Edmonton Oilers

Oilers’ 2015 Trade Still Stands as the Biggest Blunder of McDavid Era

The Oilers’ 2015 trade for Griffin Reinhart remains their biggest blunder of the McDavid era, costing them other future NHL stars.

by
NHL Trade Talk
November 22, 2025

Looking back at the Connor McDavid era, no Edmonton Oilers move has aged worse than the 2015 trade for Griffin Reinhart. At the time, Edmonton believed it was acquiring a future top-four defenseman and they gave up two picks to get him, passing on what would turn out to be several key stars in that year’s NHL draft.

Reinhart— a former fourth-overall pick and WHL standout- was a familiar face thanks to his days captaining the Edmonton Oil Kings. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a disappointment in the NHL, never finding his footing with the Oilers are any other NHL franchise.

It was bad enough that the Oilers gave up two high-end picks on a player no one else saw as a key piece of that season’s draft. But the players Edmonton could have drafted, but instead chose Reinhart, make the move a franchise-altering mistake.

What the Oilers Passed Up On in that Draft

The Oilers sent both their first- and second-round picks in 2015 to the New York Islanders to make the deal happen. Reinhart played just 29 NHL games for Edmonton before being exposed — and taken — by the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2017 expansion draft. Meanwhile, down the draft board sat several players who would later go on to become NHL stars.

As Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic points out, with Edmonton’s first-rounder at 16th overall, the Islanders selected Mathew Barzal, now one of the NHL’s premier play-driving forwards and the cornerstone of their offense. And he wasn’t the only future star left on the board. The same draft slot could have landed the Oilers Kyle Connor, Thomas Chabot, Joel Eriksson Ek, Brock Boeser, Travis Konecny, or Jack Roslovic (who is now on the Oilers’ roster).

Instead, Edmonton got a short-lived project that never found its footing. Nearly a decade later, the Reinhart trade remains the clearest reminder of how costly one misread can be — especially when building around a generational talent.

Next: Oilers Place Noah Philp on LTIR, Recall Hard-Hitting Connor Clattenburg