Patrick O'Sullivan helping to support Hair Massacure

St. Valentines Day Hair Massacure Cancer Charity

Here's something that I found on Puck Daddy today, Patrick O'Sullivan dyed his hair pink to support the St. Valentines Day Hair Massacure to raise funds for the Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation (R) and the Make-A-Wish (R) Northern Alberta foundation.

If you would like to get involved, there's a number of opportunities including making donations, volunteering, donating your hair for wigs (if longer than 10 inches), or going pink among other options.  For further details, visit Hair Massacure.

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.

Game 54 - Carolina Hurricanes vs. Edmonton Oilers - Rexall Place - February1, 2010, 7:30 pm - PPV

The Edmonton Oilers (16-31-6) will host the Carolina Hurricanes (19-28-7) tonight at Rexall Place.  Sadly, this battle between the league's last placed Oilers and 28th placed Hurricanes or the Battle of the Brutals will be on PPV.  If you don't feel like shelling out a nickle to watch this game, I don't blame you.  However, there's a morbid sense of curiosity for some when two teams this bad actually play each other.

The Oilers will play without Sheldon Souray who recently broke his hand in a fight with Jarome Iginla.  Though Sheldon Souray had recently provided Steve Tambellini with a list of teams that he would waive his no-trade clause for, it's completely irrelevant since it expires on July 1st of this year.  Yesterday, the Edmonton Oilers announced that they've recalled defenseman, Alex Plante, from their AHL affiliate, the Springfield Falcons.

While the Oilers are winless in their past 13 games heading into this match, the Carolina Hurricanes have won four games in a row.  With the Toronto Maple Leaf's recent trades for Dion Phaneuf and Jean-Sebastien Giguere along with Carolina playing well with Cam Ward and Eric Stall in the lineup, the Oilers should be a complete lock on a top 2 draft pick.

Brian Burke Pulls Trigger on 7 Player Trade

With the news already breaking today about Brian Burke's extreme makeover,Toronto Maple Leafs edition, let's take a closer look at who's in and who's out.  First, the big news for the Toronto Maple Leafs in terms of marque names are the additions of Dion Phaneuf from the Calgary Flames and Jean-Sebastien from the Anaheim Might Ducks.

With recent news that Jonas Hiller signed a four-year, $18 million contract with Anaheim, it was already speculated that Jean-Sebastien Giguere would be on the trading block.  For the Toronto Maple Leafs who've lacked success with Vesa Toskala and Jonas Gustavsson, they were a perfect trading partner.

A look at both trades in terms of salaries and players in/out for the Toronto Maple Leafs after the jump...

Oilers lose to Flames 6-1

The Calgary Flames defeated the Edmonton Oilers by a score of six to one at the Pengrowth Saddledome tonight.  With this win, the Flames snap a nine-game losing streak while sweeping the season series against the Oilers with six-consecutive wins.  For the Oilers they've now have a baker's dozen (13) consecutive losses which approaches their franchise record set in 1993-4 in which they lost 14 games (13 losses, 1 tie).

It was a four point night for Jarome Iginla with 2 goals and 2 assists while Dustin Boyd also had two goals, but only a single helper.  Jarome Iginla also had a Gordie Howe hat trick which included his third period figtht against Sheldon Souray.  Dan Tencer's just reported via twitter that Sheldon Souray fractured his wrist presumably in the fight with Ignila.

If losing every game in this season series against the Flames wasn't embarrassing enough or losing by a score of 6-1, then the icing on the cake is that the Oilers have now won just a single game in their past 20.  What's worse is that Sheldon Souray's name was circulated in NHL trade rumors.  With this injury, the slight chance that he might get traded prior to the March 3rd NHL trade deadline is over.  By the way, Google image search is great for finding pictures.  However, try using it to find one of an Oilers fan...  It's pretty funny since you probably won't find one.