Well, that didn’t last long. Valentin Zykov has officially been placed on waivers for the purpose of assignment. 

Zykov got picked up by the team at the end of November and was expected to add some depth to our bottom six group. He lead his AHL team in goals last year, has some size, and his contract made this move risk-free for the Oilers. Everything was looking good for us at the beginning of December and I was looking forward to seeing what he can do.

There was only one problem… he didn’t get played. In the last month, Zykov played five games. During his first game with us, he played just over 11 minutes. After that, he never saw anything close to that number. Zykov was used in an extremely limited role on our fourth line, only playing around five-six minutes per night during his next four games with the team. Why wasn’t he used that much? Well, we don’t really know. He must not have been a player that Ken Hitchcock liked, and that’s too bad. During his very limited play, Zykov never really did anything to impress the coaching staff as well, putting up 0 shots and having a -1 rating.

Even though this was a risk-free move, it will go down as another attempt at recovery that failed by Peter Chiarelli. With Zykov being waived, I would expect another move coming from the Oilers soon. Maybe Yamamoto is recalled? Maybe Kris Russell is activated off the IR? We shall wait and see.

What did you guys think of the small sample size we saw from Zykov? Was this signing worth it at the end of the day?