Oilers place Pontus Aberg on waivers, release Jakub Jerabek
By baggedmilk
5 years agoWith the Oilers overseas to wrap up their pre-season and kick off the new one, it was no surprise to see them further trim the roster and they got some more work done on that front this morning. Today, they announced via their Twitter account that Pontus Aberg has been placed on waivers for the purpose of assignment to the Condors and that Jakub Jerabek was released and “awaiting assignment.”
As Peter Chiarelli mentioned Friday, the team is able to carry a few non-roster players, specifically PTO players, with them to Europe which gives them some time to make a few more calls that will surely come, but for now, others needed to be cut so that their AHL (or otherwise) seasons could begin and that’s exactly what happened. Today’s round of cuts sees Pontus Aberg hitting the waiver wire with the intent of assignment to Bakersfield to join the Condors, while Jakub Jerabek’s unimpressive pre-season has him landing in limbo as he awaits assignment.
From where I blog, neither of today’s cuts come as much of a surprise given the storylines we’ve been following throughout the pre-season and using my own eyeballs to watch how they’ve both performed:
- For Pontus Aberg, seeing him getting sent back to Bakersfield makes sense, especially when you consider how he was dry toast throughout the pre-season. In five games played, Aberg registered only a single goal and was widely outplayed by both Ty Rattie, Jesse Puljujarvi, and Kailer Yamamoto which didn’t leave any space on that right side. That said, I think there is still a serviceable player there but he’s going to need to get his head in the game or else he’ll be disappearing under the rock of obscurity in Europe somewhere. Maybe he gets his game back together in the AHL? We’ll have to wait and see how things shake out.
- For Jakub Jerabek, this release has to be disappointing given the fact that he just signed a one-year deal with the team earlier in the summer and was certainly expected to play. That said, he was outplayed by rookies like Bear and Bouchard and Jason Garrison that came in on a PTO so this release isn’t exactly a surprise to anyone that watched how his pre-season went. The question, now, is what does “waiting for assigment” mean? I imagine that’ll put him on waivers for the purpose of terminating his contract, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens. In five pre-season games played, Jerabek didn’t register a point and was +2 with four shots on goal.
With these two cuts out of the way, there is still some work left to do on the roster before the regular season kicks off next Saturday but the bulk of the work appears to be done. As of this moment, the team is still carrying Bear and Bouchard on the back end with Garrison and Chiasson on PTOs, so we know that more news is coming. If I’m guessing, I’d suspect that Bear gets sent down to the AHL in a paper transaction and paves the way for Evan Bouchard’s NHL debut, and that Garrison and Chiasson ink their deals once Andrej Sekera hits the LTIR. That said, I readily admit that I know nothing and am only guessing, but we’ll have to wait and see how close I get. Fortunately, there’s only a week left to wait, my friends. The season countdown is on.
Recent Roster Cuts:
- Ryan McLeod assigned to Mississauga
- September 24th cuts
- September 20th cuts
- September 18th cuts
- September 17th cuts
Source: Edmonton Oilers, Official Twitter Account, 9/30/2018 – 9:32 am MT
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