Off to Sweden

I'm heading off to Sweden and to the Czech Republic to do some traveling and watch some hockey. This will be after a pit stop in Dublin for St Patty's day. My goal for the trip was to get a game or two to watch Linus Omark play in anticipation of him coming to North America next year. Unfortunately Lulea is down 3-1 in the series vs Frolunda and the odds of them still being in the playoffs when I get there aren't looking good. Here is a video montantage of some of Omarks highlights:



I wish I had a video montage.

It will be interesting to see how Omark's size will be effected by the North American game. He does have great speed and skill. On a team full of smurfs, the Oilers may not have room for another undersized forward but if Omark is good enough to play they'll find room for him ... I'd hope. I'll post here some hockey highlights from the trip and if I get to see Lulea play, I'll report my take here.

As for the Oilers, they still owe me for losing the SCF when I went to the world cup in Germany. They have a relatively easy schedule but have only won 3 of their last 11. Last nights game against Atlanta had some promising moments, like Patrick O'Sullivans goal and the play of the 4th line (18-51-27). But that loss cant happen if the Oilers are serious about the playoffs. Atlanta is 10 points back of the Oilers, on the road and missing their star player Kovalchuk. Reasoner getting the winner was too predictable. The Oilers dominated the overtime and I'm fairly sure would have won the shootout emphasizing the error made by Gilbert and Cogs on OT winner. Its interesting that now that the offense seems to be back, they are starting to give up 3-4 goals a game along with several high quality chances. The Oilers are gonna need to wake up, especially Ales Hemsky who has been MIA for about 10 games now. Ales Kotalik had some good chances but is running out of time with Hemsky and needs to produce for the Oilers sake and for his impending UFA status. I'm hoping for a pleasant surprise when I come back. An appearance in the playoffs would be fun and incredibly valuable for the young players. Go Oilers!

Buyers or sellers?

I have a couple buddies who are Flames fans (poor things) and we often spend many hours trash talking hockey over email. 95% of everything we say is junk, "Horcoffs a first line goonie", "Phaneuf gets the sloppy second assist" ect. But the other day, I was presented with the following information. Edmonton Oilers since 2000:

2008-09 - 8th Position (currently)
2007-08 - 9th Position
2006-07 - 12th Position
2005-06 - 8th Position (cup run)
2003-04 - 9th Position
2002-03 - 8th Position
2001-02 - 9th Position

Edmonton's Average Position Last Seven Seasons: 9.00

That my friends is the recipe for mediocrity. You have an ok season, make or barely make the playoffs and you don't get much help back via the draft. Draft position is not the key to organization stability - teams like New Jersey, Detroit, San Jose, Dallas ect. have remained dominant franchises for the past decade without a top end draft pick - but teams like Chicago, Washington and Pittsburgh are proving it to be a recipe for success.

Going back briefly to New Jersey, Detroit, SJ and Dallas I think the Oilers are building properly. They seem to be building from the back-end out. Their top 4 D, is solid. The old saying goes "offense wins games defense wins championships" and it still applies. Detroit, Dallas and New Jersey have always had a strong defense. SJ has never had the dominant defenseman but was 3rd best in GA last season and is again up there this year. I don't think this is a coincidence. While Kevin Lowe has failed in having a balance roster, that is more a reflection of the team not being good. His approach to building a team is solid and with Chris Pronger would have been much easier.

I've said many times that the Oilers are good enough to be a playoff team. With the injury to Visnovsky, that opinion is now in jeopardy. The organization is faced with the question of being sellers or buyers come deadline day. Frankly the only way they lose is by doing nothing.

Arguments for a reload

I dont use the road reload because the Oilers don't need to rebuild - they have a solid core. However, the Oilers are 4 points removed from 14th in the West. 5th last in the league and a shot at Taveres has to be a tempting option. Erik Cole should have good trade value and Staois, Pisani et al would be good salary dumps. Another interesting point is that the Oilers team in 05-06 was much better than 8th (obviously). What did they do before the season? They created about 15 million dollars in cap space. With the global recession and impending decline in NHL salary cap there is going to be a lot of good players available for teams with money. Right now the Oilers have money but no cap space. Reloading is also the best option for trying to find that top-end player to play with Ales Hemsky.

Arguments for a playoff push

This team has 2-3 glaring weaknesses and is otherwise a solid team. A center who can win faceoffs and kill penalties and a scoring forward would help this team immensely. That player IMO doesn't need to be a veteran. Roloson has proven he is a good playoff goaltender and this team still has several key ingredients from the 06 Stanley Cup run who would be hungry and game for the playoffs. The Oilers are well stocked with assets who should have enough cachet to fill the voids that are so frustrating to watch. Another undervalued intangible that comes with the playoffs is that the development Oilers young players with no playoff experience (Gilbert, Smid, Grebeshkov, Gagner, Cogliano, Nilsson, Brodziak) would be accelerated.

My guess is that the Oilers make a push this season. There are many people in the organization whose jobs are on the line. If that's the case, I see no reason to wait a month till the deadline.

Comparisons to Detroit

I have been thinking a lot these playoffs about what the successful teams are doing and in what areas these teams are outperforming the Oilers. As a team that is no longer a have-not, I don’t see the Oilers building the Penguins route. For me, again and again it comes down to what Detroit is doing. Yesterday, I spent quite a lot of time going through and the pre/post game interviews on the RedWings website and I found some very interesting quotes from Mike Babcock as well as Nik Lidstrom. It really revealed a lot to me and my overall assessment was fairly encouraging about the direction the Oilers are heading.

Reporter: "Is it a luxury as a coach to be able to get your best players out in any situation cause some guys have to, if teams are taking penalties, they can’t get their best forwards in the game. How much of a luxury is that for a coach?"

Babcock: "I guess it’s a luxury but I guess you put them out there in those situations over and over again until they do it right. You don’t let them off the hook and you make them check their best players. We went through the process a couple years ago we'd alternate who match up against the other team’s best, Pavel would match up, Z would match up and then Draper would match up and we'd go night to night. We'd give them the hardest matchup. Because in our opinion we feel that’s just what you have to do. We do the same now with Fillipula and with Franzen. We think your best players gotta play both ways, that’s the philosophy we have and then I guess you get lucky and they can do it. My point being is when your the coach and you gotta hide your best players when you gotta avoid matchups they don’t get on the ice enough, they get frustrated and sometimes your telling them they aren’t good enough to play in those situations. To me that doesn’t lead to winning in the end.

You look at a guy like Steve Yzerman. Did he become a more complete player when he played. Obviously. And when you go through some of the best players in the league, thats what happened. When I came here Pavel Datsyuk was a star, he could still stick handle in a phone both. Now he's just more dominant. All over the ice. He didnt use to penalty kill - now he's a dominant penalty killer. He's a dominant face-off guy. He is great in the first minute of the game and great in the last minute of the game. Up down whatever. He's evolved now I think that’s part of the expectation thats put on him here. Thats part of being a red win.”

Observation: Ales Hemsky needs to start killing penalties. Plain and simple. Oilers can’t affort to have Hemsky sitting 6-8 minutes in a row because of penalty problems. He needs to dominate in more areas of the game like Datsyuk does.

“Zetterberg has always been a great defensive player but he never shot the puck. Now he shoots the puck more anyone in the league (well not a quite as much as Ovechkin) so he scores all the time. And then the other thing that happens is you earn the right to feel confident. No coach gives you that. Your parents don’t. You earn that by having success over and over again. What happens is Fillipula starts trying to do the same things you do and Franzen starts doing it and it’s just kinda contagious.”

Observation: When I first thought about how Zetterberg didn’t shoot when he came into the NHL I again immediately thought about Hemsky and how he actually did start shooting the puck more this year. But after I thought about it, I began to think Horcoff starting to shoot more last year was more along the lines of Zetterberg’s development (always a good defensive player). Last year Horcoff emerged in my mind as a legitimate number #1 center because he started to shoot the puck. Something clicked inside him that made him want to shoot.

Observation: Make Horcoff captain. He is our workhorse leader, with and without the puck on and off this ice but more importantly he is our (second) best player. You want Gagner, Cogliano, Nilsson and Brodziak watching how Horcoff works, how he plays. He is the guy you want players learning from. For all Ethan Morreau does, working his ass off and fighting tougher guys, I’d be ok if I never lived to see Sam Gagner fight Ryan Kesler again.

“When you have a pro like Nik Lidstrom who sets the tone, it doesn’t mean your gonna have success every game or year but it means you just keep knocking on the door and you have a chance."

Observation: He is such a deuschebag but man do I miss Chris Pronger. That statement above is so true. IMO the value of an elite defenseman is higher than that of an elite forward. Calgary doesn’t seem to be contending with a decent lineup and Jarome Iginla but Lidstrom has kept Detroit an elite team between Yzerman/Federov and Datsyuk/Zetterberg. With the loss of Pronger, our last 2 seasons come as no real surprise to me. As for next year, the Oilers D is much improved but is still lacking a top-end player unless Gilbert or Pitkanen have breakout seasons.

“We have 4 lines that can play both offense and defense. That’s just what our team does, everyone on our team plays both ends of the ice.”
-Zetterberg

“Our team defense that we talk about, 5 skaters and the goalie. And just the overall effort from the guys, back-checking, and keeping the other team on the outside, keeping them from finding good shots in the slot.”
- Nik Lidstrom (pregame May 12)

Observation: For all the guys that complain about how Craig MacTavish is a defensive minded coach that discourages offense, it seems here that he is telling players exactly what Zetterberg/Lidstrom talk about above. MacTavish wants a four line game where all lines can player and are defensively responsible. This is what Detroit does – just better.

"They (Zetterberg/Datsyuk) play hard. We you have you best players offensively that are your best defensive players that work harder than anybody else that sends a pretty good message to the rest of group you better do the same. I think they are league elite players, I've been thinking that for 2 years. They've both gotten better offensively. Pavel’s got a lot better defensively. They are complete players with great will. They move the puck well and are competitive … We're fortunate that our best players, not only are they elite players, they are elite competitors."
- Mike Babcock

Observation: Mike Babcock seems to be big on complete level which is something I’ve heard MacT talk about continuously in the last couple years. Its encouraging that Gagner, Cogliano and Gilbert not only have a high level of skill but also a high compete level. The knock on Rob Schremp has been that he can’t skate and that he doesn’t compete hard enough. The lack of compete is not good for him all.


-- Sorry for the any translation errors. My typing is brutal. The Babcock quotes can be found http://redwings.nhl.com/ by clicking on “Wings TV” then find “Mike Babcock presser (May 13)”.