Oilers defenseman Ryan Whitney is set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer and given what he said today on the team’s locker clean-out day, he’s eager to get moving.
Whitney gave the assembled media at Rexall Place a rather juicy soundbyte on his way out of town saying, “I’m not going to name any names, but there were definitely some other guys who could have been scratched.”
Yikes. He had been a healthy scratch in the team’s last three games.
Whitney struggled with injuries again this season playing in 34 of 48 games this season putting up four goals and nine assists with a plus/minus rating of minus-7.
It’s no secret the Oilers defense struggled, but they had a steady corps of players in Justin Schultz, Nick Schultz, Ladislav Smid, and Jeff Petry who played all 48 games. Corey Potter and Mark Fistric were in Whitney’s company on the blue line playing 33 and 25 games respectively.
After that sound-off, however, you wonder if Whitney took off from Edmonton making like Homer Simpson in the process.
Update (4:26 p.m. ET): Turns out it’s not quite that way as Whitney made it clear (in a nice way) he won’t be back in Edmonton via Twitter.
Want to wish the Oilers best of luck in the future. Met a lot of great people and made some life long friends during my time in Edmonton
— Ryan Whitney (@ryanwhitney6) April 28, 2013