Should Edmonton move Jordan Eberle or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins?
Over the past few days, trade rumblings have emerged out of Alberta as the Edmonton Oilers may be looking for a trade partner for either one of Jordan Eberle or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
Hockey insider Pierre LeBrun was one of the first to note that Oilers' GM Peter Chiarelli may be working the phones to find a dance partner for one of his two young forwards.
That makes sense. Chiarelli has notoriously been an aggressive general manager, and was hired specifically to jolt the Oilers out of their decade-long funk. He's more than willing to part with core talent (just look at his infamous Tyler Seguin deal during his time with the Boston Bruins) to turn a franchise around.
Initially, the fact that Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins' names are being tossed around may be a bit shocking. Because over the last several seasons, the player that has had his name on the block for seemingly forever is Nail Yakupov, the Oilers' 2012 first-overall draft pick that has never quite lived up to expectations. But the whole purpose of moving Yakupov was to shake up the core. But does moving Yakupov do that? Does he warrant a large enough return that the Oilers could truly start a new chapter in their franchise's book?
Probably not. So insert Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins.
Now, the Oilers can expect to field calls for both Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins. Both have relatively friendly cap hits for their production. Eberle, 25, is signed through the 2018-19 season with a $6 million cap hit, and Nugent-Hopkins, 22, is signed through 2020-21 at $6 million (all of this according to General Fanager). And while both are in the midst of a slump (Nugent-Hopkins has three assists and no goals in his last nine games, while Eberle has just three goals and zero assists in all 13 games he's played this season), both are proven scorers at a young age.
With a move like this, the Oilers management is going to have to take a step back and think about how much they want to shake the core of the franchise. If they want to give it a quick, little jolt, they should move Eberle. But if they want to apply a full-on defibrillation, they move Nugent-Hopkins.
Nugent-Hopkins will likely field a lot more callers around the league than Eberle. A player like Nugent-Hopkins, a center capable of playing well on both sides of the puck, is a lot more difficult for teams to find than Eberle, a winger mirrored by several players throughout the league. And because a player of Nugent-Hopkins' caliber is so rare, he will yield a hefty return. Just look at what Boston got in return off of that Seguin deal. They received an established scorer in Loui Eriksson, high-end NHL prospects Reilly Smith and Joe Morrow, and Matt Fraser, a forward who actually ended up spending time with the Oilers just last season after Edmonton claimed him off of waivers. Now, Seguin, who is currently a legitimate Hart Trophy contender, may have been a bit more valuable to teams then as Nugent-Hopkins is now, but Nugent-Hopkins is not that far off. Seguin's two full seasons prior to his trade? 99 points in 129 games (due to the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season). Nugent-Hopkins' last two seasons? 112 points in 156 NHL games. That's only a .05 points per game difference. So while, yes, Seguin was younger at the time and held a lot more potential, Nugent-Hopkins has that exact same potential teams would crave. Not many 22-year-old players already have three 50-point seasons.
But the problem is, Nugent-Hopkins holds that same amount of value to the Oilers. Should they trade Nugent-Hopkins, they all of a sudden have to find a premiere replacement to fill the nearly 60-point void he left behind. And head coach Todd McLellan recently spoke very highly of Nugent-Hopkins, comparing him to Joe Pavelski, McLellan's prized scoring forward during his time with the San Jose Sharks.
Not that that same issue wouldn't arise with an Eberle trade. But as previously mentioned, players like Eberle, scoring wingers, are significantly easier to find than two-way scoring centers. But Eberle, who hasn't finished with less than 18 goals in his career (excluding his 48-game lockout-shortened season, in which he still scored 16 goals). That can still field some value. And while his value may not be as high at the moment with his disappointing start to the season, a team in need of a scoring winger may take the risk.
One player who may influence Chiarelli's decision? Leon Draisaitl.
His emergence this season has infused new life into the Oilers organization. With 18 points in his first 16 games this season, Draisaitl has supplemented himself as a top-six center, playing on the top line with Taylor Hall and Eberle. His emergence gives the Oilers three top-six centers to work with in he, Nugent-Hopkins and Connor McDavid, who has been out of the lineup since Nov. 4 with a broken clavicle. When McDavid returns, it would be a waste of a valuable resource to push either he, Draisaitl or Nugent-Hopkins down as the third line center. That clearly makes Nugent-Hopkins way more expendable than Eberle, right?
Not necessarily. Draisaitl has experience playing as a wing, and he's equally effective in comparison to the center position. And Oilers management, namely McLellan, visualized Draisaitl as a wing on the Oilers team just this offseason, telling this to Edmonton Journal's Bruce McCurdy.
"I look at Leon Draisaitl, and in my opinion Nugent-Hopkins and Connor McDavid are going to be #1 and #2 centermen in our organization for a long, long time, they’re that talented and that good. Not that Leon isn’t, but career-wise, he might love to be on one of their wings and playing in the top six rather than maybe being that third-line center. I think it’s really unfair to peg him there, but we have to look at it from that perspective."
If Draisaitl and the Oilers are comfortable with shifting Draisaitl to the wing, that makes Eberle more expendable.
The Oilers are simply going to have to determine what they truly want to do with this move, if they even do it at all. If they move Eberle, they will get a decent return and not lose too much in the process, at least not something they can't replace with what they already have in their organization, and that doesn't even include what they'd get in return from the team that they are trading with. But if they move Nugent-Hopkins, they would lose a player that is not easily replaced, though they'd get a much larger return.
Personally, I think it makes more sense for the Oilers to part ways with Eberle than Nugent-Hopkins. This will allow the Oilers to maintain the one-two punch of Nugent-Hopkins and McDavid up the middle, allowing a strong player like Draisaitl to slide over as a top-six wing. The return on Eberle won't be as large, but it will still bring in players (or picks) the Oilers will certainly be able to work with. And with another likely top-ten (or even top-five) draft pick looming for the Oilers in the 2016 draft, they will be able to land another significant forward, if they decide to go that route. It's just that players like Nugent-Hopkins don't come around that often, and while scoring wingers like Eberle don't necessarily grow on trees, they frequent the NHL a lot more than players like Nugent-Hopkins.
Only time will tell if Chiarelli decides to move one of these players or not. But if does, no matter which player he chooses, it will completely change the course of his franchise.
