Dreger: Perron, Petry "definitely available"

Darren Dreger was on Vancouver’s TSN 1040 on Tuesday afternoon.

On the Oilers and if Jeff Petry and David Perron are available for trade:

“Well, Perron is definitely available. So is Jeff Petry. These are good hockey players, but they’re secondary players when you look at the core of the Oilers.

“The problem with that is it’s not like the Oilers need a tweak. They need far more than that. They need their goaltending to stabilize and I doubt very much that a goaltending coach firing is going to do that. That’s up to Scrivens and Fasth to figure it out. Defensively they have to be better than they’ve been. They’re in dire need of help up the middle of the ice. They’ve got a No. 1 and a No. 4 centre in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Boyd Gordon, and they’ve got guys playing in the No. 2 and No. 3 slot that just aren’t ready to be full-time NHL players just yet.

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“So I don’t really think coaching matters. I can assure you that nobody cares more than Dallas Eakins, or for that matter Craig MacTavish, the general manager. This is about making sure the holes are properly filled and that’s what MacTavish is trying to do. But you’re not going to be able to fill those holes with either Jeff Petry or David Perron.

“And even if you were to dangle a Jordan Eberle – which is somewhat unlikely – those players are going to help you. A No. 2 centre is hard to find regardless of the player you’re willing to part with. So this is going to be a challenge for Craig MacTavish and in the meantime, I’m sure his message to his coaches is, ‘Hang in there. So put the onus on the players, based on the core that we have, and see if we can’t figure this thing out and scrape together a few wins.’ But they’re not going to fix this problem overnight.”

Source: TSN 1040/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey