Rumor: Oilers prospect kicked off his team in order to make room for Habs prospect.

We have something of a strange story to report this morning.

According to a new report from Swedish website Hockey News, Oilers prospect Raphael Lavoie has been informed by Rögle BK of the Swedish Hockey League that the team is putting an end to their current agreement. The team's current general manager Chris Abbott issued a comment confirming the decision and revealed while doing so that the contract between the team, Lavoie and the Oilers had given them a window to put an end to the deal.

The move comes as a surprise given that the Oilers had loaned Lavoie to the team for the SHL season, but Lavoie will not have played in a single SHL game with the team prior to his contract being ended.

Here's what Abbott had to say about the move(translated from Swedish):

"Nothing dared, nothing won I guess," said Abbott "We took over Raphael to see if it was a good solution for him, us and the Edmonton Oilers. A decision had to be made before today and we felt that it was best for everyone to make this decision as we had the opportunity to break the contract. We felt it was a reasonable decision for us, he is a good player and has a bright future but with a whole and healthy squad he would not have a spot right now."

Now that is a perfectly reasonable comment on the part of Abbott but it may be one that will raise a couple of eyebrows given that Hockey News has reportedly uncovered some very interesting information about a pending deal involving Rögle BK and another prospect from the National Hockey League. According to their report the team is currently working hard to recruit Montreal Canadiens prospect Cole Caufield, and they specifically cite their desire to bring him in as a replacement over Lavoie. 

Hockey News reporter Mattias Persson was able to ask Abbott about the information they had obtained but as you would expect given his comments on the Lavoie situation, the general manager did not have much to add. 

"I have no comment on that" said Abbott as per Persson.

That in and of itself would speak volumes but Persson pressed the general manager once again, this time asking him outright if he would deny the rumors. 

"No comment," responded Abbott once again.

You can start to see a scenario here that it looks like the Oilers prospect has effectively been removed from the team in favor of the Habs prospect. From a competitive standpoint I can certainly see why Rögle BK would make this move, Caufield is a highly touted prospect and the Canadiens have indicated that they want him playing, but I do wonder how the Oilers will feel about this decision.