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Oilers trade tree: How Jakub Jeřábek and a forgotten draft pick defined the Chiarelli era
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Ryley Delaney
Jun 25, 2026, 13:00 EDTUpdated: Jun 25, 2026, 14:51 EDT
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At the helm of the Edmonton Oilers, Peter Chiarelli made some pretty devastating moves.
His first was a positive, selecting Connor McDavid first overall, which was an easy move. But all goodwill was lost when he sent the 16th and 33rd overall picks in the 2015 draft to the New York Islanders for Griffin Reinhart. 
During the 2016 off-season, Chiarelli traded Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson, then signed power forward Milan Lucic to a seven-year contract. That worked out for the Oilers, as they made their first postseason appearance since 2006 in the spring of 2017.
Any remaining optimism quickly dissipated when Chiarelli traded fan favourite Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strome, a move that was not necessarily bad, but far too soon. The rest of that trade tree was not good, as the Oilers sent Strome to the New York Rangers for Ryan Spooner on Nov. 16, 2018.
That trade is severely underrated in Chiarelli’s long list of unwise decisions. Everyone knows the major trades that has continued to hamper the Oilers, but Chiarelli’s trades during the 2018-19 season were downright weird.
We’ll look at one of those weird trades in this article.

The dumbest, yet most inconsequential, trade tree of the Chiarelli era

The Oilers missed the 2018 postseason by nearly 20 points, a disappointing performance given how close they were to making the 2017 Western Conference Finals. Instead, the newly founded Vegas Golden Knights went to the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season, losing to Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.
On that team was left-shot defenceman Jakub Jeřábek. Spending most of his career in Czechia, Jeřábek came stateside for the first time before the start of the 2017-18 season, signing with the Montréal Canadiens. He was eventually traded to the Capitals, playing 11 regular-season games with a goal and four points, with an assist in two playoff games.
An unrestricted free agent, Jeřábek signed with the Oilers late in the off-season but was traded on Oct. 1 to the St. Louis before he even played a game with the Oilers. Jeřábek didn’t win back-to-back Stanley Cups, as he played just one game with the Blues, spending the season with their American Hockey League team.
In return for Jeřábek, the Oilers received a 2020 conditional sixth-round pick. By the end of the season, the condition (that Jeřábek played fewer than 50 games that season) was reached, but the Oilers didn’t use the pick.
Instead, they sent it to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for defenceman Chris Wideman on November 22nd, 2018, less than a week after the devastating Strome for Spooner trade. Wideman’s tenure can be best described as “he played hockey for the Oilers,” playing just five games with two assists.
As for the pick, it was used to select Calgary native Cole Reinhardt. He played just 18 games with the Senators, one game in 2021-22 and 17 in 2024-25. However, he found his way to the Golden Knights last summer, scoring three goals and seven points in 44 games with them, before being claimed off waivers by the Florida Panthers, scoring six goals and eight points in 15 games.
Speaking of the Panthers, the trade that made this tree just downright bad was the second-to-last trade that Chiarelli made at the helm, sending Wideman and a 2019 third to the Panthers for Alex Petrovic.
If you’re wondering what the final trade Chiarelli was, he acquired Brandon Manning from the Chicago Blackhawks, the same Brandon Manning that caused McDavid’s broken clavicle all the way back in 2015-16.
At the time, I liked Petrovic, I thought he was a solid third-pairing, right-shot defenceman. But at the time, the Oilers were on a five-game losing streak and out of a playoff spot. Sending a draft pick, especially a third-rounder, was poor asset management.
Petrovic played just nine games with the Oilers, picking up one assist and finishing his tenure as a -7. He signed with the Boston Bruins for the 2019-20 season, but didn’t play another game in the NHL until 2023-24 with the Dallas Stars. A third for a player who played nine games is just a bad trade, even if losing that third-round pick didn’t hurt the Oilers
The pick was eventually used to select John Ludvig, who scored three goals and five points in 33 games with the 2023-24 Pittsburgh Penguins, before playing just eight games with the Colorado Avalanche in 2024-25. He spent his 2025-26 season in Czechia, winning the league’s trophy.
This trade tree is best summarized as the Oilers signing a player, acquiring a pick, getting 14 games out of two defencemen, but also trading a third in a year they missed the postseason. It didn’t hurt them, but it’s what this trade symbolizes that makes it so bad.
Chiarelli’s decision-making did irrevocable damage to the Oilers in the early portion of McDavid’s career. From the bad trades mentioned at the start of the article to this dumb little trade tree, it was bad decision after bad decision that still has ramifications to this day.
The last thing Chiarelli did as an Oiler was sign Mikko Koskinen to a three-year, $13.5 million contract on January 21st, 2019. Koskinen, who was a fine backup, had a .911 save percentage in 27 games at this point, an incredibly small sample size. 
That was the final straw, as a day later, Chiarelli was fired, leaving a team with two superstars in a mess that they still haven’t completely cleaned up.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Oilersnation, FlamesNation, and Blue Jays Nation. Follow her on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.

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