Oilers Trading Nail Yakupov?

Or at least that was the impression I got after listening to this radio interview featuring Pittsburgh Penguins scribe Rob Rossi (skip ahead to exactly 22 minutes).

Basically what Rossi says regarding Yakupov is this:

That was a name I heard a couple of times on Saturday by the way. Edmonton was looking at Pittsburgh as maybe a place where they could move Yakupov and Edmonton would like a young defenseman that might be a guy like Pouliot.

Well I’ve been saying it for some time now. One of Jordan Eberle or Nail Yakupov will be moved to shore up weaknesses in other parts of the roster and I believe right after Yakupov signed that bridge deal for $2.5 million over the next two years that settled it. It’s such a moveable contract that even if he still starts out slow he can still be moved and teams will convince themselves that he’s just on the wrong team and his potential is still there.

Is Nail Yakupov a bust? I think it’s too early to say. He’s going on to his 2nd contract and I’ve always said a team shouldn’t give up on a player until he reaches his 3rd contract with the club. That’s usually year 4 or 5. Depending on the player that should come out to about 300 games, give or take depending on position.

The problem with Nail is that he shows flashes of that brilliance that made it so easy to pick him 1st overall in 2012. Flashes… We need to see consistency from him and I fear that he may take more time than the Oilers have. If the Oilers were getting a veteran RWer like Kyle Okposo in a Yak Package, I’d hop all over that or if they were upgrading the defence, I’d also be for that. But dealing for another young dman sounds dodgy.

Speaking of blue liners, what I’m a little surprised about is that they’d still want a young defenceman back. I wonder if Rossi heard this before or after the Oilers traded for Griffin Reinhart, another left handed defenceman. Difference being that Reinhart can play the right side.

IF the Oilers had interest in Pouliot you can be sure that Bob Green would have his mitts all over this as much as he did with the Reinhart one. Green would know Pouliot from his days as GM of the Edmonton Oil Kings. Derrick Pouliot was part of those Portland Winterhawks teams that gave the Oil Kings fits in the playoffs from 2011-2013.

Is there some sort of voodoo happening in the NHL right now? Teams with black and yellow are cursed to trade their teams into the depths of NHL hell. I am not certain that Jim Rutherford and Don Sweeney are doing their teams any favors with the way they are making trades.

Anyways, Derrick Pouliot is an offensive defenseman in the Kris Letang mould. He put up 24 points in 31 games for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins last season and during his time with Pittsburgh he had 7 points in 34 games. So he’s clearly ready to take the next step in his developmental path.

They’ve got $11 million left in cap space according to GeneralFanager.com and by my count about 6 spots to fill. I’d say the Pens have their work cut out for them. How long until they’ll consider dealing one of the Fantastic Four (Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Fleury)?

As an Oilers fan I’m going to be keeping an eye on Pittsburgh over the next couple of years to see if they can dig themselves out of this hole because at some point in the future the Oilers are going to find themselves in the unenviable position of having too many good players on the team and not enough cap space.

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– BLH