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Keaton Ellerby picked up off of waivers from the Los Angeles Kings

Winnipeg Jets General Manager, Kevin Cheveldayoff, has once again dipped into the waiver wire bin, grabbing Keaton Ellerby from the Los Angeles Kings organization.

Chevy has used the waiver system previously to supplant a poor depth system within the Jets system, predominately due to years of mismanagement by the Atlanta Spirit Group. The four most recent cases being Mike Santorelli, James Wright, Anthony Peluso and Grant Clitsome coming with mixed levels of success.

SEASON TEAM GP TOI/60 Corsi Rel QoC Corsi QoC Corsi Relative Corsi On On-Ice Sh% On-Ice Sv% PDO Pens Taken/60 Pens Drawn/60 Off Zone Start % Off Zone Finish %
2009-2010 FLA 22 5.4 -1.437 -1.666 13 -1.51 9.8 878 976 0.5 0 43.4 55.9
2010-2011 FLA 54 14.71 0.287 0.042 4.7 3.63 5.05 908 959 0.8 0.4 51.7 53.6
2011-2012 FLA 40 14.21 0.139 -0.254 -3 -4.12 6.6 921 987 0.4 0.5 49.7 51.9
2012-2013 LAK 44 12.58 -0.7 -0.683 -5.2 4.88 6.28 935 998 1.4 0.9 58.3 51.5

Our friends at Jewels from the Crown recently wrote about Ellerby for their Top 25 Under 25. Ellerby came in 16th place for their series, and here is the summarizing paragraph:

Keaton Ellerby is exactly what he is at this point: a guy who might give you some solid or at least not-entirely-awful third-pairing minutes, but is prone to looking like a complete idiot at times. It’s tough to see him improving much from what he is now, even to a more consistently solid third-pairing type. Remember, the Florida Panthers liked him enough at one point to spend a 10th overall pick on him, and coach Kevin Dineen had basically decided to stop using him by the time the Kings came calling about a trade. “Not good enough to play defense for the Florida Panthers” is not exactly something I’d want on my resume. And that, folks, is Keaton Ellerby.

They also went into great detail breaking down Ellerby's 2013 season.

The pickup comes as no surprise for the Winnipeg Jets, with injuries to Jacob Trouba, Mark Stuart, and Paul Postma has eaten away at their very frail defensive depth. The Jets had already had Adam Pardy, Julian Melchiori and Ben Chiarot called up from the farm, with the later two being more prospects than NHL depth defensemen. On top of this, Zach Redmond only just yesterday played his first AHL game of the season after recovering from injury.

Ellerby's underlying numbers have never been tragic nor have they been superb. He is a no offense, defensive defensemen with good size and okay skating, although he is not prone to playing physical. He's still young enough to be molded but his upside is no where above bottom pair. He can kill penalties and fits in with the Jets' current defense core being known for the occasional nuclear threat defensive zone giveaway.

In the end, it was the right decision to make with the Jets currently decimated defensive depth. Ellerby improves the Jets depth, adds an RFA asset, gives time for Redmond to recover to game conditioning, and allows one of Chiarot or Melchiori to return to the AHL to further their development.

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