Via @JonathanWillis on Twitter the Oilers have plucked 25-year-old forward Ryan Jones off of waivers from the Nashville Predators. Jones is a gritty fourth line player with physical prowess and some skating problems. He's a fan-favorite in both Minnesota (where he began his career) and Nashville.
A brief look at his microstats shows a 4th line player, and a replacement for Ethan Moreau or Jean-Francois Jacques. He delivered about 1.5 hits per game in extremely limited ice time - he only plays 9:03 at even strength per game.
The most interesting piece to Ryan Jones' game is his ability to draw penalties. This year he's 5th out of 379 NHL forwards in Penalties Drawn to Penalties Taken Differential / 60 behind only Patrick Kaleta, Dustin Brown, Jordin Tootoo and Vladimir Zharkov. He draws 3 penalties for every 60 minutes of time on ice and only takes 1.2 - if he is Ethan Moreau's replacement, it will be an enormous difference in the penalties category alone. Ethan Moreau is 366/379 in this category.
He's not a fighter, so he's not going to replace the out-of-favor Zack Stortini, and we can sit and wait and only surmise that this means Ethan Moreau is on his way out.
It seems like like a fourth line of Ryan Jones - Marc Pouliot - Ryan Stone is somewhere in the making.
