Was the Penner Offer Sheet Worth It?

It's been over a year since the Oilers had acquired Dustin Penner from the Stanley Cup Champions, Anaheim Ducks via the offersheet. The question now is, was it worth the 3 draft picks? It was reported that the Ducks had tried to offer Penner around $2M, but they had serious cap problems. Having to re-sign everyone after a cup run can take up a lot of cap space. And considering Anaheim had an internal budget, it left Dustin Penner vulnerable for an offersheet.

Lowe had tried previously to get star players, through the offersheet. He offered Buffalo Sabres sniper, Thomas Vanek, a whooping $50M/7 years. The compensation would be 4 1st round draft picks. But Buffalo quickly matched that after losing stars Danny Briere and Chris Drury. He apparently also wanted to talk to the New Jersey Devils about their young star, Zach Parise. A guy the Oilers could have drafted in 2003 if they had not traded the pick to New Jersey to move down and get Marc Pouliot and JF Jacques.

When I first heard about the offersheet, I thought to myself, what were the Oilers thinking? It's not as if we couldn't have tried to trade someone for Penner? But we ended p giving up 3 draft picks, a 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd. The thing that bothered me was the 1st. What if we finished dead last in the league? Anaheim could be laughing.

However, it gave the Oilers great incentive to make a strong playoff push late in the season. And a possible top 10 pick, the Ducks were hoping for turned into the 12th overall pick.

Penner at 24-years-old scored 29 goals as a rookie. Now 24-years-old may seem late for a rookie but not a lot of people can become 30 goal scorers. As a 25-years-old still scored over 20-goals after a very slow start to the season. I believe Penner is a big, strong forward that can score goals. Those kind of players don't grow on trees. If the Ducks can find a mid-1st rounder that can pot 30-goals a season at 24-years-old, I'll say they won. But the 2nd and 3rd round picks don't mean much to me. After the 1st round the selection isn't that great and you're just guessing if the player is gonna be good or not.

If you think about it, what if the Oilers never made an offersheet to Penner? Would we be in contention for Stamkos? Maybe. But I still think we would be around the 10-slot. But to say that the Penner offersheet wasn't worthwhile you'd have to say that Cody Hodgson will be a perennial 30-goal scorer at age 25.