Breaking: Oilers place a player on waivers to avoid demoting Puljujarvi.

The Edmonton Oilers have just made something of a curious move. 

For several days now there has been an expectation that young forward Jesse Puljujarvi would be sent down to the American Hockey League to join the Bakersfield Condors. The move was expected to be a permanent one for Puljujarvi and would have been designed to get him in a winning environment and away from the currently catastrophic situation in the Oilers organization, at least as far as their main roster is concerned. That however will not be the case.

The fact remains that the Oilers do indeed have to make room on their roster for the expected return of veteran defenseman Andrej Sekara from injury and they did just that on Monday. It did not come in the way that fans and pundits had expected and instead much to the surprise of many the Edmonton Oilers have instead placed veteran defenseman Brandon Manning on the waiver wire today. 

Not only is the move unexpected but it only serves to highlight the kind of job that former Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli did while at the helm of the team. The trade that brought Manning into the team was highly controversial at the time that it was made because Manning was viewed by many in Edmonton as public enemy #1. The veteran defenseman had previously been the cause of a major injury to Oilers superstar Connor McDavid and as you would expect that had made him an extremely unpopular figure from the perspective of the Oilers fan base. 

Additionally the trade did not seem to make a great deal of sense from a hockey perspective given that Drake Caggiula, the key player the Oilers gave up to the Chicago Blackhawks as part of the Manning trade, was one of the very few people producing offensively for the Oilers at the time of the deal. Since the move to Chicago Caggiula has appeared in 16 games and the Blackhawks have gone on a significant win streak, even pushing themselves back into contention for a playoff spot. Caggiula's 3 goals and 3 assists over that stretch certainly have not hurt and neither has his poisitive plus minus rating of +1 since joining the Blackhawks.

Manning on the other hand is now being put up for grabs for anyone to claim, although I must admit I would be shocked if any NHL team so much as took a look at him on waivers given his production and his current cap hit.

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