Gravel, Lowe, & Malone get placed on waivers

Happy Monday friends! After a disappointing preseason loss to the Jets last night the Oilers management has made a few moves this morning.As reported by Mark Spector: Kevin Gravel, Keegan Lowe, and Brad Malone have been placed on waivers. This comes at no surprise as they weren’t really projected to make the team to begin with. After signing Kevin Gravel to a one year contract this summer, it’s sort of a shame that he didn’t even make it to the end of training camp.

As Mark Spector points out, what’s interesting about this move is that Evan Bouchard and Ethan Bear are one step closer to cracking the opening lineup. They’ve still got a lot of work to do, but as long as they’re playing games and are in the conversation, anything is possible. Evan Bouchard has had his ups and downs this preseason and so has Bear. With three preseason games remaining, it will interesting to see how far these two make it as none of the defencemen signed to a PTO are really performing well in this camp. In my opinion, I think Bouchard is a lock to get a few NHL games under his belt out of training camp. Ethan Bear is the guy I’ll be watching to see how the remainder of his camp goes.

Are you surprised at all by these moves by the Oilers? Let me know in the comments.