SB Nation - Ryan Potulny

The Falcons' Eagle: Jordan Eberle's Ten AHL Games

Benjamin Massey — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:30:13 -0000

6 months ago: Edmonton Oilers center Jordan Eberle (14) checks New York Islanders left wing Jesse Joensuu (58) during the third period of an NHL hockey gane in Edmonton, Alberta, on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009. Edmonton beat New York 3-2. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Jimmy Jeong)

Browse more photos »

To the lay Oilers fan, Jordan Eberle is the great hope. Renowned for his clutch goals in the World Junior Championships and his exceptional senior season in the Western Hockey League, Eberle is probably Edmonton's greatest "love him or hate him" prospect since Rob Schremp. His detractors have plenty to point at: his mediocre speed, his uninspiring WHL totals before this year, and of course the condemnation of the World Junior Championships as a small sample size and the concept of "clutchness" as a chimera with no place in the modern game.

Evaluating junior prospects can always be difficult. While Eberle's numbers are far short of those of a Sam Gagner, his Regina Pats were also far worse than the teams most blue chip prospects enjoy. Context is everything, and with no known quantities to compare him to we are left to history on one hand and the orgasmic moments he gifts us with during his rare televised appearances on the other. It's sometimes not until a prospect turns professional and plays with and against men of certain ability that we can start to properly evaluate a prospect.

Jordan Eberle may just be one of these. Last season, after the Regina Pats were eliminated from the playoffs, an 18-year-old Eberle played his first games in the American Hockey League with the dreary Springfield Falcons, appearing in a total of nine contests. This year, the Pats have once again fallen out of the playoff picture and Eberle has gotten into one game so far. It is a small sample size, but it is also a teenager leaping straight from junior into second-tier professional hockey without so much as a training camp to find his sea legs.

An examination of each of those ten games follows after the jump.

Jordan Eberle made his American Hockey League debut March 27, 2009 when the Falcons took on the Worcester Ice Cats. He was certainly given an opportunity, thrown onto a line with current NHLers Ryan Potulny and Ryan Stone. Other familiar NHL names in the lineup for the Falcons that night included Devan Dubnyk, Taylor Chorney, Mathieu Roy, and of course Rob Schremp. With all those names it's easy to forget how dreadful the Falcons were, and they were pretty dreadful in Eberle's first game. Worcester outshot them 35 - 27 and Thomas Greiss outduelled Dubnyk for a 3-2 win. Eberle emerged with credit, picking up an assist on Potulny's 31st goal, a +1, and three shots. Those three shots were tied for third on the team with (of all people) Guillaume Lefebvre and behind Mathieu Roy and Ryan O'Marra. It was a weird night.

A day later, with Dany Sabourin in goal, the Falcons travelled to Albany to play the River Rats. Those unfamiliar with the AHL's schedule should be told there's nothing terribly unusual in that, and even three nights in a row in the low minors aren't particularly odd. Sabourin put on a bloody clinic, though, and in spite of 39 Albany shots the Falcons emerged with a 3-1 victory. One-time Carolina Hurricane Shane Willis scored for Springfield, as did Stone and that man Potulny again.

Eberle did one thing that we would grow used to, and two things that we wouldn't. He assisted Potulny's goal, meaning he was on two points in two games, and he would make a habit of that. He was also +2, which he wouldn't make a habit of at all, and for so far the only time in his professional career he did not record a shot on goal.

The next day (see? I told you games three nights in a row wasn't unusual!), the Falcons went back home for a visit from Portland. Springfield, for once, outshot their opponents 36-26 but Dubnyk was bad and Jonas Enroth wasn't as Portland built a 3-0 lead in the first period. Eberle was caught on the ice for one of those goals but got his revenge in the second, scoring his first professional goal at 16:15 with assists from Stone and Potulny to tie the game 3-3. Unfortunately, Eberle was caught again in the third, and Tyler Kennedy's 16th of the season against Eberle's line gave Portland the win and Eberle a -1 in spite of the goal.

Games on April 1 against Worcester and April 3 at Michigan were clearcut failures for Eberle. He went -1 both games and recorded a total of four shots but no points. Springfield lost both and the entire Potulny - Stone - Eberle line was quiet, with only a Potulny powerplay goal against Worcester (where he played with Rob Schremp on the man advantage, not Eberle) to show.

Potulny and Eberle were finally united as a powerplay tandem April 4 at the home of the Lowell Devils. Potulny scored again at even strength mid-change with both Eberle and Stone not yet on the ice, and the Eberle - Potulny tandem finally hooked up for the first time in the three games in the third period, Potulny setting up Eberle for a powerplay goal. But their line had been scalped by Barry Tallackson and Nicklas Bergfors at even strength, so even with the goal and an eventual 4-3 victory thanks to a late Charles Linglet winner Eberle was -2.

April 5, in Portland, was more of the same. This time Eberle was more of a setup specialist, taking advantage of a real firewagon game to set up Potulny's 35th on the powerplay early in the first period and Bryan Young's third at even strength midway through the second. Eberle was the first assist on both and picked up three shots for his trouble. But he was also -1: after Young's goal Eberle and Potulny were twice victimized by Mathieu Darche, once shorthanded with Rob Schremp as their wingman and once by an empty-netter with Schremp as the extra attacker as well as their usual centre Stone. Portland emerged with a 6-4 victory and Darche was first star.

Seven games in, a few things were apparent. First, Eberle was damned lucky to be playing with Ryan Potulny. Second, Eberle was making Potulny better as much as Potulny was helping Eberle. Eberle had two goals and four assists in those seven games, and all four assists had been first assists. Offensively, Stone was effectively a non-factor aside from a second assist here and there but Potulny had seriously picked up the pace when he had Eberle on his opposite wing. Finally, despite those six points Eberle was -3. He was never billed as a defensive stalwart and he was being burned by near-NHL players like Bergfors and Darche rather than bums, but he was still being burned. How much of this was due to the ineptitude of the Falcons and how much of this was due to Eberle is beyond this commentator's ability to assess.

Eberle and the Falcons enjoyed a long rest before taking on the Bridgeport Sound Tigers away on April 10. It was Eberle's first game at even or better since his second way back on March 28, as he picked up his first ever second assist on Potulny's 36th goal to make up for being caught out for a Junior Lessard goal late in a shift when Potulny had already got off.

His final game of the season took place the next night, April 11, in Hartford to take on the Wolfpack. Hartford had a 2-0 lead five minutes in thanks to AHL snipers Patrick Rissmiller and Artem Anisimov - Eberle was on the ice for Anisimov's 37th goal of the season. Eberle picked up a measure of revenge on the power play, setting up Ryan Stone for his first power play marker since Eberle had joined the Falcons to make it 2-1. Dan Urquhart scored for Hartford but again Springfield's special teams pulled them back into the game: first, Potulny scored his 38th on the powerplay with Eberle on the ice but uninvolved in the play, and finally Potulny returned a favour to Eberle, setting up the 18-year-old for a powerplay goal of his own. From there, things got out of hand and the Falcons wound up losing 5-3, all three Springfield goals coming on the man advantage, but Eberle had made his mark. -2, sure, thanks to a Greg Moore empty-netter, but a goal, an assist, and third star from the apparently impressed Hartford press box. Rob Schremp, to pick a name, despite playing a game tailored to his strength on the powerplay was pointless and -2.

That closed the book on Eberle's first taste of professional hockey. Nine games, three goals, six assists, nine points. In those nine games, Potulny had upped his production to eight goals and five assists to lead the Falcons. Of course Eberle had been playing with the best line the Falcons could provide him, but he'd played a major role in making that line as good as it was. Potulny's time with Eberle alone was more productive than any single month of his season. But he'd also been primarly victimized by a rogue's gallery of near-NHLers, 20 and 30-goal scorers. He'd endured two minuses thanks to empty-net goals but had not seen a single empty-netter go his way. The Falcons certainly hadn't gotten worse defensively while he'd been there; they'd always been pretty awful. As many extenuating circumstances as possible were on Eberle's side.

Eberle made his return to the Falcons last night in Wilkes-Barre to take on the minor Penguins. The Falcons are dead last in the American Hockey League at present and played like it. Well, mostly played like it. Eberle's linemates had deteriorated from Potulny and Stone to Chad Wiseman and Charles Linglet but it was still the best the Falcons had to offer and he got started right where he left off, scoring on his first shift and his first shot and then, at 6:19 of the first period, getting the first assist on a Colin Fretter powerplay goal.

Eberle also suffered his inevitable EV-, this time when Konstantin Pushkarev scored his eighth of the year. The Falcons stormed out to a 4-1 lead but collapsed as the Penguins bombarded Jean-Philippe Levasseur with rubber: the shots wound up 55-26. But although the Falcons surrendered the three goal lead Levasseur held on into overtime, where Deryk Engelland scored for Wilkes-Barre with Wiseman and Fretter but no Eberle out, and the game was over.

But a goal, an assist, and even on his first game back. That's a pretty good pace, wouldn't you agree?

Game 70 Preview: Battle of the Western Conference Cellar-Dwellars

Mike MacLean — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:10:25 -0000

his game is one of those hockey games where late in the season two teams are playing for pride, and nothing more. They aren't close in the standings, yet they are the two worst teams in the Western Conference. There's no jockeying for position. That said, I always like playing the Oil. I find them fun to watch, especially Gagner.

It's hard to imagine this game being a high-scoring affair, but given the names on the Oilers blueline and the fact Columbus' achilles heel all season has been poor defensive play this one could be a shootout. Rick Nash is out again for the Jackets, this time with the flu. Juice is going to give it another go however.

The battle between the pipes at this point looks to be between Steve Mason and Jeff Deslauriers. Mase needs to get back on track and finish the season strong, it will only help him going into next season.

Fearless Prediction: Gilbert Brule scores for the Oil, 'jus cuz.

Game Time: 7:00pm ET

Opponent's Blog: The Copper & Blue

Game Page: Oilers vs Blue Jackets coverage

TSN Preview: Oilers vs Blue Jackets preview

TV: FSN

Radio: WBNS-AM (1460); WWCD-FM (101.1)

More after the jump...

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Both teams are without their top offensive talents. The Blue Jackets' Rick Nash is out because of the flu, while Ales Hemsky of the Oilers has been out since November because of a shoulder injury. The Oilers are 1-14-1 on the road since mid-December, including a 6-4 loss in Toronto on Saturday.

Jackets Links:

Columbus Blue Jackets / Columbus Blue Jackets Schedule

Columbus Blue Jackets Roster / Columbus Blue Jackets Stats

Here are the lineups for tonight's tilt:

Columbus Blue Jackets

R.J. Umberger	Derick Brassard	Jakub Voracek
Kristian Huselius	Antoine Vermette	Derek Dorsett
Chris Clark	Samuel Pahlsson	Jared Boll
Michael Blunden	Andrew Murray	Maksim Mayorov

Fedor Tyutin	Anton Stralman
Marc Methot	Jan Hejda
Kris Russell	Mike Commodore

Steve Mason

Mathieu Garon

EXTRA: Nathan Paetsch

INJURED/SICK: Derek MacKenzie, Rick Nash, Rostislav Klesla

Edmonton Oilers

Dustin Penner	Andrew Cogliano	Gilbert Brule
Ethan Moreau	Shawn Horcoff	Mike Comrie
Robert Nilsson	Sam Gagner	Marc Pouliot
Chris Minard	Ryan Potulny	Zack Stortini

Ryan Whitney	Tom Gilbert
Taylor Chorney	Jason Strudwick
Aaron Johnson	Theo Peckham

Jeff Deslauriers

Devan Dubnyk

Edmonton - Montreal post-game: Poor, poor Devan

Bruce McCurdy — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:15:10 -0000

More photos » Ryan Remiorz - AP

9 days ago: Montreal Canadiens Jaroslav Spacek is checked by Edmonton Oilers Gilbert Brule during the first period of an NHL hockey game on Thursday, March 11, 2010 in Montreal. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Ryan Remiorz)

Browse more photos »

Devan Dubnyk can't win for losing. He came oh so close to his first career win on Thursday night, taking the Oilers to the shootout against Montreal and then stopping the first four shooters he faced, but no Oiler could score to put it away. Ryan Potulny and Shawn Horcoff stuffed the puck into the pads of Jaroslav Halak. Shooting third, Gilbert Brule had the game on his stick but wired a bullet shot off the iron, right where post meets crossbar. After Dubnyk made yet a fourth stop, Robert Nilsson deked Halak but couldn't lift the puck over him. Finally in the fifth round Andrei Kostitsyn managed to beat Dubnyk, and when Sam Gagner flubbed his deke attempt another game was lost. That's 21-39-7 for the woeful Oilers overall, and 0-7-2 for the luckless Dubnyk.

Not that this one was a showcase of great goaltending up until that point. Both Dubnyk and Halak were beaten twice in the game's opening 10 minutes, and a second flurry of goals from late in the second to the midway point of the third bumped the score to 4-4. Nilsson, Gagner, Andrew Cogliano, and Horcoff did the damage for the Oilers, as each line connected once on the night.

More bad news for a team that can't stop living the nightmare came in the form of an injury that knocked Ryan Whitney out of this one late in the second. Whitney blocked a shot and left with a leg (hopefully not a foot) injury. Of the three Oilers acquired at the deadline last week, two - Ryan Jones and now Whitney - are already on the shelf.

Patrick O'Sullivan was also out of action tonight with a hand injury after a slash the other night, so up came Chris Minard to become the first Oiler to wear #39 since Dougie Weight left town. Coincidentally, Minard became the 39th different Oiler of this injury-and-illness-plagued season, the largest number of players to wear Oiler silks in a single season since 1998-99.

More numbers after the jump ...

A 65-minute game sans a minute-munching defender for a significnat portion really raised the bar for the remaining defence corps. Tom Gilbert delivered one of his best games of the season, logging 27:49, and posting 0-2-2, +1 with 4 blocked shots. Aaron Johnson was close behind at 26:31 and also recorded a creditable +1 with a solid, low-event night. Johnson's most-of-the-time partner, Theo Peckham, was a force out there, landing 7 hits in his 21:23 including a couple that registered on the Richter Scale. Better still, Oilers outshot Montreal 13-4 on Theo's watch. The only downside was a pair of marginal penalties of the type that veterans get away with but rookies don't. It's hard to reconcile this Peckham with the one who played four games in October, posting a miserable -5 in just 47 minutes. This time around Theo has played with far more authority, breaking even on the +/- scale over 6 games and 112 hard minutes.

Then there was the pairing of Jason Strudwick (-2) and Taylor Chorney (-3 in just 15:03). Every once in a while Chorney does something that looks like a real defenceman, but his results are consistently terrible. Strudwick meanwhile was negligent if not missing in action on two of the Montreal tallies.

Up front Pat Quinn tried to hard-match the Penner-Cogliano-Brule trio against Montreal's B.Pouliot-Gomez-Gionta line, and otherwise pretty much rolled the lines. That group made things happen in the good end of the ice but had some issues in the defensive zone, outshooting Montreal 8-5 but getting outscored 1-2. Penner started to really skate and take control in the third period and overtime, his best stretch of hockey since the Olympic break. He was unlucky to hit the post twice in a row on a breakaway attempt. Brule meanwhile led the forward corps in shots (3), hits (4), and faceoff percentage (4/5 = 80%), but failed to convert his best opportunity when sent in alone by Penner.

Meanwhile, Comrie-Horcoff-Pisani formed a veteran trio which combined for the 4-4 goal and finished the night +1 across the board. The makeshift Minard-Gagner-Pouliot trio was less successful, each finishing the night at -2 although they did click for the game's lone powerplay tally. Finally, the new fourth line of Nilsson-Potulny-Stortini had a real solid night, outshooting the Habs 6-0 during their 10½ minutes and putting a goal on the board.

All in all it was an entertaining and wide-open if sloppy affair. The Oilers were fully deserving of their one point and could easily have taken the second. The best news of all was that Toronto won their game in overtime and actually extended the gap over the Oilers to 7 points. The league's bottom two teams meet up on Saturday in a game which could end the suspense in the "race" for last overall. Even if the Oilers pull off the win they'll still be at least 5 points in arrears and odds-on favourite to pick no worse than second. Let's just hope that Hall or Seguin will be worth the misery that Oil fans have endured in 2009-10.

Secondary scorers: analysis by microstat

Bruce McCurdy — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:30:48 -0000

More photos » John Ulan - AP

13 days ago: The Edmonton Oilers' Andrew Cogliano, right, and Patrick O'Sullivan, centre, celebrate Gilbert Brule's, left, goal on the New Jersey Devils' Martin Brodeur during the second period of an NHL hockey game in Edmonton on Sunday, March 7, 2010. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, John Ulan)

Browse more photos »

66 games into this sorry, lost season, the Edmonton Oilers stand, er, lie in 30th place overall, 6 points in arrears of dismal Toronto and fully a dozen points back of the 28th place Islanders. It's a standing they've earned on merit, given the Oilers also rank 30th in Goals Against and 29th in Goals For (shootout "goals" included cuz I'm too lazy to weed 'em out until season's end). This latter "achievement" took some time after a hot start which saw the Oil in the top ten offensive teams for quite a while. Today they rank (barely) ahead of Boston, and based on recent evidence such as 4 goals during the just-completed 3-game homestand it's easy to imagine the Oil hitting bottom in this dept. too when all is said and done.

The injury to Ales Hemsky is obviously a major contributing factor, as is the crash and burn of the Oilers' defensive corps which generated a lot of offence last year. Front-line scoring has been poor with only Dustin Penner having scored even 15 goals to date, while scoring depth has been spotty at best. Let's look at that scoring depth, in depth.

Up front, the expectations for scoring could crudely be divided into these groups:

Primary scoring: (Hemsky), Horcoff, Penner, Gagner

Secondary scoring: O'Sullivan, Nilsson, Cogliano, Brule, Potulny, (Comrie), (Pouliot)

Checkers, plumbers and grunts: Moreau, Jacques, Stortini, (Pisani), (Stone), Jones

I've included Ryan Jones just because he appears on the Behind the Net data which is my primary source for this study. In all 17 Oiler forwards have played 19+ GP in 2009-10, with the five in brackets all having played fewer than 30.

Today I am going to focus on just the middle group, the guys who should be expected to provide secondary scoring. Comrie and Pouliot are excluded due to having played fewer than half the games, which leaves us with five players: Patrick O'Sullivan, Robert Nilsson, Andrew Cogliano, Gilbert Brule and Ryan Potulny. Apples and apples to at least some degree: each is 22-25 years old; each is between 5'10 and 6'0 and 180-190 lbs; each has a background of being a scorer. Some numbers on this quintet after the jump:

For this study we'll focus on even strength performance only, primarily using data from Gabe Desjardins' behindthenet.ca supplemented by nhl.com. I have chosen 12 categories, with both Quality of Competition and of Teammate calculated as an average of three different measures. Figures in brackets are the ranking among the 12 Oiler forwards with 30+ GP, other than faceoffs where only 9 players with 100+ draws are considered.

EV TOI/G
--------------
13:16 O'Sullivan (4 of 12)
12:50 Brule (5)
12:34 Nilsson (6)
12:19 Cogliano (7)
12:18 Potulny (8)

Not much to choose here, just a minute per game difference among the five.

GOALS/60
----------------
1.14 Brule (1 of 12)
0.72 Potulny (3)
0.44 O'Sullivan (8)
0.40 Nilsson (9)
0.30 Cogliano (11)

PTS/60
--------------
2.28 Brule (1 of 12)
1.54 Potulny(4)
1.41 Nilsson (5)
1.31 O'Sullivan (6)
0.91 Cogliano (11)

Brule has surprisingly pulled ahead of Dustin Penner and is now the most productive scorer on the team per minute of ice time, in both goals and points (Hemsky excluded, of course). He is well clear of his "peers", with only Potulny even in the ballpark as a finisher.

GF ON/60
---------
2.63 Brule (2 of 12)
2.05 Cogliano (7)
1.82 Nilsson (8)
1.75 O'Sullivan (10)
1.64 Potulny (11)

GA ON/60
----------
2.74 Cogliano (5 of 12)
2.81 Brule (7)
3.08 Potulny (8)
3.33 Nilsson (9)
3.71 O'Sullivan (12)

Brule again is far superior to his peer group, with only Cogliano in the conversation. The others are bleeding minus 1.5 to 2.0 goals per 60 minutes they play.

QoC rankings (QualComp, Corsi QoC, Rel Corsi QoC = average)
----------------
O'Sullivan (2, 4, 2 = 2.7 of 12)
Brule (8, 2, 3 = 4.3)
Potulny (4, 6, 6 = 5.3)
Cogliano (7, 10, 11 = 9.3)
Nilsson (10, 11, 10 = 10.3)

QoT rankings (QualTeam, Corsi QoT, Rel Corsi QoT = average)
----------------
Potulny (1, 3, 3 = 2.3 of 12)
Cogliano (8, 2, 2 = 4.0)
Brule (4, 5, 6 = 5.0)
O'Sullivan (2, 6, 7 = 5.0)
Nilsson (11, 10, 11 = 10.7)

O'Sullivan has faced slightly tougher competitiion than Brule in two of the three metrics. Potulny on the other hand has played with the weakest teammates (QoT is listed in order of difficulty). Nilsson has faced the softest of minutes with the best of teammates.

Relative Corsi
------------------
+3.7 Nilsson (3 of 12)
+2.1 Brule (4)
-2.1 Potulny (6)
-3.7 Cogliano (7)
-4.4 O'Sullivan (8)

Nilsson's cherry minutes show up on the Corsi metric, not that he has the production to show for it. But at least Oilers outshoot with him out there.

PDO# (Sh% + Sv%)
---------
1.001 (9.2% + .909) Brule (4 of 12)
.996 (7.1% +.924) Cogliano (5)
.956 (6.2% + .894) Nilsson (9)
.956 (5.4% + .902) Potulny (10)
.953 (6.2 + .891) O'Sullivan (11)

Brule and Cogliano are around the median 1.000 for different reasons, a good Sv% for Cogliano and a solid on-ice Sh% for Brule. The other three are all hurting by this metric. I'll leave it to the reader's opinion to determine whether that is a measure of their own performance or simply a case of percentages which are likely to snap back in their favour.

ZoneStart
---------------
47.7% Brule (4 of 12)
48.2% Potulny (5)
49.0% Cogliano (7)
49.7% O'Sullivan (10)
50.2% Nilsson (11)

Cherries on top for Nilsson.

Hits/GP
----------
1.80 Brule (3 of 12)
0.85 Cogliano (6)
0.76 Potulny (7)
0.52 Nilsson (9)
0.46 O'Sullivan (10)

I included one stat that measures physical play because to me it has value. Certainly Brule is far and away the most physical of this fivesome.

Faceoffs (100 or more draws)
--------------
Brule 52.6% (1 of 9)
Potulny 47.6% (6 of 9)
Cogliano 42.5% (8 of 9)
O'Sullivan 36.0% (9 of 9)
Nilsson --- (unranked)

Again Brule is free and clear with a solid percentage well above break even. The rest are increasing degrees of suck, with the exception of Nilsson who doesn't take draws at all.

GVT
------
+6.2 Brule (2 of 12)
+3.1 Potulny (4)
+1.2 Nilsson (5)
+0.4 O'Sullivan (8)
-0.9 Cogliano (11)

Tom Awad's metric confirms Brule is well clear of his peer group. For some reason Cogliano is hammered more than Nilsson and O'Sullivan.

Finally, let's rank this peer group among themselves in each of these 12 diverse categories:

Stat	Brule	Potulny	Cogliano	Nilsson	O'Sullivan
G/60	1	2	5	4	3
P/60	1	2	5	4	3
GF ON/60	1	5	2	3	4
GA ON/60	2	3	1	4	5
QoC	2	3	4	5	1
QoT	3.5	1	2	5	3.5
REL Corsi	2	3	4	1	5
PDO#	1	4	2	3	5
ZoneStart	1	2	3	5	4
Hits/GP	1	3	2	4	5
FO%	1	2	3	5	4
GVT	1	2	5	3	4
(total)	17.5	32	38	46	46.5

Wow, Gilbert Brule is ranked #1 in 8 of the 12, with the other four guys topping a single category each. Considering that he is both the second youngest and second cheapest of the group, my own conclusion is that he's developing nicely, or at least, nicer than those other guys. For some reason opinion has been pretty sharply divided on this guy, including within our own Copper & Blue top 5 under 25, in which two of us ranked him in the top 6 and the other three outside the top 12. "Sell high" has been the mantra in some quarters. My own opinion is that this is one guy who's made real positive steps, and while he still has a considerable way to go, we'd be nuts to let him go at this point. He's one of the most positive stories of this dismal season.

On the other hand, the foregoing continues to cast Patrick O'Sullivan and Robert Nilsson in a bad light that becomes even harsher when you realize they are by far the two highest-paid members of the group. Nilsson especially has feeble production, given his cherry minutes with excellent teammates against softish opposition. If he can't score (or defend, or hit) under those circumstances, what more do we need to know about the guy? In this fan's opinion it's time to cut bait on both of these guys.

Edmonton - Ottawa post-game: Return to Situation Normal ...

Bruce McCurdy — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:18:20 -0000

More photos » John Ulan - AP

11 days ago: Ottawa Senators' Jason Spezza, left, looks on as teammate Matt Cullen, not shown, scores the wnning goal on the Edmonton Oilers' Jeff Deslauriers during third period NHL hockey action in Edmonton on Tuesday, March 9, 2010. (AP Photo/THE CANADIAN PRESS - John Ulan)

Browse more photos »

Well that's more like it. Fresh off a pair of low-scoring wins, the Oilers rode a goal by Fernando Pisani and some more white hot goaltending by Jeff Deslauriers to a wholly undeserved 1-0 lead deep into the second period. Nearly 8 periods into a three-game homestand, Deslauriers had allowed but a single goal; the four his teammates mustered over that time were threatening to become a three-game winning streak. How would Punjabi Oil sleep?

Normalcy returned when Ottawa stopped trying to pick the corners and started shooting at the middle of the net. Goals followed in rapid succession, one through Deslauriers' nine-hole (off the back pad and in), another through the seven-hole (between catching glove and hip), then two more through the more traditional five-hole. Just like that the Sens were skating off with a well-deserved 4-1 win that was not really that close.

By the numbers, and by eye, Oilers were dominated at even strength and on both special teams. Oilers were in chase mode throughout and exacerbated their problems by taking way too many penalties. Ottawa brought in the league's 30th ranked road powerplay, but it just took one night with the Oilers to jump to 28th and raise their numbers by a full percentage point. In March. Given 9 opportunities the Sens were able to convert 2 of those, including Matt Cullen's game winner (pictured) with Marc Pouliot in the box for shooting the puck over the glass. It was that kind of night.

The Oilers accomplished exactly one part of their game plan in that their tough minutes combo of Penner-Horcoff-Pisani-Whitney-Gilbert matched up well against Michalek-Spezza-Alfredsson-Phillips-Volchenkov, with the trio of forwards actually winning their portion of the battle 1-0. It would seem that Cory Clouston and Pat Quinn were hard-matching, as those players were on the ice for a disproportionately small percentage of EV faceoffs, suggesting lots of changing on the fly. Unfortunately that resulted in the lower tiers of the roster facing (and causing for that matter) the huge majority of own-zone faceoffs, with predictable results.

I don't make a regular practice of studying such matters but the distribution of faceoffs in this game seemed truly extraordinary. Of 69 draws a staggering 40 pucks were dropped in the Oilers' defensive zone, against just 12 in Ottawa's end, with the other 17 occurring in the neutral zone. Probably not a record or anything, but it wouldn't surprise me if one could look at a random sample of 100 games and not find another one as extreme.

Some more pretty gory numbers in this one, after the break:

Stat	OTT	EDM

Shots on Goal	13-12-14 = 39	7-8-4 = 19
EV Shots	24	11

Corsi	25-24-24 = 73	12-12-7 = 31
EV Corsi	49	20

O-Zone faceoffs	40	12
EV O-Zone faceoffs	23	8

Takeaways	7	4
Giveaways	10	26

Penalties	5	11
PiM	13	33
Powerplay	2/9	0/4

Score	4	1

Any questions?

Just to pile on, the consistency of the Sens effort can be seen in shots for and Corsi for, whereas the flagging efforts of the Oil are revealed by a third period that was even worse than the two that preceded it. Or consider this one, Giveaways/Takeaways by period: 6/3, 9/1, 11/0. That is just butt freakin' ugly on a team wide scale, and there's no excuse for it.

On the individual level it was a tough night for Patrick O'Sullivan, who left midway through the first period with a reported hand injury. It was a tougher night for a few others. For example, Ryan Potulny, who for whatever reason received copious ice time from Quinn, a whopping 22:55 which was fully 6 minutes more than any other Oiler forward. Of that 15:31 (2 minutes more than anyone else) were at even strength. They weren't the toughest minutes either, as he played more than 5 minutes against the following Sens (most to least): Brian Lee, Matt Carkner, Peter Regin, Jerkko Ruutu, Andy Sutton, Jesse Winchester, Alex Kovalev, Matt Cullen, Chris Neil. Now consider that in Potulny's ice time the Oilers attempted all of 1 shot on the Ottawa net while allowing 21 attempts against their own goal. Once you've finished chewing on that, explain to me in the comments why Potulny saw so much ice. Cuz I sure can't.

Potulny miraculously emerged from the night with an even +/-, thanks no doubt to some of JDD's early heroics not to mention that most duplicitous of lovers, Lady Luck. He was not so fortunate on the PK, as he was the guy sucked very badly out of position to allow Cullen's one-timer that broke the game open. As Potulny got sucked over to the RW boards the box completely collapsed, pretty much in keeping with the entire Oilers' team in the third.

Not that Potulny was the only culprit. Check out the EV Corsi of these guys:

Player	EV TOI	Corsi +	Corsi -	EV Corsi

Potulny	15:31	1	21	-20
Chorney	12:38	3	21	-18
Strudwick	13:25	4	21	-17
Brule	13:39	4	20	-16

Brutal. Brutal. Brutal. Brutal.

Robert Nilsson had slightly better shots data but didn't exactly have a glorious game. "Little Magic" showed very little magic indeed, with a stat line over 13:03 that was a clean sheet save 1 shot attempt that was blocked and 2 giveaways. Otherwise, in the immortal words of Sam Mitchell, "zero, zero, zero, zero, zero". Unfortunately the league doesn't keep track of the number of times a guy falls down in a game, because Row-bert surely led both teams in this category. On the bright side, on his on failed shot attempt he did have a spectacular broken stick in which his blade was launched halfway to the pressbox before crashing down at least fifty feet from where it broke. It gave me an idea of where to launch Nilsson himself, other than the unforgiving fact that the Oilers are once again down to the minimum number of available forwards even assuming the best for O'Sullivan's health.

Then there was Zack Stortini who tried to bring some energy to the game by challenging Matt Carkner after the Sens thumper decked Potulny from behind, only to be fingered as the instigator, then lose the fight. It was only Zorg's second career instigator penalty as he is normally very disciplined on such manners, but this indiscretion was typical of what was just a bad night virtually right across the team. A parade to the penalty box was one result, with many of the infractions of type "unnecessary".

As Pat Quinn summarized:

"Our forwards had as bad a night as you could imagine: they didn't check, they didn't help our defence, they ran around in the zone, they didn't recover any pucks, they didn't get open for passes, they basically took a night off."

So, a disappointing effort, especially in front of the home faithful. By the third period it was so quiet in there you could hear a puck drop. There were a few spirited performances from the likes of Theo Peckham, Aaron Johnson, Ryan Whitney, Shawn Horcoff, Fernando Pisani, and Jeff Deslauriers, but nowhere near enough of them. Nowhere near enough NHL-calibre performances or performers, to put it more bluntly.

Brutal.

Edmonton - Minnesota post-game: We won?!

Bruce McCurdy — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:21:00 -0000

More photos » John Ulan - AP

Edmonton Oilers' Jeff Deslauriers, left, deflects a shot from Minnesota Wild Owen Nolan during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Edmonton on Friday, March 5, 2010. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, John Ulan)

Browse more photos »

Well that was different. I scored tickets to tonight's Wild @ Oilers game (thanks, Woodguy!), dutifully went to the game, and wouldn't you know but the Oilers actually won! Well, they "won", it was really a tie with a skills contest at the end, but when that was done (almost) everybody cheered and the scoreboard said "Oilers 2, Wild 1". A first for me in 2009-10; in my previous 8 games - home games all, mind - the Oilers posted an 0-6-2 record, or as some might put it, 0-8. I guess I was due.

This was a half-decent game, not great but it had its moments. It was competitive and threated to boil over a few times, especially when Wild goon Derek Boogaard viciously kneed Oilers newcomer Ryan Jones and put him down and out. A flagrant, deliberate attempt to injure that was as obvious a five-minute major and game misconduct as I've seen in quite some time. However, Jones is only an Oiler, so while the knee was detected the penalty was only two minutes. There's a precedent that it's OK to do whatever you want to any Oiler - smash Hemsky head first into the end boards, trip Souray at high speed into the end boards, crush Smid into the end boards five feet from the puck - and the maximum penalty is two minutes (none at all in Smid's case). I'm bloody sick of it. Year after year the Oilers wind up with half their team on the IR, and the entertainment value of going to a game only to see some poor sod get helped or carried off the ice is not very bloody high.

I know I sound like an Oiler whiner and for sure shit like this happens to other teams as well, like when that gutless puke Maxim Lapierre tried to put Scott Nichol in a wheelchair last night. I can assure you I get enraged when I see cheap crap like that no matter which team is involved and even more enraged when the refs somehow wind up missing it, or undercalling it, much more often than not. But put a little hold on a guy or shoot a puck over the glass and they're all over it. The NHL and its officials do a bloody terrible job of protecting their players and its time for all concerned to pull their heads out of their collective asses and start treating reckless, dangerous and/or dirty play seriously. Safety in the workplace should be a priority, Mr. Bettman, but you and your lackeys don't seem to be doing anything about it. Or as Jeremy Roenick famously put it: "Wake up NHL ... NHL, wake up!"

More on the game after the jump ..

It was a very even game, an old-fashioned goaltenders' duel despite relatively low shot totals that stood at 23-23 after 60 minutes of 1-1 hockey. A significant percentage of those shots were of the dangerous variety. I enjoyed seeing Minny's splendid line of Mikko Koivu between Antti Miettinen and Andrew Brunette - three very smart, versatile, and underrated players. The old codger Owen Nolan played a strong game, while on the blue another crafty vet, Marek Zidlicky, showed smarts and skills reminiscent of a Zubov or Visnovsky in logging a game-high 28:01. I got an eyeful of the emerging power forward Guillaume Latendresse, who scored the tying goal on a fine rush and wraparound (now known as a "Deslauriers").

Speaking of whom, JDD delivered a very strong game for the Oil, wraparound aside. He delivered a number of ten-bell stops including the pictured blocker robbery off Nolan in the first period in which he displayed otherwordly lateral movement. He got stronger as the game went along and was nothing short of brilliant in overtime, making 6 stops, all of them difficult. His intensity and confidence seemed to grow as the game proceeded, and he even looked competent handling the puck on this night. Let the bells ring out.

I tried to focus on the newcomers, although Jones didn't last a period. I was moderately impressed with Ryan Whitney who had more good moments than bad. He likes to make a play with the puck every time, he's not one to dump it out and he showed real patience with the disc on occasion. Meanwhile, Aaron Johnson impressed in a regular shift with Theo Peckham, leading both teams with 5 blocked shots. Johnson tried to do a little too much at times, for example following a dump in with a deep forecheck which ended up being a Wild 2-on-1 as the forwards failed to cover. But I saw lots to like about this player, who seems to be a real competitive son of a gun. He and Peckham brought a welcome helping of both crust and jam.

Up front Andrew Cogliano was particularly impressive with what may well have been his best game of the season, skating hard and battling harder. He's a real fun player to watch when he brings both his legs and his game face. Gilbert Brule had a strong game, showing lots of creativity in the offensive zone as well as his powerful shot, spiced with a couple of dandy hits. This guy has some real dimension to the offensive side of his game. Zack Stortini had a splendid game on a line with Mike Comrie and Ryan Potulny, a couple of skill guys who could make something out of Stortini's board play. Indeed, Comrie scored the Oilers lone goal after a fine sequence of plays by Stortini in which Zorg won two board battles to get the puck out of Oilers end, then bulled to the Wild net to create chaos and confusion at the near post before shovelling the disc to Comrie for the wararound to the far side. In an action packed 9:43 Stortini posted 0-1-1, +1 with 2 penalties (both coincidental), 2 shots, 3 hits, and 2 takeaways.

Patrick O'Sullivan played his 82nd game as an Oiler and pushed his +/- rating during his time here to an ugly -40, the number where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet. O'Sullivan actually played not too badly, made one dandy cross-crease pass to Brule which forced one of Backstrom's best stops. Meanwhile Dustin Penner had a very indifferent night, creating next to nothing, while Robert Nilsson was once again ineffectual despite a decent effort.

In the end it boiled down to the shootout, which was an entertaining contest as these things go, extending to six rounds. Koivu anticipated JDD's pokecheck and made his move early, roofing a backhand; Potulny scored on a great deke which screwed Backstrom into the ice to even it up. After a series of saves and one loud goalpost by Horcoff, Brule picked the top corner with a bullet shot, but Zidlicky answered for the Wild with a perfectly-placed shot of his own. JDD delivered a couple of fine stops in Rounds 3 and 5 when a goal would have won it for the Wild. Finally in a showdown between the goal scorers from regulation, Mike Comrie scored on a nice move to his backhand to put the Oilers on top before Deslauriers made a fine glove stop off Latendresse to put this baby to bed.

Just the Oilers' 5th win in the last 32, but the large Friday night crowd stayed to the end and was very responsive. It was a happy crowd which stood shoulder to shoulder in the concourse, literally inching our way out of the cramped old building but exuberant nonetheless. It had been a rare good night in what has been an extremely bad season.

Denis Grebeshkov to the Preds: a scream from the id.

Benjamin Massey — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:01:56 -0000

More photos » Jeff McIntosh - AP

Browse more photos »

Sometimes, you just want to shout.

I was never inclined to give Steve Tambellini the benefit of the doubt. When the organization that knew him best passed him up as general manager in favour of a mediocre agent, well, that said something to me. But I'm always happy to be proven wrong.

So far, though, I look like a genius. What can't this guy screw up? What can Steve Tambellini possibly get right in this world? The catastrophically imbecilic Nikolai Khabibulin signing? The complete clusterbeep that was the Oilers' roster from day one? The closest things we've had to pleasant surprises - Ryan Potulny, Sam Gagner, and Gilbert Brule - were all Kevin Lowe moves.

Remember when we panned Kevin Lowe? I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of Kevin Lowe these days.

And the latest. Denis Grebeshkov for a second-round pick. To the Nashville Predators, a team rocketing up the NHL standings. It's inconceivable that this pick will be earlier than fifty-fifth overall in the shallowest draft year for some time. Essentially, we gave Denis Grebeshkov away. Gave him away.

My god, have you looked at our blueline lately? Jason Strudwick has played a prominent role! We've recalled Theo Peckham and Jim Corsi's bitch Taylor Chorney! Any time you're doing that, you're in trouble. And then we're getting rid of the only guys who's been healthy and anything resembling effective for damned close to nothing? In what universe does this any amount of sense? How can any thinking person condone this trade?

Let's remind ourselves of what Denis Grebeshkov is. He's a restricted free agent, which is probably going to be the excuse trotted out by the front office: oh, we were stupid enough to give Nikolai Khabibulin a terrible contract, so it made sense for us to light Denis Grebeshkov on fire. He's no holy hell on the blue line, with a +/- differential of 0.11: better than average for the Oilers but not fantastic. His shots against per sixty is 32.8, which is Andrew Cogliano territory. He's not a superstar, let's be honest.

But he's played 47 games, which for an Oiler defenseman makes him a positive iron man. He plays with stiffs and against better players, ranking near the top of the team in QUALCOMP and around the bottom in QUALTEAM. This is also his worst season as an Oiler: last year, in admittedly somewhat better circumstances, he allowed only 27.3 shots per sixty. $3.1 million per year was an overpay, but his restricted free agency at the end of the year was a boon in that regard: you better believe that number could come down.

But with nineteen points so far this year, Grebeshkov was one of the only Oilers defensemen with even a passing acquaintance with offense. He is, unlike Edmonton's other halfway-decent defensemen, young enough to be part of a good team in the future. He's nobody's idea of an All-Star, but he's all right.

There was no reason not to keep Grebeshkov! None! If it takes us five years to relentlessly rebuild, well, then, by god, Grebeshkov will be 30 and just on the tail-end of his prime in time to contribute to a winning team! He presumably won't be that expensive and, with restricted free agency on the horizon, the Oilers hold all the cards unless somebody makes him an offer sheet (and if somebody made him an offer sheet then we'd get a lot more than a second-rounder for our trouble). If we were going to trade him, the return should bear that in mind: there aren't a lot of useful pieces on this roster but Grebeshkov was one of them.

Nope. Late second-rounder. Thanks, Tambellini. Thanks a bunch.

But, hey, at least we get to watch Taylor Chorney some more. You remember Taylor Chorney, don't you? The guy who got worked like a speed bag and who inexplicably got run out onto the worst penalty kill in history with Jason Strudwick all the time? And Theo Peckham, who has managed the frankly remarkable feat of being the worst Oiler in shots for per sixty (16.5) and shots against per sixty (44.4).

And the return of a late second round pick? Wayne Simmonds, the Midnight Meat Train himself, went 61st overall in 2007! It's practically like we traded for Wayne Simmonds! Of course, the 55-60 picks in 2007 were T.J. Galiardi, Akim Aliu, Mike Hoeffel, Nick Spaling, Drew Schiestel, and Ruslan Bashkirov. In 2006, they were Denis Bodrov, Mike Weber, Alexander Vasyunov, Codey Burki, and Jesse Joensuu. In 2005 it got even better: Adam McQuaid, Marc-Andre Cliche, Matt Kassian, Nate Hagemo, Pier-Olivier Pelletier, and the deceptively named T.J. Fast.

When the Oilers sent out Marc-Andre Bergeron and a third-rounder for Grebeshkov, it was acclaimed as a steal of a deal. We would be better off clicking undo on that trade and taking Marc-Andre Bergeron back. Think about that.

Here's the remarkable thing. It might get worse. You've heard the rumours? We're supposed to be giving up Sheldon Souray for a package centred around Wade Redden. Or Lubomir Visnovsky for Brad Marchand and a draft pick. There's a very real possibility that, by this time next week, Jason Strudwick will be our third-best defenseman. I mean actually our third best defenseman, not just Pat Quinn thinking he's our third-best defenseman.

This isn't a rebuild. This is a fire sale. The way Steve Tambellini is going, the 2010-11 Edmonton Oilers could be the worst team in NHL history.

Trade Value Of Your Edmonton Oilers

Derek Zona — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:30:17 -0000

The trade deadline is now upon us. Many Edmonton OIlers appeared in print rumors during the run-up to the Olympic deadline and now a battered fanbase hopes that a catatonic General Manager will snap out of whatever condition he is currently in and work a miracle. All he needs to do is move some contracts, move some aging veterans, free up some cap space and restore the Oilers' image. Actually, a miracle's not necessary, the fanbase would settle for somehow ridding this team of one or two burdensome contracts and maybe finding a real NHL forward or two. I guess that would be a miracle.

After the jump, I take a look at the contract status of each of the current Oilers, their expiration, whether they're on the block and attempt to estimate their trade value at the deadline.

		Contract Status	Contract Status		On the
#	Player	Cap Hit	Expiration		block?	Estimated Trade Value
10	Shawn Horcoff	$5,500,000	2014-2015	RFA	Yes	Extremely low. Possibly a mid-round pick
12	Robert Nilsson	$2,000,000	2010-2011	RFA	Yes	None. A comparable player or longshot prospect
13	Andrew Cogliano	$1,133,333	20009-2010	RFA	Yes	High. A high round pick or maybe a legitmate NHL player like a middle six center or a bottom four defender.
16	Ryan Potulny	$595,000	2009-2010	RFA	No	None. A waiver wire player
18	Ethan Moreau	$2,000,000	2010-2011	RFA	Yes	Low. A low-round pick, an unproven bottom six player or a bottom-six prospect
19	Patrick O'Sullivan	$2,925,000	2010-2011	RFA	Yes	A second or third round pick.
22	Jean-Francois Jacques	$525,000	2009-2010	RFA	Yes	None. A comparable player or longshot prospect
27	Dustin Penner	$4,250,000	2011-2012	RFA	No	An impact young blueliner, a first round pick or a can't miss prospect.
32	Ryan Stone	$600,000	2009-2010	RFA	No	None. A comparable player or longshot prospect
34	Fernando Pisani	$2,500,000	2009-2010	UFA	Yes	Low. A low-round pick, an unproven bottom six player or a bottom-six prospect
46	Zack Stortini	$700,000	2010-2011	RFA	No	None. A comparable player or longshot prospect
67	Gilbert Brule	$800,000	2009-2010	RFA	No	A comparable player or middle round pick.
78	Marc Pouliot	$825,000	2009-2010	RFA	No	None. A waiver wire player
83	Ales Hemsky	$4,100,000	2011-2012	UFA	No	Extremely high. Start with a lottery pick and add a younger roster defenseman and a high-end prospect
89	Sam Gagner	$1,650,000	2009-2010	RFA	No	A lottery pick+
91	Mike Comrie	$1,250,000	2009-2010	UFA	Yes	A middle-round pick

5	Ladislav Smid	$1,300,000	2010-2011	RFA	No	Very high. 1st Round pick, impact roster forward, high-end prospect
24	Steve Staios	$2,700,000	2010-2011	UFA	Yes	Low. A low-round pick, an unproven bottom six player or a bottom-six prospect
37	Denis Grebeshkov	$3,150,000	2009-2010	RFA	Yes	High. High round pick, impact roster forward, high-end prospect
41	Taylor Chorney	$941,666	2010-2011	RFA	No	Low
43	Jason Strudwick	$700,000	2009-2010	UFA	Yes	None.
44	Sheldon Souray	$5,400,000	2011-2012	UFA	Yes	A young, unproven defenseman, a possible top six winger, a high-end prospect
71	Lubomir Visnovsky	$5,600,000	2012-2013	UFA	Yes	High. 1st Round pick, impact roster forward, high-end prospect
77	Tom Gilbert	$4,000,000	2013-2014	UFA	Yes	Very High. An impact top six winger, a first round pick or a can't miss prospect.

35	Nikolai Khabibulin	$3,750,000!	2012-2013!	UFA	Yes	Negative. The team would have to include high profile assets in order to move him.
38	Jeff Deslauriers	$625,000	2009-2010	RFA	No	None. A late round pick.
40	Devan Dubnyk	$700,000	2009-2010	RFA	No	Low. A middling prospect or a middling pick.

The Oilers are in a terrible bargaining position. They've got some toxic assets and moving any of the valuable pieces on the roster would leave a gaping hole in the roster. Expect Pisani and Comrie to be dealt, and that's about it. Given the circumstances, Oiler fans should be jubilant if Tambellini is able to move one of Moreau, O'Sullivan, Staios or Nilsson, but don't count on it.

Just another long year as an Oilers fan, that's all.

Mike Comrie's Happy Day, and We Try to Ruin It

Benjamin Massey — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:30:13 -0000

More photos » Jimmy Jeong - AP

Browse more photos »

Bad news, ladies. Mike Comrie, as you've doubtless heard, is off the market.

Bad news, gentlemen. So's Hilary Duff.

I don't normally go in for the gossip pages, but this was a special case. My feelings towards Mike Comrie have been somewhat conflicted over the years. Once I practiced signing my name "Benjamin Comrie" with little hearts over the 'i's. Then I hated him in only the way a spurned lover or hockey fan can, cursing his name and his family and the day he was born and every decibel I spent cheering him on as a Saint and as an Oiler. And now he's back and things are good but I still watch him warily, once spurned and twice shy.

There are all sorts of questions about this engagement. Questions such as "will a married, happy family man Comrie have the same vigour and fire that characterized his best seasons?" and "is he getting too Hollywood? Will his effort suffer?" and "uh, Hilary Duff does know Mike lives in Edmonton, right?"

Remember, Mike Comrie is the same man who said of Edmonton "it's like communism there". Is Ms. Duff ideologically correct? Does she believe in veteran forwards and relentless rebuilds and the Greenwich Village of western Canada? If we spent $16 million on an infirm goaltender, is this manifest stupidity or an indication of how serious the organization is about winning?

Will she try to trade him for Corey Perry and demand that he pays her on his way out the door?

Apparently, Mike spent a million dollars on Hilary's engagement ring. A million dollars! What the hell happened to the two paycheque rule? Comrie's cap hit for this season is a cool $1.25 million, and when you remember that Mike already dropped a cool hundred grand on a Mercedes for his beloved's birthday, the only possible conclusion is that Hilary Duff is literally impoverishing Mike Comrie. I hope that Mercedes is at least a hard top because Mike's going to need it when he's living in the back of that Merc down by the river!

(You know you're reading the Copper & Blue when a player gets engaged and I immediately tell you about his cap hit.)

Come to think of it, how the hell do you spend a million dollars on an engagement ring? Allow me to put on my Gabe Desjardins hat. The price of gold is about $1,156 Canadian per troy ounce, and a troy ounce is about thirty-one grams. So a million bucks buys you 26.8 kilograms of gold. Maybe only half of it went to the ring and the other half of it went to the robotic hand she'll need to lug that fucker around everywhere. Maybe Mike saw an ad for that dollars for gold website and got confused. Maybe Lindsay Lohan got a 25 kilogram engagement ring and Comrie felt the need to one-up that. Maybe the Brick is selling engagement rings now and their prices are just as competitive as ever.

It's got to be bad for morale in the dressing room, though. What about the Oilers who married the girl next door before he got rich and famous? Who proposed on bended knee in a public lavatory with an onion ring? Comrie's got to be making them look pretty bad, with his seven-figure bling and all. If you're Ryan Potulny and you're making eleven dollars an hour working ~~down at the cannery~~ the Oilers second line, how do you think Mrs. Potulny is going to look at you when she sets down her Edmonton Sun and gives you the particulars of Comrie's engagement? Do you think "well, he's heir to a massive furniture fortune and saved a lot of money by not giving his signing bonuses back to his general managers" is going to go over well?

And then you make a snide remark in practice and then Mike questions your manhood in the shower and then you end up fighting and it's not the kinky sort of fight either but the kind where eyes get torn out, which I guess might be kinky to a certain subsection of our audience but not to the kind that wants us to win hockey games, and then Marc Pouliot somehow breaks both his legs watching this unfold and Steve Tambellini winds up convinced that he needs more players who are old enough to already be married and expensive enough to afford the really dynamite jewelry.

So, really, this could all go very wrong for us very quickly.

Trade Target - Stephen Weiss (C - FLA)

Derek Zona — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:30:14 -0000

via cdn.picapp.com

View full size photo »

Fear The Fin has been publishing an ongoing series about players that the Sharks may target at the trade deadline to solidify the team for a Stanley Cup run. It's such a good idea that I've decided to steal it. Of course, these moves aren't about solidifying the team, they are more about recovering from this spiral. Whether Steve Tambellini has the wherewithal to do this is another story that has already been written by just about everyone.

The Edmonton Oilers have lacked depth at the center position since the 2007-2008 season. For the first 2/3 of that season, Craig MacTavish was able to run Shawn Horcoff and Marty Reasoner at the tough minutes, Jarrett Stoll at the rest and shelter either Cogliano or Gagner, whichever was on the dot at the time. Since that season, while Horcoff has had the sisyphean task of playing all of the hard minutes himself, the Oilers have experimented with the following centers, in alphabetical order: Kyle Brodziak, Gilbert Brule, Andrew Cogliano, Ryan O'Marra, Patrick O'Sullivan, Dustin Penner, Fernando Pisani, Ryan Potulny, Marc Pouliot, and Zack Stortini. Edmonton's Dr. Moreau-like experiment at center has been a miserable failure. Enter Randy Sexton.

Sexton is the General Manager of the Florida Panthers. Yesterday he announced that, for the right price, every player on the Florida roster was available. He began by trading Dominic Moore to the Canadiens and word is that he's not close to finished. Sexton's firesale is just what the Oilers need, considering Florida center Stephen Weiss fixes about one-third of the problems with the Edmonton roster.

In my story last April about "The Best", meaning the players that consistently play the tough minutes and outscore their opponents, Stephen Weiss shockingly appeared as the number four tough minutes outscorer behind only Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and Evgeni Malkin. At that time, over a two year span, Weiss played all of Florida's tough minutes, with tough starting position and was +33, or +.26 per 15 minutes of even strength time. Weiss was known to me only as the "pick that never panned out" in Florida. A look at his stats shows a completely different story:

Stephen Weiss

#9 / Center / Florida Panthers

Height: 5-11

Weight: 185

Born: Apr 03, 1983

	GP	G	A	P	EV +/-	QC Rk	QT Rk	Corsi RK	ZS Rk	FO%	SOG	PCT
2007 - Stephen Weiss	74	13	29	42	+13	4/10	1/10	3/10	6/10	51.2	132	9.8
2008 - Stephen Weiss	58	14	47	61	+20	2/12	2/12	2/12	7/12	50.9	154	9.1
2009 - Stephen Weiss	58	20	27	47	-4	3/11	1/11	3/11	2/11	52.3	118	16.9

Jonathan Willis has looked at the effects of playing in the Southeast, so there is the possibility that Weiss is racking up numbers against soft competition. In 2007-2008 at even strength, Weiss' most common opponents were Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, Ilya Kovalchuk, Brad Richards, Eric Staal, Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Ray Whitney, Viktor Kozlov, and Vyacheslav Kozlov. Weiss combined to outscore those ten opponents 21 GF - 18 GA at even strength. His most common opponents in 2008-2009 were Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, Vinny Prospal, Eric Staal, Tuomo Ruutu, Joffrey Lupul, Ray Whitney, Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Sergei Samsonov. Weiss combined to outscore these ten 12 GF 11 GA at even strength.

Over two years, Weiss outscored some of the best forwards in the league 33 GF - 29 GA

In Edmonton he wouldn't be asked to play the tough minutes as his primary role. At home, a line-matching coach would ask Horcoff to continue to match the tough minutes and on the road, the opposing coach will be forced to choose between matching Weiss or Sam Gagner. Weiss would end up playing something in the range of second tough minutes over the course of a season.

Aside from the even strength exploits, Weiss has been an effective second minutes power play center and has begun playing second minutes penalty kill for the Panthers and somewhat effectively. His faceoff numbers speak for themselves.

It gets even better. Weiss is signed to a beauty contract through 2012-2013. His cap hit and salary are an amazing $3,100,000 per year for the next three years. He's going to be 27 years old in April, still on the right side of 30 and presumably still growing as a player. This is a contract that is already being outplayed and should continue to do so for the duration of the deal.

So what is the downside of dealing for Weiss? I can't find one. There may be grumbling from the fanbase about Weiss because he's small and is not considered a superstar, but this is a guy that will fix a lot of what ills the Oilers. The hangup is that he has a no-trade clause, which means that the Rexall jet will have to make one trip to Miami filled the the merry band of beggars. Lowe and Katz might have to lay it on thick and show Weiss that they have some idea of what they're doing behind "We signed Nikolai Khabibulin!".

What would Florida want in return? It's difficult to say given that Sexton has thrown open the doors and the owners haven't given an indication as to what the new plan is. I've mentioned in previous conversations that I believe Denis Grebeshkov and Andrew Cogliano should be enough to get a deal like that done, but Steve Tambellini should be open to sending anything not named Sam Gagner, Tom Gilbert, Ales Hemsky, Magnus Pääjärvi-Svensson, Dustin Penner or the next two first-round picks to the Panthers in exchange for Weiss. Given the nature of the contract, Tambellini shouldn't be afraid to overpay just a bit to bring Weiss into the fold. His cap number is perfect for a team jammed up against the cap but in need of an outscoring center, a tough-minutes center, a center that can win faceoffs and a center than can contribute to the penalty kill. Sending Horcoff, Weiss, Gagner and Pouliot out every night would finally fix the issue that's been plaguing the Oilers for two years.