Whatever Happened to ex- Oilers' Griffin Reinhart?

If you were an Edmonton Oilers fan back in the summer of 2015, you probably remember the Griffin Reinhart trade. And if you're being honest, you probably don't love thinking about it anymore. The Oilers sent their 2015 first-round pick and a second-rounder to the New York Islanders for Reinhart, a big, physical defenceman who had been taken fourth overall in 2012.

On paper, it made some sense. Edmonton needed defence, Reinhart was a former top-five pick, and the Oilers were betting that a change of scenery would help him become the player everyone thought he could be. Well, that didn't exactly happen.

The Problem Wasn't Just Reinhart.

Here's where the trade really starts to hurt. That first-round pick Edmonton gave up became Mathew Barzal. The Islanders selected Barzal 16th overall, and he went on to become a star and one of the faces of the franchise. Meanwhile, Reinhart never really established himself in Edmonton.

He bounced between the Oilers and the AHL, played just 30 NHL games for Edmonton, and never turned into the shutdown defenceman the Oilers hoped they were acquiring. That's what makes this one sting. It's not simply that Reinhart didn't work out. It's that the player selected with the pick Edmonton gave away became a player everybody would have loved to have in Edmonton.

In hockey trades, sometimes you make a reasonable bet and lose. Sometimes you make that bet and watch the other team cash the winning ticket for the next decade.

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So, Whatever Happened to Reinhart?

This is where Reinhart's story gets a little foggier. His NHL career didn't last very long after Edmonton. He eventually headed overseas and continued playing professionally, including stops in the KHL with Kunlun Red Star and in Germany with the Iserlohn Roosters. He later played for the Belfast Giants in the UK's Elite League before his professional career wound down around 2022.

It's certainly not the career anybody imagined when Reinhart went fourth overall in 2012. But here's the thing. He still had a professional hockey career. He played the game for a living, reached the NHL, played internationally and continued his career overseas. That's hardly nothing.

For Oilers fans, though, Reinhart will probably always be remembered differently. The real story isn't that Griffin Reinhart was a bad hockey player. It's that Edmonton made a big bet on what he might become — and the cost of that bet turned into Mathew Barzal.

That's the cruel part of the NHL Entry Draft.

You don't just have to get the player you choose right. Sometimes you have to get the players you don't choose right, too.

That's what makes draft-day trades so dangerous. The player you're acquiring is right there in front of you. You know his name. You know where he was drafted. You know what you think he can become. The pick you're giving away is different. It's an idea. It's a player you haven't met yet.

Edmonton thought it was buying certainty with Reinhart. Instead, it gave up the possibility of finding somebody like Barzal. And that's probably the part of this trade that still bothers Oilers fans. Reinhart wasn't a disaster because he wasn't good enough to play in the NHL. He was a disaster because the asset Edmonton gave away turned into something far more valuable than the player it received.

That's the draft lesson. Sometimes the hardest player to evaluate isn't the one standing on the stage. It's the one you're giving somebody else the chance to draft.

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