Do you ever get a weird sense of déjà vu?
On Monday, the Pittsburgh Penguins traded defenseman Jamie Oleksiak — the player that Tom Wilson knocked out and was supposedly too intimidated to fight — in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2019 draft. The trade is almost identical to the one that happened in reverse to bring Oleksiak to the Penguins during the 2017-18 season.
The Penguins have acquired a 2019 fourth-round draft pick from the Dallas Stars in exchange for Jamie Oleksiak.
Pittsburgh will now own three fourth-round selections in the 2019 NHL Draft. Details: https://t.co/fvq2QGyYfY pic.twitter.com/5j5yZYWm8n
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 28, 2019
The Penguins signed Oleksiak to a three-year contract extension over the summer, with an average annual value of $2.1375 million. Now, the Penguins are hitting ctrl+z to undo their original trade with the Stars, and are stocking up on fourth-round picks. The Penguins own three fourth-round picks in the 2019 NHL Draft: their own, one from the Buffalo Sabres, and the Minnesota Wild’s (from today’s trade.)
CORRECTION.
The pick that Dallas sent to Pittsburgh was actually Minnesota's 4th RD pick. The same pick Pittsburgh sent Dallas back on Dec 19th when the #Penguins acquired Oleksiak.
It's as if the initial trade between the two clubs never happened.https://t.co/kx2LrKZJm9 https://t.co/tDZDCO4YRi
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) January 28, 2019
The Stars reacquired Oleksiak due to Marc Methot (famous for nearly getting his finger slashed off by Sidney Crosby) undergoing surgery on his left knee, which will leave the defenseman out of commission for at least the remainder of the 2018-19 season.
Marc Methot lost a chunk of bone under the knee cap where the cartilage is, had to get a donor bone put in during surgery. Had tried a little bit of everything, this was last resort option for Methot.
— Sean Shapiro (@seanshapiro) January 28, 2019
According to Stars general manager Jim Nill, via The Athletic’s Sean Shapiro, “With our back end, we haven’t had Methot or Johns all season, they are both big heavy weighty guys. When we started to realize that Marc was done for the year and with Stephen’s unknown, we knew we had to add a weight guy that could eat up some minutes.”
The full press release from the Pittsburgh Penguins follows below.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have acquired a 2019 fourth-round draft pick from the Dallas Stars in exchange for Jamie Oleksiak, it was announced today by Penguins executive vice president and general manager Jim Rutherford.
The Penguins will now own three fourth-round selections in the 2019 NHL Draft – their own choice, the Buffalo Sabres’ pick and this pick acquired today, which originally belonged to the Minnesota Wild.
Last year, when the Penguins acquired Oleksiak from the Stars, the Pens traded a fourth-round pick to Dallas. That pick was going to be the higher pick between Pittsburgh’s original fourth-round pick and Minnesota’s fourth-round pick. Pittsburgh had acquired the Wild’s pick in a trade with the Arizona Coyotes.
