Rumor: Chiarelli tried and failed to get rid of one of his players in today's trades.

The Edmonton Oilers were very busy on Sunday making a pair of trades that saw them attempt to address some of the issues that they have suffered due to a number of injuries on their blue line.

First the Oilers orchestrated a trade with the Florida Panthers sending veteran Chris Wideman to the Panthers organization along with a conditional 3rd round draft selection in 2019 in order to acquire defenseman Alexander Petrovic, an Alberta native, from the Panthers. It was somewhat of a lateral move and in fact some analytics experts feel that the Oilers gave up a 3rd round draft pick to swap an experienced veteran in Wideman for a slightly lesser player in Petrovic.

The Oilers would then orchestra yet another trade, this time pulling the trigger on a deal with the Chicago Blackhawks, a trade involving no less than 4 players. The Blackhawks will receivedforward Drake Caggiula as well as defenseman Jason Garrison from Edmonton and in exchange they gave up veteran defenseman Brandon Manning as well as  Blackhawks defensive prospect Robin Norell.Garrisson and Norell both appear to have been afterthoughts in this deal with Caggiula for Manning being the real trade here. Speculation suggests that Norell will not be brought to North America which makes his inclusion in the deal a matter of swapping an equal number of contracts while Garrison is believed to have been included purely to make the dollars add up for both sides. 

Although that is a lot of action for a general manager in a single day, especially in the middle of the regular season, it sounds like these were not the only moves that Chiarelli was attempting to make today. According to a report from Sportsnet's National Hockey League insider Mark Masters there was also an attempt by Chiarelli to include forward Ryan Spooner as part of his trades on the day, a move that he was unable to bring to fruition, likely due to the lack of interest there would be in Spooner following his recent performances. 

I have no doubt that Spector's sources on this are accurate as he was on top of all these trade moves today long before they were announced by any of the team's involved and long before they were leaked by any other NHL insiders. This appears to be a clear admission on the part of Chiarelli that the trade involving former Oilers' forward Ryan Strome, the very same trade that made Spooner an Oiler, has been a failure. From the outside looking in it appears to be just one of his many mistakes thus far, but this one reverberates far back into his tenure as Oilers general manager. Remember it was Chiarelli who traded Jordan Eberle for Strome in the first place, and now it appears that all he has to show for that move are spare parts that even he does not want on his roster.

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