02/11/13 Confidence Waning

A 14 shot effort on Sunday evening is something that the Oilers should not allow from themselves, but it's a symptom of a larger problem. Players that were shooting at the beginning of the season have stopped doing it. No really, it's bad.

08/15/12 Can The Oilers Make The Playoffs? Part Two

Part one of this series established that the Oilers will need to be better at even strength. Now we'll look at the likelihood of that actually happening. Who needs to be better 5x5? Is it realistic to expect improvement?

08/01/12 Rising: Ales Hemsky

Ales Hemsky's 2011-12 was so bad that it's hard to imagine that next season could be any worse. But there's also some actual evidence to suggest that we'll see a better Hemsky in 2012-13. Let's have a look-see.

07/15/12 Oh, How The Depth Chart Has Changed

A lot has changed since the 2008-09 season. It's hard to get a grasp on all the players that have come and gone without looking back at the depth chart and seeing how it has transformed. In 2012-13 the Oilers will do battle with a group that is in many ways superior to the class of 2008-09.

05/25/12 Hemsky's Age and Drafting Yakupov

With Eberle and Hemsky in the fold, everything looks peachy-keen at right wing for the Oilers. Hemsky has been around so long it's easy to take him for granted and hard to remember that he was drafted eleven long years and several surguries ago.

04/17/12 Hemmer and Nail

Assuming that something wacky doesn't happen at the draft in June, the Oilers will be putting the finishing touches on the second line by drafting Nail Yakupov. Aside from the obvious symmetry of having two players on a line with names like Hemmer and Nail, this combination could make sense offensively as well.

It seems to have been written in the stars that Taylor Hall would play with Jordan Eberle. The two were linemates at the WJC, and the Oilers dropped all the way to 30th to get Hall that same year. Ironically, the Oilers had been searching for a left winger to play with Hemsky ever since Ryan Smyth left, but by the time Hall came onto the scene Eberle was the right winger of the future. In Yakupov, the Oilers might have Hemsky's wingman.

Fans have been begging Hemsky to shoot more virtually from the moment he first pulled on the jersey, but now he may not have to. Yakupov is a pure goal-scorer, and a linemate like Hemsky could be just what he needs to transition smoothly to the NHL. It will all depend on how the Oilers use them.

Tom Renney gave Hemsky some difficult assignments this year, so the workload will have to even out a little if the Oilers are going to use Yakupov with #83. Fortunately for the Oilers, Taylor Hall is already capable of holding his own, and one would hope that being in his third NHL season would mean the same for Eberle. Shawn Horcoff will still (always) be thrown to the wolves for the sake of his teammates, and if Ryan Smyth is back he should be as well. We won't know how capable Yakupov is until he gets here, but the state of the 2012-13 team is such that the Oilers shouldn't have to shelter the young Russian in the extreme.

That opens the door for Yakupov on the second line. Though he has played right wing in Sarnia, he should still be young enough not to be too set in his ways, and skilled enough to transition to a slightly different position. Yakupov is a left handed shot, just like natural left wingers Hall, Paajarvi, Omark, Hartikainen and Smyth. One potential problem with playing the left side is that one-timers will have to come across his body before reaching his stick, but there's no rule while playing the wing that says he can't roam a little when he's on the ice.

This kid is an absolute force out there, and he's all over the ice. And that was his rookie season with Sarnia. Notably, he scored from virtually everywhere around the net and a few times attacked from the left side. Note also the early part of the video where Yakupov lays some heavy hits. The Oilers need a forward in their top six who's not only big, but who plays big. Yakupov fits the latter bill better than a bigger man like, for example, Dustin Penner. This is Junior hockey, which is a far cry from the NHL, but the tools are all in place.

One of the main criticisms of Yakupov is that he doesn't use his linemates enough, which is the reason that Hemsky is a better fit than Eberle or Hall would be as his wingers. In fact, a line with two pass-first players in Hemsky and Gagner might be the best possible combination for Nail. Those two are also experienced enough to help carry the young man as he learns the NHL game, assuming that he needs to be carried at all. With any luck, their complimentary styles of play will make up for positional imbalance.

In the very near future, it's possible that the Oilers will have one of the most potent top-six groups in the Western Conference. If Yakupov and Hemsky click, watch out.

03/23/12 Ales Hemsky Is Due

Ales Hemsky has had a tough season by the standards of a lot of players. But how has it been by the standards that he's used to? Think: Hindenburg, Three Mile Island, Exxon Valdez. Hemsky's 0.56 points per game is his lowest mark since his second NHL season back in 2003-04. Thankfully, his slump is due to end any time.

This year Hemsky has dropped into the second tier of offensive forwards in Edmonton. His total ice time (17:36 per game) ranks him 5th among Oilers forwards. He's averaging only one second less than Nugent-Hopkins, but almost a minute less than third-ranked Taylor Hall. Hemsky and Jordan Eberle are experiencing very similar total ice time this season, but don't let that confuse you with the way they are each being used.

Hemsky is doing a lot of heavy lifting at even strength this season; second only to Shawn Horcoff in toughness of competition among the regular forwards. He's also starting his shifts in the offensive zone 50.7% of the time at even strength, so he's not getting much of a push from the coaching staff. Meanwhile, Eberle is facing the easiest competition of the top-six forwards and his shifts start in the offensive zone 60.2% of the time 5x5.

It's interesting that people assumed that the presence of some young offensive stars would  free up Hemsky to knock easier competition out of the park. In fact, the opposite has been true. The desire of the coaching staff to shelter Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins has led to Hemsky being pitted against the toughs this year. As the kids mature and the workload gets spread around more evenly, the theory that more offensive players is better for Hemsky will actually hold water. For the moment, it's contributing to his struggles.

As for those struggles, there's less to worry about than it appears at first glance. Despite difficult opponents and the fact that he's coming off of major surgery, Hemsky is driving the play in the right direction. Only the very best players in the league can take on difficult competition with average zone starts and still take over the game. However, the hockey gods have not been smiling on Hemsky of late. His shooting percentage is sitting at 7.6% even with his three goal outburst against Nashville, but before this year he'd scored on 11.8% of his career shots. It's not as though there haven't been games where you forget Hemsky is in the lineup, but even when he's average he's still a good player. When he's on, he's very good.

Like Nugent-Hopkins, Hemsky can sometimes take over a game and be all over the ice, or he can barely be noticeable and still end the evening with points in the boxscore. He's adjusting to a new role for the Oilers, and handling himself quite well given the circumstances. When Craig MacTavish was head coach, Hemsky was very sheltered in terms of the competition he faced. Those days are over for him, but there's no indication that that means he has ceased to be an effective player. That's very good news for the Oilers and their fans. When the kids start taking on a heavier load, Ales Hemsky will be the perfect complimentary player.

02/17/12 Quite Quiet

The good people over at TSN and SportsNet may be disappointed this February 27th, as the NHL trade deadline could prove to be somewhat uneventful. They'll start their coverage before the sun is up and some of you will be watching, but will anything major happen?

For the Oilers' part, it appears that Ales Hemsky is the only name that is actually on the market, and his value is at an all-time low. If he does get traded, it won't be for the stud defenseman that the Oilers so desperately need. If and when a trade like that comes to pass, it will be in the off season. Right now teams won't want to mess around too much with their chemistry as they gear up for a playoff run, which eliminates plenty of options from Edmonton's sights at the moment. Aside from that, the biggest movable asset that the Oilers have at their disposal is this year's first round pick, and teams won't want to make a major play for it until the draft order is set.

Rick Nash and Jeff Carter are the two biggest names that could move at the deadline, but the amount of cap space that will have to be shifted around will severely limit potential deals. In order to take on Nash's $7.8 million hit a team would have to move a significant amount of roster players, and that's unlikely to be desirable for clubs that are already good enough to be inside the playoff picture. The same goes for Carter, who carries a $5.272 million cap hit, but that two-and-a-half million dollar savings over Nash may make it more possible that he'll be in a new home before the end of this month. There will be major changes in Columbus, but they could be later rather than sooner.

If the Leafs weren't in the thick of the playoff race out East, the rumblings around Luke Schenn would probably be even louder than they are now. Having not made the playoffs since before the lockout, even Old Stony himself, Brian Burke, will be feeling the pressure to get his team in. Unless a deal knocks his socks off there probably won't be major changes in Toronto before the end of the year.

Players that would normally be heavily involved in trade talks like Zach Parise and Ryan Suter happen to be on teams that are comfortably inside the playoff picture, which puts the big ol' kibosh on any movement. In addition to that their current clubs will do whatever they can to re-sign them, and probably believe that they still can. Making the playoffs and potentially going on a run would help New Jersey and Nashville convince two of the game's best to stay put.

If the 9th-place Washington Capitals miss the playoffs they may engage in a major shakeup, but Mike Green probably won't be available. There are a lot of factors at work on the Caps this year, but they won seven straight out of the gate with Green in the lineup and as soon as he got hurt they started to lose. With Green playing this season Washington is 9-1-0.

Earlier in the year it seemed to be almost a certainty that there would be major developments in Anaheim, with Bobby Ryan a popular name in the rumor mill. Lubomir Visnovsky is another player that could have been relocated at the deadline, but the Ducks have put serious doubt in the belief that they were dead. How good have they been lately? Well, they've only gone 14-3-3 in their last 20 games and collected 31 of a possible 40 points. They're not quite in the middle of things yet, but they are doing enough to convince just about anyone that the kind of wholesale changes that were being discussed this year are unnecessary.

Teemu Selanne might have been an attractive rental player for some team at the deadline, and so too would Ryan Smyth, but those two seem intent on staying with their current teams. Both have No-Move Clauses in their contracts, which means they control their own fate anyway.

There are some major trades bubbling under the surface in the NHL, but many of them may be too radical to happen right away. Sure, guys like Ryan O'Marra, Nicklas Grossman, Pavel Kubina and even Ales Hemsky have been or may get moved, but the really earth-shattering stuff is more plausible after the Stanley Cup has been won.

But deadline day is fun, so I hope that I'm wrong.