Edmonton Oilers - Rearranging the deck chair on the titanic?

Jason Gregor, of Oilers Nation, has reported several news updates including the fact that Shawn Horcoff is expected to be out of the lineup for 7-10 days according to Pat Quinn.  With Horcoff out of the lineup, that's going to leave a donut hole in the middle of our roster.  On that note alone, the Oilers recent injury concerns have gone from bad to worse.  What's more is that there's also some additional players who missed practice today including Ales Hemsky (not 100%/injured) and Ladislav Smid.  On the other hand, Souray will be skating today (alone) and resuming light workouts.  As well, Steve Staios is expected to return to play tomorrow.

According to Gregor, these were this morning's practice lines:

Penner - Gagner- Stortini*

Comrie - Brule - MacIntyre

JFJ - O'Sullivan - Nilsson

Moreau - Cogliano - Pisani

Gibert - Grebeshkov

Chorney - Visnovsky

Staios - Strudwick

*Hemsky will likely replace Stortini's practice spot on the first line.

The Oilers at even strength?

The Edmonton Oilers are currently last in the NHL in shots for at even-strength play per 60 minutes (24).  At the same time, they're also currently 3rd last in the league at shots against at even-strength per 60 minutes (34.4).  Of note, being worst in the league in shooting differential is not a recipe for a success.  Let's take a look at the Oilers players Corsi Ratings for the first 15 games of the season.  Souray currently has the highest Corsi Rating on the team, but he's only played 3 games in which the Oilers themselves were not heavily outshot.

Oilers Corsi Ratings from Behind the Net

What do these numbers tell us?

First, Staios and Souray have only played little more than a few games at the start of the season, so they're benefiting from not having played in recent games in terms of their Corsi Ratings. Steve MacIntrye himself is benefiting from having played very little icetime.  This leaves us with Ales Hemsky and Dustin Penner as the only two forwards or players on the roster for that matter who are not getting outshot at even strength.  From watch the games, this is not so much of a surprise as they've been a great pairing this year (insert Horcoff or Gagner in pivot position).

After them, Visnovsky despite returning from a long injury, has clearly also been our best defeseman--a fact that these numbers suggest.  Shawn Horcoff himself has been our next best forward (out of those who've played most of this season's games).  After that, the Corsi Ratings start to get pretty ugly.  Basically, it's a progression from bad to worse.  Moreau, Cogliano, and Nilsson all stand out as those who have struggled to get the puck headed in the right direction. Strudwick and Chorney stand out as our two weaker defensemen (excluding Peckham) which is also not so much of a surprise.

Today's Pat Quinn Quote:

That kind of player that does simple things well, puts pucks deep, knocks other guys off pucks, doesn't turn it over very often,  is responsible defensively, doesn't get out of position.  Yeah, I would like a handful of those.

You make decisions.  They made the decision to play some young guys here 2 years ago.  Where they ready to play in the National Hockey League?  Probably not--they're not there yet.  But they decided we were going to do this. The organizaiton decided, this is the policy of the Oilers this particular year and we're going to live with it.  If Horcoff's out, we've got 4 young kids in that position.  So you name the number one, I don't care.

 

Comments (2)

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written by kristopher Milligan, November 05, 2009

Whoa quinn sounds pissed... Not sure i blame him.
Im assuming he went to tambellini and asked for a real centre, and was told that the team already had 4.

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written by Jay, November 05, 2009

Hey Kristopher,

Yeah, I agree that Pat Quinn does sound very pissed off about the lack of veteran depth at center. From the first quote, it sounds like he would like some more veteran players. The question is whether or not Steve Tambellini can or will do anything to address these issues.

Already, many are speculating that Shawn Horcoff will be out of the lineup for more than the 7-10 days that we've initially been told.

The Oilers are near the bottom of the league in faceoff % even with Horcoff taking around 37% and staying over 50% himself. With him out, we can expect the Oilers to lose even more draws.

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