A shooting option from the point on the power play? Bouchard is a potential dream come true for the Oilers as Tyson Barrie is a distributor on the PP and not a threat to fire it. Few move the puck around the offensive zone as much as Barrie on the power play, with a league-leading 183.6 successful passes per 60 in those situations. But he shoots at the 30th-highest rate among all defenders with at least 50 minutes of play on the man-advantage.
Bouchard is that shooting threat, although he hasn’t had much power play opportunity to show it -- he’s played just 25 per cent of the available ice time on the man-advantage, compared to Barrie’s almost 70 per cent. But at 5-on-5, Bouchard’s already one of the most frequent shooters in Edmonton, trailing only Darnell Nurse, so it’s easy to see how it would translate to the power play if given the time.
Not saying it happens by this trade deadline, but somewhere down the road, maybe as early as this off-season, I’d look for the Oilers to move Barrie to a team in need of a QB for their power play. Montreal and Seattle make some sense here. Are there some areas of Bouchard's game that need massaging? Sure, but his emergence has opened up a couple of options for the Oilers and it will probably make Barrie expendable.