| In this installment of the People's GM, I am going to evaluate our defensive defensemen. Perhaps more accurately stated, I will evaluate those D-men that do not have much of an offensive game. In my last post, we looked at the scoring defensemen and noted that we have committed too many dollars these guys. As a result, we have a couple of AHL caliber players on our blue line. This is not a recipe towards solid defensive team play. Before I get into my look at Ladislav Smid, Steve Staios, Jason Strudwick and Taylor Chorney, I still have some steam to get out of my ears from Saturday night's game. As the new GM of your Edmonton Oilers, I felt that it was important to head down to the Saddledome to get a first-hand look at our team. I am not sure I can put into publishable words how disappointed I was with what I saw on the ice on Saturday night. Scrub and scrub as I may, I still cannot get the stink off of my eyes. In my mind I had been following the team with some vigilance, but I obviously was not watching the television very closely the past few weeks. Either that or television does not do justice to just how poor the effort level is from the Oilers. It had not crossed my mind that we might need a change in coaches as part of this rebuilding effort, but the team certainly has lost any interest in this season. I am embarrassed that I earmarked Sheldon Souray as our next captain a couple of weeks ago. He played Saturday night with a level of selfishness that it rarely seen in the NHL. The above said, all hope is not lost as was illustrated by my good friend Brian Burke on Sunday morning. One team's trash is another team's treasure. Bad contracts can be moved if one is creative enough. We have a number of serviceable parts and I will be working hard to clear out as much of our dead wood as possible before the start of next season. My philosophy is similar to Burke's in that the solution starts by building the team from the net out. Critical to our success is bringing in a couple of shut down defensemen. To be a consistent team in the NHL we need to shut down the opposition's top line. We currently do not have the personal to accomplish this. The other thing I take from Burke is the need to specifically identify both the individuals we wish to dump, but more importantly the people we want to bring in. The Leafs identified a type of defenseman they wanted and a list of 6 players who fit the bill. It took them 2 ½ months to make a deal but you have to appreciate their process. Follow the jump for evaluation of the Oilers defensive defensemen. Below are the salaries for our defensemen over the next few years. Cap dollars can vary a bit. ***Click to enlarge You will note that we have Staios, Smid and Chorney on the books for one more year with Strudwick mercifully off our hands after this season. If I had bet you that Smid was one year older than Chorney you would have taken that bet and I would be a few dollars richer. Below is a table looking at each player's performance over the past several seasons. Again, I am using my personal favourite, Player Contribution for past seasons and looking at Goals Versus Threshold and Cult of Hockey's True +/- for this season. 
To refresh memories, a PC over 50 is a pretty decent player. A PC of 0 translates to a random player in the minors. GVT is similar in terms of 0 being a bit of a threshold for ineptitude. Excluding this season, the above table indicates that Staios has marginal defensive value, while Smid and Strudwick have not provided a heck of a lot to the team. For this season, Smid's 2009-2010 GVT number is actually north of zero which is respectable. Staios appears to be showing his age and is contributing at an AHL level with Strudwick and Chorney. It pains me to write that about Staios as I really like the way he plays. Running through the players individually: Smid I am not sold on the fact that Smid is a bona fide NHL player. He brings close to nothing to the table offensively and his defensive contribution is questionable. That said, he will only cost us $1.4 million next year and he is still only 23 years old. I am pretty sure we will keep him in the fold. Staios I am not sure what happened to Staios the past couple of years. He went from a player who jumped into the rush to a player who does not offer much to the mix. He heart is unquestionable but someone else will be paying his $2.2 million salary ($2.7 million cap hit) next year. Strudwick Struds is a quick case study to complete. He is gone at the end of the season. I would rather try out some of our young AHL talent than plug up a roster spot with Jason. Chorney Taylor has one more year left on his deal. I would happily include him in a package deal if requested; otherwise I will wait to see how hard he works over the summer. Ideally he would spend another year in the AHL until he proves that he can play at the NHL level. The big question to be answered is who do we bring in to help out at the defensive end of the ice? If we get lucky and trade two of Souray/ Vishnovsky/ Gilbert, we will have some cap dollars to play with. The table below denotes the top defensive defensemen the league last year and what they were paid. You'll see some guys who are greatly offensively as well as defensively. The PCD column denotes their defensive contribution to their team's success. 
The point of this table is to point out how many good defensive defensemen are out there for Staios-like money. This includes Ryan82's favourite, Anton Volchenkov of Ottawa at $2.5 million per season. After I finish scolding prior management for not taking a run at Scuderi last offseason, I will use this list as a starting point for my calls out to other teams on the trade front with a focus on players under 26 or 27 years of age. Are there any other players that we should be targeting? And yes, I promise that I will not trade for Wade Redden though it is interesting to note that he actually does still have some value. Next time things will get a lot more interesting as we start to work our way through the forwards. First up will be a look at the small forwards: Sam Gagner, Andrew Cogliano, Robert Nillson, Patrick O'Sullivan, Gilbert Brule and Mike Comrie. Oiler fans: what should we do with these guys? When Jonathan Joyce is not working hard to fix your Edmonton Oilers, he often writes over at his blog, The Sports Juice.
 | 
Bloguin is the revolutionary blog network specifically focused on helping bloggers get the most out of their websites. We're currently working on building a large network of online communities and hope to expand our blogging coverage to include a wide range of topics.
The Bloguin Network allows advertisers to promote their products and services to our ever-growing number of visitors. We offer both site-specific ad placements as well as the ability to run a network-wide campaign. If you're interested in working with Bloguin to meet your advertising needs, please contact us.
The Bloguin Network is always looking to expand. We're specifically looking for blogs in the sports, entertainment, and video games field, but are open to adding any type of quality site. If you're a blogger and interested in joining our network, please fill out our application form.
The Bloguin Login gives you full access to everything our network has to offer. Your name and password will work for each and every one of our sites. Signing up is simple, and will allow you to post in all our forums, create member blogs, and access other cool features! What are you waiting for? Create an Account!
Re: Struds, I'm actually worried that the Oilers will re-sign him for next season. Pat Quinn seems to love the guy and he's expressed this publicly. I really hope that Struds doesn't get re-signed for next season. He's just too slow to be of any use though he does seem like a nice guy.
Steve Staios is another guy that's finished. He's a loyal soldier to the Oilers but at his $2.7 million cap hit, his contract is an atrocity. I'm skeptical that the Oilers will be able to move him, so I can only remain hopeful that he retires.
Ladislav Smid had a great start to this season fueled by his play with Lubomir Visnovsky. When he doesn't play with Lubo, he hasn't been very effective.
Jonathan Willis just wrote an article about this the other day at Hockey or Die:
http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/...visnovsky/
Taylor Chorney seems to a guy that the Oilers management love despite having probably the worst combined +/- of anyone that's played in both the AHL and NHL this season. I don't think a quality top six can include Chorney based on what we've seen so far, but I won't be surprised to see him play for the Oilers next season regardless.
In the minors, he's thought to have some offense, but we haven't seen that at the NHL level yet. He doesn't have much NHL level offense, but he's a hard guy to call a 'defensive defenseman.'