid has been healthy for 2 months this season (October and February) and has won Rookie of the month both times.
2) Yak City. The Oilers didn’t trade Nail Yakupov. Instead, they are going to let him play with McDavid and Eberle in the spot Pouliot normally holds down. Pouliot is out long-term with a shoulder injury he sustained taking a hit then sliding into the boards. Yak shoots left but has always preferred RW. Either way, he’s getting his chance to prove he can be productive as McDavid’s winger. Whether the Oilers want to keep him or not, this is a good move, in my opinion. If they want to keep him they need to know if he can keep producing with McDavid like he was early in the year. If they want to trade him then having him play with McDavid is only going to boost his value.
3) Gritty Effort. The last three Oiler games have been pleasant to watch even if they’ve only won one of them. It’s been better to watch because the team has been putting some visible effort into keeping up with their opponents. Somewhere along the way the Oilers forgot that winning is hard and it takes a lot of work. It hasn’t been pretty, but they finally started working to keep games tight. And thank goodness that Talbot has been leading the charge. He has been incredible for the team during this stretch. They owe it to their netminder to keep battling out there.
Puck drops tonight at 5:30 PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. Game On!
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