This morning the Edmonton Oilers put let its fanbase no via the Twitter machine that Pontus Aberg had been tossed on the waiver wire in order to be sent to their farm club in Bakersfield and that $1M summer signing Jakub Jerabek had been released and is awaiting assignment.
The #Oilers have placed forward Pontus Aberg on waivers for the purpose of assignment to the @Condors. Also, defenceman Jakub Jerabek has been released & is awaiting assignment.
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) September 30, 2018
**UPDATE**
We have been told that #Oilers Jakub Jeřábek has NOT been placed on unconditional waivers today nor has his contract been terminated.
He's also not waiver exempt & so can not be sent to the Minors without first being placed on waivers.
Jeřábek is signed to a 1 year/$1M deal
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) September 30, 2018
https://twitter.com/NHLbyMatty/status/1046433889437327360
WTF IS GOING ON!!!
Well, the rest of this post is sort of null and void but you can read it if you want to. I will ask this though, if capfriendly had no idea that Koskinen had a NMC is his contract, are we to believe that tweet?
Now, I’ll be honest here, I have no idea if Jerabek’s salary is still on the books for the Oilers. I don’t think it’s a huge deal because it’s only $1M and can easily be buried in the minors but if he’s been released, doesn’t that mean he’s off the team?
And how convenient is it that they get him over to Germany and then release him…
I wrote a couple of posts about the Czech defender here and I also referred to Stauffer talking about Jerabek’s future here.
I don’t think that anybody is surprised that Jerabek was released. He didn’t show anything during training camp until yesterday’s game vs. Calgary and I guess it was a bit too little too late.
I remember Jonathan Willis getting a lot of plaudits for calling this signing earlier in the summer. He said this at the time in an article at The Athletic,
“Though for my money the best fit is probably Jerabek, a 27-year-old whose mobility and skill with the puck are the nearest match out there for what a healthy Sekera could have done. – Jonathan Willis
I guess we’ll let the scouting stay with the scouts and the stats to the stats guys. Do you think we hear anything about how wrong Willis was about this call anytime soon?
Here’s a report from Bob Stauffer on Twitter,
Here is a scouting report on Jakub Jerabek from an Eastern source I trust.
"Jerabek is smart. He lazers the puck up the ice and gets pucks to the net.
He plays intense defensively, battles in the corners and provides strong net front.
Has upside."— Bob Stauffer (@Bob_Stauffer) August 21, 2018
I wonder if he’ll be trusting that Eastern source going forward? I wonder if that source is Alan May. He calls the Washington games. Washington is in the East… Meh. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The source got it wrong or Jerabek simply shite the bed…
Anyways, this opens up a roster spot for one of Jason Garrison, Evan Bouchard, or Ethan Bear who were all miles better than Jerabek this preseason.
Stauffer’s been talking about the Yakupov trade that opened up cap space to sign Kris Russell from a few years ago a lot lately. You could also wonder if something is percolating on the trade front as well…
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below!
