Oilers Trade Former Vipers Defenceman Bigos To San Jose:

The Edmonton Oilers have traded former Vernon Vipers defenceman Kyle Bigos to the San Jose Sharks.  Bigos finished his fourth and final year at Merrimack College last season. In 30 regular season games Bigos collected (4-7-11). Bigos played two seasons in Vernon (2007-2009) collecting (10-40-50) in 166 regular season games with the Vipers. Bigos an assistant captain in his second and final season with the Vipers was drafted 99th overall by the NHL Edmonton Oilers in the 4th round of the 2009 NHL Draft. Bigos attended the Oilers Developement Camp two out of the last three years.

Kyle Bigos's Player Profile:

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=101195


This is posted on the Oilers website:

Oilers acquire defenceman Lee Moffie

Saturday, 06.07.2013

By edmontonoilers.com staff

The Edmonton Oilers have acquired defenceman Lee Moffie from the San Jose Sharks in exchange for defenceman Kyle Bigos.

Moffie, 22, spent the past four years at the University of Michigan. Last season, he played 40 games for the Wolverines and had three goals and 13 points plus 46 penalty minutes.

More details to come.

This was in the Edmonton Journal Newspaper:

Oilers trade for defence prospect

July 7, 2013

Oilers sent Kyle Bigos to San Jose Sharks in return for Lee Moffie. It was already clear that Bigos wasn’t in the organization’s plans given his absence from summer development camp along with a multitude of other clues and whispers, more than one of them referencing “hockey sense”. The gigantic rearguard was due to hit the free agent market in August, so the Oilers swapped his rights for those of Moffie.

Both were drafted in 2009, Bigos 99th overall and Moffie 188th, and have since played a full four years in NCAA. In Moffie’s case, that was at the University of Michigan, where the 6’1, 205 lb defender scored 32 points in 41 games in his junior season before dropping way back to 13 in 40 in his senior year. Detailed stats on his player page at U-M suggest Moffie’s powerplay production dried up in 2012-13, but his even-strength output also fell off sharply, notably in +/- which dropped from an impressive +22 to even.

Lee Moffie stats

At this point Moffie is, like Bigos, unsigned. Should the Oilers get the 22-year-old under contract before the August 15 deadline (explained here by Dominik of the fine Islanders blog Lighthouse Hockey) he would almost certainly slot in at the minor league level. Possibly Stockton given the traffic jam on the blue in OKC, which might make signing him a bit of a hard sell. Whether any such contract might have an NHL component and put Moffie on the 50-man list remains to be seen.

His “talent analysis” at Hockey’s Future (last updated a year ago) suggests a puck moving defender:

Moffie is a mobile defenseman with excellent poise with the puck, will jump up into the rush and is not afraid to become the trailer on the offensive play. The puck-moving defenseman possesses a very good shot and can get pucks through the traffic to the net by traversing the blue line to change the shoot angles and finding better lanes. His skating is outstanding with smooth strides; good speed and can play both sides of the ice effectively. He needs to shoot the puck more often with his big point shot and play with more physicality down low in his own end of the ice.