The recent long term signing of John Marino by the Utah Mammoth surely stings Edmonton Oilers fans with long memories concerning the National Hockey League Entry Draft. Marino was originally selected by the Oilers in the sixth round of the 2015 draft, and if he'd panned out as an Oiler prospect, then Peter Chiarelli's first go at prospect selection might be viewed in a warmer light.
Instead, Marino was traded by Edmonton to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Rumor has it, he had no intention of playing north of the Canada/U.S. border, so the team did what it could to recover assets. The return? A sixth round pick in 2021. That pick became Matvey Petrov, who bounced around the minor league team until this past offseason, when he wasn't offered a contract and became a free agent. All of this is a round about way of saying the Oilers got nothing, and the Penguins (and now Mammoth) got a point-producing, NHL-calibre defender. But that's not the only time the Oilers have drafted well and not seen the upside.
A longtime Flame could have been an Oiler
Matthew Lombardi was a recognizable face on the Calgary Flames roster for a lot of the early 2000s. He scored twenty goals once, and nineteen a few years later as a Phoenix Coyote. Never a superstar, but a solid player, especially in his first few seasons in Calgary. But he was drafted, in the 7th round, by the Oilers.
The story with Lombardi was that he and the Oilers never arrived at a contract that both sides could agree to. He re-entered the draft, and was selected significantly earlier (in the 3rd round) by the Flames. Interestingly, a player took the opposite journey, Jarret Stoll, and he would end up being a big piece of the Oilers 2006 Stanley Cup Playoff run.
Another D-man who might have been
Erik Gustaffson is still in the league today. The Oilers selected him in the 2012 Entry Draft, using a 4th round pick for the Swedish defender. He spent the next two seasons playing hockey in Sweden and for whatever reason, the Oilers decided to relinquish his rights when the contract window closed. The Chicago Blackhawks jumped on the opportunity, and Gustaffson played some great hockey for them, highlighted by a 17 goal season in 2018-19.
Gustaffson has now played for eight clubs that aren't named the Oilers. He's never come close to his career goal scoring high since, but at 34 years old ,he remains a serviceable NHL defender, with 517 games played. That's more than most 4th round picks ever manage.
I think the moral here isn't that Edmonton has done a poor job identifying or developing talent. A similar look at other NHL clubs is almost certain to find similar diamonds in the rough that found a home other than the place that drafted them. It's more that it is incredibly difficult to forecast which players will develop into NHL calibre ones, versus which will never play a game outside the minors.
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