Insiders Agree On One Destination For Oilers' Mangiapane

The Edmonton Oilers are quickly moving towards a decision on where to trade Andrew Mangiapane. He just hasn't been the right fit in Edmonton since signing a two-year deal at $3.6 million AAV. The contract has trade protection, but the forward is willing to waive his no-trade clause to go to a team with a better opportunity, and it doesn't even have to be a contender.

That makes things a lot easier for the Oilers and there is one team that is being agree upon by insiders. That is the Winnipeg Jets. Bob Stauffer said, "Andrew Mangiapane, I'm going to give you a team. Winnipeg." Elliotte Freidman responded with, "Yep. I have to say it makes sense, although Winnipeg is looking for a bit of speed, they need scoring badly. They like trading for guys with term."

Mangiapane has another year left on his deal and has scored at least 14 goals in each of his past six seasons. He is a former 35-goal scorer, but hasn't reached 20 goals a second time in his career. 14-20 goals seems about where he should end up, except maybe not this season with the Oilers considering it isn't the right fit and he's been a healthy scratch lately. He only has five goals this season, but the Jets should be willing to try anything out to get more scoring. Before finally winning, they had lost 11 games in a row and 20 of their past 23 games. All 11 of those losses in a row came by one or two goals too, so a tiny bit more scoring could have changed the course of this run the team has been on.

The Jets' last two trades have been for Brandon Tanev and Luke Schenn. It cost the Jets a second-round pick for Tanev and a second and a fourth-round pick for Schenn. While the Oilers may be content with just trading Mangiapane away for nothing in order to create cap space and room on the roster, they may be able to end up getting an asset back for his services. This may also be a reason why the trade hasn't happened yet after Mangiapane has been a healthy scratch a couple of games.

The Oilers just beat the Jets and Mangiapane was in the press box. That could be seen a few different ways. The Oilers didn't want to risk the injury against a team that he may be a part of very soon, or he could have just not been in the lineup plans because of recent play of him and/or the other fourth line players.

Mangiapane isn't going to finish the year out with the Oilers, especially considering he just wants to play and can provide offense for a different team. It's just a matter of time.