Instant Playoffs

The Oilers are in a pretty unique situation right now. They have quite a mix of veteran and young players, and the direction of this team is basically unknown.

With so many higher level contracts on the book, this team should be looking to make the playoffs now. That sort of explains the Heatley trade. What doesn't make sense is how they've sat around waiting for it to happen. As soon as Heatley didn't wave it, the Oilers really should have been looking elsewhere.

Right now the Oilers depth chart stands like this:

Centres

Shawn Horcoff ($5.5)
Sam Gagner ($1.625)
Andrew Cogliano ($1.133)
Marc Pouliot ($0.825)
Gilbert Brule (0.75) *Based on a one way deal.

Left Wing

Dustin Penner ($4.25)
Patrick O'Sullivan ($2.925)
Ethan Moreau ($2.0)
Jean Francois-Jacques ($0.525)
Steve MacIntyre ($0.537)

Right Wing

Ales Hemsky ($4.1)
Robert Nilsson ($2.0)
Fernando Pisani ($2.5)
Zach Stortini ($0.7)
Liam Reddox ($0.55)

Defence

Lubomir Vishnovsky ($5.6)
Sheldon Souray ($5.4)
Tom Gilbert ($4.0)
Denis Grebeshkov ($3.15)
Steve Staios ($2.7)
Ladislav Smid ($1.8)* Estimating high here... (I hope)
Jason Strudwick ($0.7)

Goaltenders

Nikolai Khabibulin ($3.75)
Jeff Deslauriers ($0.625)

Cap hit $57.395 Mil ($1mil bonus cushion)

The Oilers clearly have little in terms of wiggle room here. In fact this is probably the ideal amount of wiggle room you want in case of short term injuries, so we'll use $57.5 mil ($1mil of it is bonuses) as our team cap.

The first step is to identify players who are replacable from within, or at least can provide close enough results for a lower cap hit. I don't see anyone being able to do it amongst the forwards... we've already got enough players who aren't good enough there and the younger players coming in haven't shown enough to write them in as a potential replacements.

On D there is an interesting situation. The Edmonton Oilers top 4 is very good (if Souray plays like he did last year and Vish can bounce back from the bad shoulder). Gilbert and Grebeshkov make for an solid 2nd pairing who have both shown they can play top minutes when necessary. Our bottom 3 is a place where I think we can start making moves. As much as I think Staios gets a bum rap for his play, he's the most expendable D we have based on his contract. If one of the top 4 get hurt he's still got enough left to fill in there without getting murdered, but it's still enough of a dropoff that we wouldn't make the playoffs anyways. So my first step is to trade Steve Staios for a pick or a significantly lower contract.

That leaves the Oilers 6D with Souray, Vishnovsky, Gilbert, Grebeshkov, Smid, Strudwick, Peckham and a cap savings of $2.1 mil (lose Staios's $2.7 and add Peckham's $0.6). That leaves the Oilers at $55.295. I don't see anywhere else that the Oilers could promote from within without a drastic loss in performance.

Because it is still the offseason, the Oilers have an additional 10% in which they can go over the cap. That's roughly $5.8 million, which gives the Oilers some wiggle room in the short term. This $7.9 mil in cap space should be used to address our LW and C issues. The first move I make is to throw a 1 year $4.5 mil offer to Tanguay and see if he bites. Let's say he does that, my next move would be to make offers on Malholtra and Betts. I'd give Malholtra the $2mil he's looking for (1 year deal) and Betts $0.7mil. That, combined with Tanguay, is $7.2 mil.

Our cap hit is then at $62.495 meaning the Oilers now need to drop $5mil in contracts. If we re-jigg our depth chart, we get the following:

Centres

Shawn Horcoff ($5.5)
Sam Gagner ($1.625)
Manny Malholtra ($2.0)
Blair Betts ($0.7)
Marc Pouliot ($0.825)
Gilbert Brule (0.75) *Based on a one way deal.

Left Wing

Alex Tanguay ($4.5)
Dustin Penner ($4.25)
Andrew Cogliano ($1.133)
Ethan Moreau ($2.0)
Jean Francois-Jacques ($0.525)
Steve MacIntyre ($0.537)

Right Wing

Ales Hemsky ($4.1)
Patrick O'Sullivan ($2.925)
Robert Nilsson ($2.0)
Fernando Pisani ($2.5)
Zach Stortini ($0.7)
Liam Reddox ($0.55)

Defence

Lubomir Vishnovsky ($5.6)
Sheldon Souray ($5.4)
Tom Gilbert ($4.0)
Denis Grebeshkov ($3.15)
Steve Staios ($2.7)
Ladislav Smid ($1.8)
Jason Strudwick ($0.7)

Goaltenders

Nikolai Khabibulin ($3.75)
Jeff Deslauriers ($0.625)

If we identify guys who are expendable in this lineup I see Moreau, Nilsson and O'Sullivan in terms of the higher money contracts. O'Sullivan switches over to RW and it's basically a battle between him and Nilsson. The Oilers can keep one but not both. Personally speaking, I lean towards keeping O'Sullivan, simply because he's a bit more versatile. I don't think his offense is ever going to translate to the NHL level, but he's already been learning on the job in terms of PK so that's useful with this bunch. Moreau is basically gone. He'd be the 4th best LW we have and the way Quinn runs lines it would be a bad mistake to spend that much on him. Taking Nilsson and Moreau out saves the Oilers $4mil. In terms of what to get for them I'd be happy with draft picks. I know it lessens the Smyth return but that well is dry anyways.

So if we look at potential lines, I have this:

Tanguay - Horcoff - Hemsky
Penner - Gagner - O'Sullivan
Cogliano - Malholtra - Pisani
Jacques - Betts - Stortini

Which leaves us Brule, Pouliot, MacIntyre, Reddox in which to try and trim an additional $1mil. Smac and Reddox going down would do that and still give the Oilers a couple of depth options at C and on the wings.

Total Cap Result:

ROSTER SIZE 23
SALARY CAP $56,800,000
PAYROLL $57,658,333
BONUSES $1,015,000
CAP SPACE $156,667

I think this is a significantly better lineup than the one the Oilers have right now. I also think it would be a near safe bet to be a playoff team. There are very few holes in the top 9 forwards because the team adds players who improve the PP, ES and PK aspects of this club. Our bottom 2 D are questionable but I think that goes for a lot of teams in the NHL, and our top 4 are good enough to compensate. I have huge worries in net, but we'd have enough cap space to easily make a deadline trade for a goaltender who makes around oh let's say... $1.4mil.

Seeing What We Have

The Oilers have changed their roster over several times over in the last 10 years, but one common trait is the removal of younger effective NHL players for even younger unproven players.

This is often explained by saying something along the lines of "We need to see what this player can do". I can't see how this philosophy makes sense, especially when you spent 2 or 3 years developing that player and living through the growing pains in the first place. The whole bird in hand vs 2 in the bush scenario.

I understand that good teams need to bring in younger players, that's not what I'm arguing... I'm arguing the process. Ideally what you want to do is bring these guys into the NHL slowly. That includes sheltered minutes and sometimes being a healthy scratch (and even bouncing back and forth between the NHL and AHL). As you proceed the idea is to give them more and more rope to see what they do with it. Often they'll simply hang themselves with it and that's part of the process. You go back and do it agin. Eventually these players show they can play, in which case you have yourself a shiney new NHL player... Or they show that they can't reach that level and you move on to the next one.

The Oilers have a pretty good track record of following this process. Guys like Horcoff, Cleary, Hemsky, Pisani, Chimera, etc... were all brought up in this manner. The problem is the Oilers seem to have a habit of trading the player in front of these guys at the start of the process instead of the end... so the Oilers not only end up trying to break in a young player, they are doing it with one less quality vet in the lineup.

This trend seems to have started with the trade of Mike Grier to make room for Jason Chimera. Chimera has turned out to be a decent NHLer, but he Oilers took the guy he was going to replace and traded him very early in Chimera's development cycle. The Oilers then spent Almost 130 NHL games on his development before promptly swapping him for a pair of picks so they could give Rita more playing time.

We are seeing it again with Brodziak, but this seems to be the most drastic. Brodziak is unspectacular but he's a cheap option in the bottom 6 who can play the game at the NHL level on both sides of the puck. He's just played his 175th NHL game and the Oilers have spent a lot of time, money and probably a couple of wins to get him to this point. Now they paid for the development of this player and gave him to a division rival to enjoy.

That's not a bad trade if you've got a player sitting there who's come along through the process as well and has shown that he's close enough to Brodziak that if he represents a cheaper contract you are better off going with him... or if he's simply surpassed Brodziak.

Pouliot may be that player, he's probably close enough to be considered. If it's Brule though, someone isn't thinking this through. Part of the idea is to give these guys more and more responsibility to let them progress. Brule hasn't gotten that this year. From there you need one of 2 things:

1. Your replacement player needs to show he can play at the level or close to the level of the player he's replacing (this is where you can compare contracts). Brule hasn't done that.

2. Your replacement players has to have actually surpassed the player you are replacing. Brule definitely hasn't done that.

Brule doesn't fall under these categories. As much as you need to see "what you have", you still need to go about it the right way. Brule was not good enough to stick last year and this year he's going to take over one of the more critical positions on the team? If you are going to go this route and bring 2 young centres at a time, you need to supplement them with decent veterans, not further young players. All the development work the Oilers have spent on Brodziak is flushed and now they need to develop Brule on the fly.

You can't replace a player simply to see what another player "may have". You can't get better that way because you are always replacing more developed players with lesser developed players. You've already seen what they can do right now... it's why they were in the minors and not playing in NHL right now in the first place. That doesn't mean they can't get better, but you need to do it correctly