Many NHL prognosticators predicted a post season berth for the Oilers with their off-season moves and coaching staff adjustments, bringing in players like Nikolai Khabibulin to solidify the goaltending. The team also brought in a past proven winner plus offensive spark plug and home town boy Mike Comrie. The additions of legendary coach Pat Quinn and Tom Renney as his assistant also looked like a pure genius move by G.M. Steve Tambellini.

Right winger Ales Hemsky led a cast of what seemed to be a decent forward depth squad with player’s such as Dustin Penner, Sam Gagner, Shawn Horcoff and Patrick O’Sullivan and what looked to be a solid back end with Sheldon Souray, Lubomir Visnovsky, Tom Gilbert, and Denis Grebeshkov.

Edmonton started off well going 6-3-1 in their first 10 games with all signs being indicative towards a successful season upcoming for the Oilers but unfortunately this was not the case as the wheels started to fall. The team finished the month of October posting a record of 7-6-1 and over the next three months had a nauseating 9-25-2 record including the month of January where Edmonton did not even record a single victory.

The downfall can easily be blamed on injuries to Hemsky, Khabibulin and Souray along with underachieving of big money man Shawn Horcoff and supposed sniper Patrick O’Sullivan therefore leaving the reigns to Dustin Penner, youngster Sam Gagner and speedster Andrew Cogliano. Not a great scenario by any means especially now having your franchise player, number #1 goaltender and best defenseman on the shelf for an indefinite amount of time. All of the aforementioned issues and unfortunate occurrences for Edmonton spelled a 30th place finish overall and obviously dead last in the Western Conference with a mere 27 wins on the season.

In all honesty, if the Oilers were completely healthy with their full roster it’s hard to fathom if Edmonton would have been a serious contender or even participate in the post-season this year as the forward depth is just not there and the lack of solid stay at home defensemen was most definitely a key to being one of the most scored upon teams in the league. The top 4 d-men for the Oilers are pretty much considered offensive defensemen and more of a liability defensively which really is not a good nucleus to have in today’s game.

The Oilers, realizing there was no hope for post season play, then began the movement for next season stating there will be a complete rebuild of this club from the bottom to the top. They were not kidding around either in saying that as it all began quickly by moving Visnovksy to Anaheim for Ryan Whitney and a 6th rounder, Grebeskov to Nashville for a 2nd round pick, and Steve Staios to the Calgary Flames of all teams for Aaron Johnson plus a third round pick.

Add in the trade demand by Sheldon Souray after the season was over plus the firing of long time trainer Ken Lowe, Kevin Lowe’s brother and equipment tech’s Lyle Kulchisky and Barrie Stafford which a combined 84 years of service altogether for the Oiler franchise. As one can see family members and long time service means nothing if the team is not winning.

Edmonton cleared up a bit of cap space and will have even more if they can dump Souray’s contract on to another team and furthermore will have to decide on a few upcoming unrestricted free agents in the likes of Fernando Pisani, Aaron Johnson, Mike Comrie and Jason Strudwick in which I expect none will be brought back and will go elsewhere trying to find more money or a team not in rebuilding mode. They will also have 8 restricted free agents with the most notable being Sam Gagner, Andrew Cogliano, Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers and Gilbert Brule who will be available to entertain offers from other clubs which can be matched by the Oilers or simply let them go on their way to another club.

In ending it was a season of purgatory so to speak for the Edmonton Oilers and their fans but need to be positive as the future looks bright with the likes of Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson, Jordan Eberle, Taylor Chorney and yes either Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin in the upcoming NHL entry draft.

Trent Kondo
NHLHS Edmonton Oilers Contributor
tkondo@nhlhotstove.com
Twitter: @TKON

Based on Matthew Pouliot’s series on Circling the Bases, I have decided restore the rosters for every NHL team. Like Pouliot, I have established some ground rules for my selections.

1. Each team contains players they originally drafted or signed before any other NHL team. This includes players drafted and not signed, as well as European free agents coming over at an older age.
2. I have chosen to leave retired players off the list, and lean toward players in the AHL rather than those deported (KHL, SEL, DEL, etc.).

Essentially I am choosing the best available players for a team to succeed in the current NHL season. All 30 teams will be covered, with grades assigned to forwards, defense and goaltending. After all 30 articles are written, they will be ranked in order. This series’ intent is to reward or shame NHL scouts.

You would expect a more talented roster with nine first round picks and eight of those in the top 10.  Unfortunately, this is a very green team with Rick Nash the most experienced of the Blue Jackets draft picks.  While that fact would not necessarily be a bad thing to have, the next player on the list played almost half the games and already left your organization, definitely a bad thing.

On a team that for the most part is still waiting for their prospects to develop, it’s hard to say exactly what their strength is.

Forwards:

So many players playing out of position and on lines that they should not be on which speaks volumes about the Blue Jackets drafting struggles.  Nash is the only established NHLer playing where he should be.  The forward corps is full of potential, but potential only gets you in the door.  Producing is what keeps you on the roster.

Rick Nash – Gilbert Brule – Jakub Voracek

Nikita Filatov – Derick Brassard – Tim Jackman

Alexandre Picard – Dan Fritsche – Jared Boll

Tom Sestito – Andrew Murray – Derek Dorsett

Bench - Maksim Mayorov

With very little production help for Nash, this team is going to struggle to score goals.  Providing Filatov returns to the Blue Jackets next season, and Ken Hitchcock loosens his reigns, Nash may finally get some scoring help.  Filatov is a naturally gifted scorer and I watched in amazement a few years ago as he dazzled in the World Juniors for Russia, scoring eight goals in 2009.  With six top 10 draft picks, you hope that this squad can fulfill its potential.  Only time will tell.

Grade: C

Defence:

Definitely not the strength of the scouting staff to say the least.  With only 1 bona fide Top four defensemen drafted, this corps is going to give up a lot of shots.  Hopefully they buy the goalies very nice Christmas presents.

Rostislav Klesla – Aaron Johnson

Ole-Kristian Tollefsen – Kris Russell

Marc Methot – John Moore

It was a struggle to find 6 NHL calibre defensemen that the Blue Jackets have drafted and I’m still struggling to find them.  Aside from Klesla, who’s currently on the IR, the defence is filled with 3rd pair defensemen at best.  Top pick John Moore has yet to play an NHL game and is currently playing in the OHL.

Grade: C-

Goaltenders:

If I had to pick an area of drafting strength, I guess I’d have to say it was in between the pipes.  Leclaire and Mason could be a very formidable duo on any roster.  I don’t think I can stress COULD any more then I’m about to.

Pascal Leclaire

Steve Mason

Dan LaCosta

With both goalies having career save percentages hovering around .900 and a very inexperienced defence corps playing in front of them, they will constantly be facing 35-40 shots a night and giving up 3+ goals a game.  Combine that with a forward group that is going to be struggling to score goals and it means both goalies are going to have to improve significantly for Columbus to have any success.  Mason currently is in the middle of what hopefully will just be a sophomore slump.  If he can find the “I don’t know what” that he had in his rookie campaign that produced a 33-20-0-7 record with 2.29 GAA and 10 shutouts, the goaltending situation in Columbus greatly improves.  If Leclaire can remember that stopping a puck with your face hurts when you’re not wearing a mask and can get into more than a handful of games, the situation almost takes care of itself.

Here’s hoping 2010-2011 is better for Blue Jackets goalies then 2009-2010 was.

Grade: B-

Jose Simoes
NHLHS Storyteller
jsimoes@nhlhotstove.com