Even undoing that terrible trade there was zero chance barzal was going to be the pick. Would have made zero sense at the time one way or another that pick had to get used to address the blueline.

Agreed...I mean, I hate the "If we hadn't done this, this would have happened!" game, because assuming that poor management would have went from a record of poor trades and poor drafting to snagging Barzal, when we all know that that group probably would have skipped right over guys like him and Chabot and said "Man! Juulsen is big! That's our guy!" Jacob Larsson was there too. I don't think it ends well regardless...

Then they might have gone for chabot

You mean like if they got even more draft luck besides getting McDavid in that SAME draft?

still no goalies

That pick was destined to fail. Charelli fired the entire scouting staff weeks before the draft not that they had a track record worth keeping. Had we used it woulda been seen as equal fail as the trade was.

For sure. In fairness, Reinhart *looked* like he was exactly what the Oilers needed...young shutdown D that you could build around (Obviously that didn't work out...). On top of that, Pittsburgh probably regrets giving the pick up for David Perron as well

From my limited knowledge back then, I remember Joel Erikkson-Ek was big for the Oilers, they needed depth scoring and a 2-way guy

My guess is boston took Edmonton’s target. Debrusk maybe has been a connection ever since. That’s why Edmonton waited until last minute to make the trade. Felt like Islanders just took the best available option. Worked out excellent for them.