Logan Couture praises the Oilers... but dunks on the Coyotes.

The Edmonton Oilers and their staff earned high praise from the captain of an opposing team in the National Hockey League over the weekend, but that praise came at the expense of another NHL franchise.

The Oilers played the San Jose Sharks on Saturday and during the game, Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft pulled off a move that surprised many. Woodcraft made the decision to inject veteran defenseman Jason Demers into the lineup, this in spite of the fact that Demers had not played an NHL game all season.

The move was designed to give Demers his 700th career game in the National Hockey League, and Woodcroft made it happen against one of his former teams in the San Jose Sharks no less so he could celebrate with some former teammates.

Following the game, Sharks captain Logan Couture was asked about the classy gesture from Woodcraft and he sang the praises of the Oilers coach for caring about his players. Couture though also took the opportunity to rip into the team that had put Demers in a position where he could have potentially never had the chance to play his 700th game at all, the Arizona Coyotes.

"Just the name brings a smile to a few guys here that were fortunate to play with JD," said Couture on Saturday. "Character. Just a great glue guy in the locker room. Great sense of humor. He was a big part of a lot of those teams that we had."

"Happy to see him get a chance to play 700 games. I talked to him after he was done in Arizona, and he has a little upset about the way that ended. I think they scratched him a few times near the end of the season at 699 when they were out of the playoffs. As a fellow player, that didn't sit too well with a lot of guys."

"But good on Edmonton and [Jay Woodcroft] to bring him up and play in this building for 700. I think that speaks about the type of person that Woody is over there behind the bench."

It seems likely that Couture is far from the only player that took issue with how the Coyotes handled that situation behind the scenes, and that will be just one more knock against the Coyotes when it comes to potentially recruiting from the pool of free agent players in the future.