Top 100 Oilers: No. 28 — Jordan Eberle

Notable

In the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, the Oilers only had one pick in the first three rounds, and that was the 22nd overall.

The team had traded a lot of their draft capital when they offer sheeted Ducks’ forward Dustin Penner, costing them their first, second, and third-round draft picks.

Jordan Eberle was the Oilers’ guy at No. 22, and was one of the biggest steals of the draft. The team acquired the pick from the Anaheim Ducks as part of the Chris Pronger trade, which was conditional based on the Ducks winning the Cup in 2007. If you know your 2000s Cup history, then you know the Ducks did just that.

Then, cut to Eberle’s first game with the Oilers on Oct. 6, 2010. The young kid from Regina scored one of the flashiest first goals ever, after he toe-dragged it around a Flames defender, pulled it to his backhand and roofed it as he fell to the ice, immediately catching the eyes and hearts of Edmontonians.

His best was on display in his sophomore year with the team, where he collected 34 goals and 76 points in 78 games. This was the closest he has ever come to being a point-per-game player in his career, on a team that had a losing record of 32-40-10.

Eberle spent seven seasons in Edmonton, and recorded 165 goals and 382 points in 507 games. He made the playoffs with the team once – the 2016-17 season that broke the 11 year playoff drought for the franchise. In 13 games, he recorded zero goals and two points.

In a poll conducted in 2014 by the Edmonton Journal, Eberle was selected as the second most popular player on the team amongst fans, only trailing Hall.

Fans lost some of their love for him after the lack of production in the playoffs, which also lead the team to move on from their long-tenured star. They elected to sign Milan Lucic to a massive seven-year, six-million dollar deal instead of keeping Eberle.

With the power of hindsight, Oilers fans and management know both of these decisions hindered the team rather than helped it. Lucic was never the same after the 2016-17 season, and ended up being a detriment to the team, before being traded one-for-one to the Calgary Flames for James Neal.

The Story

Eberle went on to become a clutch player for the New York Islanders after the Oilers traded him in the 2017 offseason for Ryan Strome. He played 49 playoff games in Long Island, logging 13 goals and 34 points.

Then, he was left unprotected in the 2021 Seattle Kraken expansion draft, and the newest NHL team took Eberle. In Seattle, he has played 361 games and scored 232 points. Eberle was named the second captain in franchise history in 2024, after Mark Giordano retired.

The Kraken have made the playoffs once in their team’s history, and Eberle was second on the team in scoring, with six goals and 11 points through the 14 postseason games.

In the end, the Oilers ended up receiving nothing for one of their most talented wingers in franchise history. The trade started with Eberle for Strome, then Strome was traded for Ryan Spooner, who was traded for Sam Gagner, who was traded with two draft picks for Andreas Athanasiou and a minor-league player, who both walked for nothing.

Eberle has played in 1140 games, tallying 334 goals and 783 points throughout his NHL career. He is a consistent goal scorer who always hits the 15-goal plateau in full seasons, and has a ceiling of being a near 30-goal scorer. This consistency remained through the 2025-26 season, where he scored 26 goals as a 36-year-old veteran.

What Brownlee said

If I admit my bias when it comes to the type of players I tend to gravitate toward, Jordan Eberle was never much of a magnet for me. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a good player during his tenure with the Edmonton Oilers because he was. It doesn’t mean that he won’t be a good player with the New York Islanders. He will.

While I favor players with more dimensions to their game than those Eberle possessed – for starters, I like more physicality and edginess than he showed – there’s no question the shifty right winger brought a skill-set that many players don’t have. Eberle had the ability to score goals and generate offensive opportunities. That was his calling card. That’s why he’s an NHL player.

The problem for Eberle, as is the case with players of the same specific skill-set, is that if he isn’t scoring and producing points, then lack of other dimensions is magnified and criticism about the other things that player doesn’t do – play a physical game, compete like his life depends on it almost every single shift and on and on – becomes the focus. We see the flaws. It’s human nature.

So, you get what we got when GM Peter Chiarelli traded Eberle and his $6-million annual salary to the Islanders for Ryan Strome, who is younger and cheaper and, at this point, not nearly as productive. The Oilers save themselves $3.5 million in cap space and get a prospect in Strome who still isn’t a finished product. The Islanders get a player who, even in a down year, is good for 20 or so goals a season. They don’t grow on trees.

I understand why Chiarelli made the move. Players named Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are the offensive drivers now. Both of them are going to get paid. Eberle? Given his faltering production and the post-season he had, plus that big ticket, he morphed into an expensive spare part representing money better spent elsewhere. I won’t be a bit surprised if he returns to form and finds a fit with the Islanders. Likewise, it won’t be a shocker to me if Strome finds a niche and blossoms here with his new teammates. Good luck to Jordan Eberle.

– The Way I See it, June 23, 2017.

The Last 10

• No. 38 — Darnell Nurse
• No. 37 — Petr Klima
• No. 36 — Joe Murphy
• No. 35 — Dwayne Roloson
• No. 34 — Taylor Hall
• No. 33 — Curtis Joseph
• No. 32 — Dave Semenko
• No. 31 — Dave Hunter
• No. 30 — Dave Lumley
• No. 29 — Sam Gagner