In some early morning news, the Edmonton Oilers announced that they have traded defenceman Jakub Jerabek to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for a sixth-round pick in 2020.  According to our own Jason Gregor, that sixth-round pick will turn into a 5th if Jerabek manages to play in 50 games or more with the Blues this season. With this trade in place, the Jerabek era officially ends in Edmonton.

After signing a one-year deal with the Oilers in late August, expectations were that Jakub Jerabek would come into town and help the Oilers with some reliable puck-moving depth on the on the back end. He had just won a Cup with the Capitals (though he only played in a couple playoff games) and provided them with a decent enough option for the third pairing so picking him up seemed like a reasonable gamble for the Oilers to make. Needless to say, that didn’t work out as planned as the 27-year-old defencemen got into only five pre-season games before having his tenure with the team ended as a result of being outplayed by a pair of rookies in training camp. In five pre-season games played, Jerabek didn’t register any points and was +2 with four shots on goal.

For the Oilers, I’m impressed that they were able to get anything at all for Jerabek, to be honest. I was actually expecting him to hit the waiver wire for the purpose of terminating his contract, but Chiarelli was actually able to get a magic bean back in return for a guy that couldn’t play himself onto the lineup. On the other hand, having Jerabek traded this early along with Kevin Gravel being sent to Bakersfield earlier in the pre-season isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for the team’s pro-scouts. These were both guys that were expected to contribute in some way and neither of them ended up anywhere close to making the team, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to question why that is but perhaps that’s a story for another day.

For now, I’m going to go ahead and give Chiarelli props for getting anything at all in return for a guy that couldn’t capitalize on a golden opportunity to become an everyday player on a team that lacks overall defensive depth. He had the chance and he whiffed on it. More important than getting a pick, the team clears out a contract while also saving $1 million on the cap which will likely be used to sign one of the PTO guys like Garrison or Chiasson in the coming days. But for now, I’m going to go ahead and call this trade a win for the Oilers because I really didn’t expect anyone to want Jerabek and the fact that they got anything for him can only be described as good asset management.

Now what’ll I do with my Jerabek jersey? What do you guys think?