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.

Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe and Grant Fuhr. This group won 4 Stanley Cups together. It’s almost impossible to fill those skates. Check that, it IS impossible to fill those skates. The Oilers have fallen on hard times since the glory days of the 1980’s. Today’s squad can barely fill out an NHL calibre defensive 6. 3 of the D are currently in the minors and 2 of those have never played an NHL game outside of preseason. How the mighty have fallen.

Forwards:
Definitely not the high powered group that struck fear into every goalie they faced during the 80’s. Still, the forwards would have to be the strength of this team. With a formidable checking line sitting on the bench, the Oilers should have little problem putting the puck into the opponents net.

Matthew Lombardi – Sam Gagner – Ales Hemsky
Ryan Smyth – Shawn Horcoff – Jason Arnott
Jason Chimera – Mike Comrie – Miroslav Satan
Andrew Cogliano – Rob Schremp – Jordan Eberle
Bench: Marc-Antoine Pouliot,  Zack Stortini, Fernando Pisani, Georges Laraque, Curtis Glencross

Familiarity is the key. Four of the top 6 are currently line mates on their current NHL rosters, so as the old saying goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Smyth can still stand in front of the goalie, take a beating and score like no one else. ‘Captain Canada’ was left of the Canadian National Men’s roster, for what I believe to be the first time in his active career, for the coming Olympics. I believe this was due mainly to an early season injury that caused him to miss 15 games. Satan, after sitting the beginning of the season, has returned to the NHL and while playing on the third line for Boston, is showing that he can still produce and is good for 40-50 points a season. The rest of the line-up is filled with young players that have shown a lot of promise.

Grade: B+

Defence:
From being a “Who’s who” of NHL Defensemen to a “who’s that?” can’t be a good thing. With only 2 defensemen having played more than a season in the NHL and another 2 never seeing a regular season game, the defence is in for a rough time.

Tom Poti – Danny Syvret
Mathieu Roy – Matt Greene
Alex Plante – Jeff Petry
Bench: Theo Peckham, Taylor Chorney

Poti and Syvret have proven themselves to be serviceable defensemen in their careers, but neither is a top pair guy, yet. Roy and Green are better suited for clean-up minutes, but instead are forced into playing 15-20 minutes a night as top 4 D on this weak corps. Plante and Petry are the unknowns in this group. Plante is a solid, stay at home type of defenseman who can skate the puck out of harm’s way, and may one day become a top 4 guy. Petry was named to the CCHA All-Rookie Team in 2008. Hopefully this pair can move up to the top and play off of each other. Only time and steady development will tell for sure.

Grade: C-

Goaltending:
Andy Moog, Grant Fuhr…Deslauriers? Yes sir you read that right, Deslauriers. Well actually it’s Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers, but come on, how would you get that to fit on the back of a jersey. Being forced into the starters role earlier than expected this season due to an injury to Nikolai Khabibulin, Deslauriers is the only goalie in the Edmonton Oilers system with any significant NHL experience. If you can call 36 games significant.  Conklin should backstop this team on a full-time basis, helping this team stay afloat.

Ty Conklin
Jeff Deslauriers
Devan Dubnyk
Olivier Roy

Outside Conklin, this trio of goalies has a grand total of 44 NHL games to their credit. In his 8 games this season Dubnyk has yet to taste victory compiling a 0-5-1 record with a 3.92 GAA and a 0.869 save %. Hardly inspiring numbers for Oiler fans. Roy may be the dark horse in the group. Many, me included, feel that he should have been added to the Canadian Juniors in favour of incumbent starter Jake Allen, who just never got it going in pre-tournament games and that carried over into the tournament where he gave up 10 goals to a strong US team in 2 games. He makes up for his supposed lack of size, an even 6’ while the rest of the league is moving to goalies in the 6’3” range, by being technically sound in his positioning. Again, only time will tell how this young group of goalies develops.

Grade: D+