The Edmonton Oilers already won the 2015 NHL Draft before it even started. They selected some guy named Connor, and he’s been a decent player for them. But they also had another 1st round pick that year which they got from the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for trading David Perron. Then Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli traded that pick to the New York Islanders and received defenseman prospect Griffin Reinhart in return.
Reinhart was selected 4th Overall by the Islanders in 2012, after Edmonton infamously used their third consecutive 1st Overall pick on one of the NHL’s all-time busts, Nail Yakupov. Through 8 NHL games in Long Island, he put up 1 point. In hindsight, the Reinhart trade is one of the Top 5, maybe Top 3, worst moves by Edmonton in the last decade. But at the time, I liked it because I thought the franchise was correcting that mistake made in the 2012 NHL Draft when they should’ve either selected any defenseman or traded for a more established one instead of just selecting another offense-first forward.
Part of my initial excitement was in relation to Reinhart already playing in the Alberta Capital for the WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings. In 209 WHL regular season games, he put up 111 points. His Playoff success is what stood out the most to me when he was acquired. He won two WHL Championships with the Oil Kings and also won the Memorial Cup in 2014. Playing on a winning Edmonton team, in a different league, he didn’t reek of the losing culture that the NHL’s Oilers were suffering in the pre-McDavid era.
Reinhart dressed for 29 regular season games with Edmonton in the 2015/2016 season. His only Oilers game the following season was Game 6 in the second round against the Anaheim Ducks, replacing Oscar Klefbom and recording an assist in a 7-1 blowout win. That summer, he was left unprotected in the Vegas Expansion Draft and selected by the Golden Knights, but he never saw NHL ice again.
The Oilers weren’t hungry for more skilled forwards after winning the McDavid lottery and having an overabundance of them before that. But that trade still looks worse since the Islanders used the pick they got on Mathew Barzal. I would’ve been okay with Griffin Reinhart developing into a steady #4 or #5 blueliner. But some good prospects pan out, and some don’t.
