What I think the Oilers will do this Summer.
Posted 3:21 PM ET | Comments 8
Hello all first off this will be the first bit of any sort of writing since high school so bare with me.
Coaching situation
Ever since the WHC there has been rumors of Brent Sutter becoming the next coach of the Oilers. I highly doubt that rumor will come true. Dont get me wrong Sutters a solid coach but I think he'll sign with another team thats closer to a contender perhaps the Capitals. I think the Oilers will hire within their system either Todd Nelson or Ralph Krueger. Both of those coaches deserve a shot coaching the NHL.
First overall pick/draft
The Oilers have a huge desion racing to them. What to do with the pick? Well everyone knows Nail Yakopov is the clear cut best player in the draft but he's a right winger and the Oilers dont need another one. We need Defense or a goaltender. hopefully Steve Tambelinni is making calls seeing to who is available or if the Jackets want to swap. Yakopov will be a force but we need an anchor and that anchor should be Ryan Murray.. He could easily turn in to a top 2 defender. with eberle hall nugent hopkins we dont need anymore firepower.
Free Acency
The Oil will make a pitch to Suter and Shultz. Suter will resign in Nashville for a nice pile of cash. Shultz on the other hand might think about joining the orange and blue. Might take some work out of Steve but he could sign there. other than that the oil wont do much more just sign a few depth players aswell as resign Sam Gagner and Jeff Petry and Ryan Smyth.
Conclusion
The Oilers roster has only had a few minor changes and yet looks so much better:
Hall, Nugent Hopkins, Eberle
Hartikinen, Gagner, Hemsky
Smyth, Horcoff, Jones
Eager, Belanger, Hordichuck
Smid, J. Shultz
Petry, N. Shultz
Whitney, Murray
Dubnyk
Khabibulin
The forwards viturally stay the same where our defense gets better still wont be a playoff team but will be considerabble better i say a 15pt increase. still need more size upfront and a better goaltender but at least the biggest hole in our roster will be starting to become respectable.
Thank you all for reading hope it wasnt to horrible. I think it went good well for being my first blog. Anywho.. Comments are greatly appreciated aswell as any feed back for future blogs. and again thanks.
peace!!
Coaching situation
Ever since the WHC there has been rumors of Brent Sutter becoming the next coach of the Oilers. I highly doubt that rumor will come true. Dont get me wrong Sutters a solid coach but I think he'll sign with another team thats closer to a contender perhaps the Capitals. I think the Oilers will hire within their system either Todd Nelson or Ralph Krueger. Both of those coaches deserve a shot coaching the NHL.
First overall pick/draft
The Oilers have a huge desion racing to them. What to do with the pick? Well everyone knows Nail Yakopov is the clear cut best player in the draft but he's a right winger and the Oilers dont need another one. We need Defense or a goaltender. hopefully Steve Tambelinni is making calls seeing to who is available or if the Jackets want to swap. Yakopov will be a force but we need an anchor and that anchor should be Ryan Murray.. He could easily turn in to a top 2 defender. with eberle hall nugent hopkins we dont need anymore firepower.
Free Acency
The Oil will make a pitch to Suter and Shultz. Suter will resign in Nashville for a nice pile of cash. Shultz on the other hand might think about joining the orange and blue. Might take some work out of Steve but he could sign there. other than that the oil wont do much more just sign a few depth players aswell as resign Sam Gagner and Jeff Petry and Ryan Smyth.
Conclusion
The Oilers roster has only had a few minor changes and yet looks so much better:
Hall, Nugent Hopkins, Eberle
Hartikinen, Gagner, Hemsky
Smyth, Horcoff, Jones
Eager, Belanger, Hordichuck
Smid, J. Shultz
Petry, N. Shultz
Whitney, Murray
Dubnyk
Khabibulin
The forwards viturally stay the same where our defense gets better still wont be a playoff team but will be considerabble better i say a 15pt increase. still need more size upfront and a better goaltender but at least the biggest hole in our roster will be starting to become respectable.
Thank you all for reading hope it wasnt to horrible. I think it went good well for being my first blog. Anywho.. Comments are greatly appreciated aswell as any feed back for future blogs. and again thanks.
peace!!
Nice blog. But I think the Oilers will take Yakupov, if they don't there will be an uproar over it.
^my bad on the blank post. In my opinion we take yakupov because there is no such thing as too much firepower. I think the defence will come. Whitney Petry Smid and Nick Schultz are not a bad top 4. Whitney should be healthy to start next season too so that will greatly help. I dont think its a stretch to say they can contend for a playoff spot next year.
yakupov is a much more talented and rare talent. you have to draft him no matter how well murray fits on our team. No teams will give us what it would take to make sense to move down in the draft IMO. We value the pick too much and for good reason. I also think J. Schultz is a lock to play in Toronto unfortunately.
J-Bo from Calgary for there 1st!!! Get it done!
Oilfan19, I think your only partly right when you say there isn't such a thing as too much firepower. If you look at Washington they had lots of firepower for a few years there but they had no defence so they couldn't get the job done. You could also look this years Penguins and say the same things, too much offense and not enough defense. Also if you look the teams that were most successful this year in the playoffs they were strong defensive teams not offensive power houses.
rathagor, I agree but every year its something different that is huge in playoffs. When chicago won it was the year of terrible goaltending for example. With the addition of yakupov we would have one of the best top 6 in the league. We have plenty of defensive prospects that will be able to step up in a few years. We cant lose out on the potential that yakupov has.