Throughout the summer and into the fall, we’ll be counting down the days until the Edmonton Oilers begin their 2023-24 season with a daily trip down memory lane. Today at No. 57, we have David Perron, a gritty winger who had the best goal-scoring season of his career in Edmonton.

The Edmonton Oilers named Craig MacTavish as their general manager in April of 2013 and he quickly made some significant changes to the team. Head coach Ralph Kreuger was replaced by Dallas Eakins and Andrew Ference was signed and named captain after Shawn Horcoff was dealt to the Dallas Stars.

MacTavish also opted to move on from one of the team’s former top prospects, as Magnus Paajarvi was dealt to the St. Louis Blues along with a couple of draft picks in exchange for David Perron.

The Oilers selected Paajarvi with the No. 10 overall pick in the 2009 draft and he broke into the NHL a couple of years later with 15 goals and 34 points over 80 games in 2010-11. Paajarvi was never able to build on his rookie campaign, as he scored just 11 goals and 24 points with the Oilers across 83 games over the next two seasons.

In return, Edmonton got a veteran with two 20-goal seasons under his belt who brought some much-needed bite to their top-six forward group.

Perron fit seamlessly with the Oilers. He set a career-high with 29 goals and 57 points in his first season in Edmonton but it wasn’t enough to help the Oilers climb the standings. The team went 29-44-9 and finished in third last in the league standings.

MacTavish had another busy summer, as the Oilers added Benoit Pouliot and Mark Fayne in free agency and traded Sam Gagner for Teddy Purcell. Despite the changes, it was more of the same for the Oilers, who kicked off the season with a five-game losing streak and were well out of the playoff race by the time December rolled around.

Following a 2-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils in November that put the Oilers at 6-12-2 for the season, Perron sounded off on his frustration with the team…

The Oilers made a change in early January, as Perron was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Rob Klinkhammer and a first-round pick. Perron had five goals and 19 points over 38 games with the Oilers in 2014-15 and he added 12 goals and 22 points in 43 games with the Penguins.

Perron’s time in Pittsburgh didn’t last long either. He started off the 2015-16 season poorly and got moved to the Anaheim Ducks in another January trade. Between the Penguins and Ducks in 2015-16, Perron scored 12 goals and 36 points over 76 games.

In the off-season, Perron returned to the St. Louis Blues on a two-year contract. He had a strong season for St. Louis but the Blues opted to leave him exposed to the Vegas Golden Knights in the Expansion Draft. Perron scored a career-high 66 points in Vegas’ inaugural season and helped the team reach the Stanley Cup Final.

He again signed with the Blues in free agency, this time on a four-year contract, but this time played out the entirety of the contract in St. Louis. In the first of those four seasons in 2018-19, Perron scored 23 goals and 46 points in the regular season and added 16 points in the playoffs as the Blues won their first-ever Stanley Cup.

Perron is now in the second season of a two-year contract with the Detroit Red Wings. He scored 24 goals in his first season with Detroit, marking the seventh time that he reached the 20-goal plateau in his NHL career. His 28-goal season with the Oilers back in 2013-14 still ranks as his career-high.

Meanwhile, the Oilers packaged up the pick that they had received from the Penguins in exchange for Perron with their own second-round pick and traded them to the New York Islanders for Griffin Reinhart.