Prediction: Raffi Torres will be traded

Joffrey Lupul's 3 year contract was structured at 1.5M year 1, 2.535M in year 2, and 2.9M in year 3.

The benefit of an contract with escalating dollars is clear. You can move a player with question marks after deriving the most value-per-dollar in earlier years. For the receiving (higher budget) team, the cap hit is less than the actual dollars being paid out.

Looking at Torres's contract structure:
Year 1 - 1.6M
Year 2 - 2.4M
Year 3 - 2.75M

With the dollar being high, you'd have expected the Oilers to front-load the contract. Or even a clear-cut 2.25M across the board.

Not so.

With his salary rising by 800,000 next year, Penner making him somewhat redundant, unless he takes the next step in his career with regards to consistency, I think he's a prime candidate to being moved either at the trade deadline (if the Oilers are out and Lowe wants to stockpile yet even more assets) or in the summer.