By Kathryn Uggerholt

The Edmonton Oilers are currently undefeated with a 2-1 shootout win over the Pittsburgh Penguins in their season opener. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ first career goal was the game-tying marker before it went to a shootout. Jordan Eberle and Alex Hemsky hit the back of the net on their shootout chances, while Devan Dubnyk stood tall between the pipes stopping two of the three shooters he faced. Coach Tom Renney is now 8-0 in home openers.

Less than three minutes into the game the Oilers already found themselves down a man when Ryan Smyth was a little too happy to be on the home team at Rexall Place once again. He jumped on the ice too soon and the refs whistled the Oilers for too many men on the ice when he tried to jump back at 2:33 of the opening frame. A shot from Kris Letang trickled past the goal line through Dubnyk’s five-hole at just 3:13 to give the Penguins a one goal lead.

Despite hard play, no one on the Oilers could take advantage of four power play opportunities they had in the first period – even with a 5-on-3 chance.

The middle stanza was scoreless but that’s when things turned around for the Oilers and Nugent-Hopkins got his name on the boxsheet. Nugent-Hopkins took a tripping penalty for his first career penalty minutes. Playing in his first NHL game, the first overall pick struggled with faceoffs where he would eventually only go 2-for-16 but he made up for it.

Late in the third period Taylor Hall made a beautiful pass out to the front of the net. Jeff Petry could not get it past Brent Johnson but Nugent-Hopkins backhanded it into the net to tie the game at 15:05.

“It was a relief. I just wanted to do everything I could to try and create something,” he said to the Edmonton Journal, “It worked out.

A mere 30 seconds after the game was tied up Smyth got a five-minute major penalty for an elbow on Chris Kunitz. It gave the Penguins a power play for the remainder of the game but the Oilers managed to kill that off and it carried over into overtime.

Both teams had a lot of opportunity but perhaps the best for the Oilers came from Hall. He served Smyth’s penalty and when time was up he jumped up on the play but still could not score.

After making 33 saves on 34 shots in regulation, Dubnyk only faced a single shot in overtime. It came 16 seconds into the extra play and rang the crossbar.

Eberle and Hemsky scored in the shootout while Linus Omark’s fancy shot just missed the net. James Neal scored for the Penguins but Dubnyk stopped the other two shooters to get the home opening win.

Just a sidenote, the last time a first overall pick scored in his first NHL game was October 3rd 2009 when John Tavares notched a goal and an assist. That debut was also against the Pittsburgh Penguins, but against Marc-Andre Fleury.

“Oil that is, Black Gold, Texas Tea.”

That is the song that Edmonton Oilers GM Steve Tambellini was singing when his Oilers hit pay dirt and retained the first overall pick as the New Jersey Devils won the draft lottery.

Last season at the draft in Los Angeles, the choice for Tambellini was the theme of the draft, Taylor or Tyler [Seguin].  The Oilers took Taylor Hall, who had a successful first season, picking up his scoring in the second half before his season was cut short by an ankle injury in early March.

Coming to Minnesota, the player that will be taken #1 overall is not clear.

There are as many as six players that could go with that first pick.  Some rumors even have the Oilers shopping their draft choice to try and acquire either another forward or a starting goaltender.   The Oilers also have the first round pick of the Los Angeles Kings, acquired at the trade deadline in the Dustin Penner deal.  All eyes will be on them as they take to the podium to kick off the 2011 draft.

What’s in the System?

The Oilers posses one of the best young crop of forwards in the NHL.  Names like Hall, Jordan Eberle, Magnus Paajarvi, Linus Omark and Sam Gagner (when healthy) elicit the envy of a lot of teams in the league.  The Oilers do have a lot of young blue liners in the system, but none are considered a true #1 that every team in the league covets.

Of their defensive group, Jeff Petry might be the best.  Petry, a strong, two-way blue liner who has a big shot from the point, can hold his own in front of the Oilers net.  Second round pick in 2010 Martin Marincin had the scouting staff so high on him that they even thought about trading into the late first round to get select him and were obviously thrilled when he fell to them.  His top-end potential would be a Tyler Myers-type defender which made the Oilers quickly sign him after only one season with the Prince George Cougars of the WHL. He could play another year in juniors or the team could decide to promote the import to the AHL.

Colten Teubert, acquired from the Kings at the deadline in the Penner deal, was a high draft pick of the LA Kings.  He is a big, nasty stay-at-home blue liner that will not give very much offensively, but he is the type of player every team in the league needs to win.  Teubert was simply caught up in a numbers game in LA with Matt Greene, Rob Scuderi, Willie Mitchell, Jack Johnson and soon Drew Doughty all signed to long-term contracts.  Combine them with several top blue line prospects in the Kings system and the team could afford to replace Colten.  Nevertheless, The Oilers will give him every chance to make the big club.

One glaring hole in the system is the lack of a top-notch goaltending prospect. Olivier Roy was a 5th round pick in ‘09 and surprised a lot of people when he was named the starter for Canada’s WJC team in Buffalo.  After a poor performance, he was benched in the final, and Canada went on to lose.  He went back to Junior and put up a solid 35-win season.  The Oilers are high on him and many feel he will be a solid pro, but not an elite starter.

System Needs

The Oilers have a young stockpile of forwards that are getting full-time NHL duty.  The depth of the system has taken a hit with these players moving up to the big club.  Having the 1st and 19th pick in the first round will stockpile more talent.

Tambellini will be tempted to place the #1 pick in the NHL, but might err on the side of caution because of a large amount of young players on the NHL roster.  That being said, a top pairing blue liner would go a long way to the rebuilding process.

As noted earlie, the Oilers lack a #1 goaltending prospect.  The problem is that the goaltending class this year is poor.   The Oilers will have both first round picks for sale and trading 19th overall might be enough to land them a young goaltending prospect.  With so many young players in the system already, do not be surprised to see the Oilers take their time with future prospects.

2011 First Round Picks

Round 1 – 1st and 19th (from Los Angeles)

Overall the Oilers have ten picks in the draft including five in the first seventy-four selections.

Potential First Round Pick:

1st — C Ryan Nugent-Hopkins,  D Adam Larsson,  LW Gabriel Landeskog

19th — D David Musil, G Chris Gibson, LW Brandon Saad

When the draft kicks off, there will be some suspense.  With no clear cut #1, there will be a lot of scuttlebutt about what the Oilers would do.

If there is a team behind the Oilers that love a particular player, do not be surprised if they try and jump up and the Oilers trade down.  GM Tambellini and Kevin Lowe will have discussions with several teams in the weeks leading up to the draft.  Also, with the 31st pick, the Oilers will add another top prospect.

At some point, the Oilers will either acquire or draft a goaltender.  The Sheldon Souray problem will need to be addressed and there might be a taker at the draft, but at a $4.5 million cost it will be a tough sell.

Expect the Oilers to unload a couple of late picks to acquire future picks in future drafts.

Mike Murangi
Draft Reporter
Twitter: @Draft_Mike

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+