Hockey News Poll

In the April 3rd edition of the Hockey News Magazine were the yearly player poll results. In this poll roughly 283 NHLers or 33% of the players in the league were asked questions such as:

1. How do you feel about the NHL schedule format?

2. Are you open to the idea of bigger nets?

3. Would you support increasing the number of teams in the playoffs?

4. If you could play for any NHL team (other than your own), which would you choose?

5. To what city would you least like to be traded?

6. What’s the worst thing about your job?

Now the thing that makes this relevant to Edmontonians are questions number 4 and 5 in my list. Here are the results:

4. If you could play for any NHL team (other than your own), which would you choose?

1) Toronto Maple Leafs (34) 14.4%
2) New York Rangers (29) 12.3%
3) Detroit Red Wings (19) 8%
4) Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks (18) 7.6%
5) Dallas Stars (15) 6.3%
6) Colorado Avalanche and Montreal Canadiens (14) 5.9%
7) Minnesota Wild and Tampa Bay Lightning (10) 4.2%
8) Phoenix Coyotes (9) 3.8%
9) Calgary Flames (8) 3.4%
10) Anaheim Ducks and Florida Panthers (5) 2.1%
11) Nashville Predators, Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins (4) 1.7%
12) Chicago Blackhawks, Philadelphia Flyers and San Jose Sharks (3) 1.2%
13) Boston Bruins and Buffalo Sabres (2) 0.85%
14) Carolina Hurricane and Edmonton Oilers (1) 0.42%

5. To what city would you least like to be traded?

1) Buffalo Sabres (40) 16%
2) Edmonton Oilers (28) 11.2%
3) New York Islanders (24) 9.6%
4) Pittsburgh Penguins (18) 7.2%
5) Florida Panthers (17) 6.8%
6) Carolina Hurricanes and St. Louis Blues (13) 5.2%
7) Washington Capitals (12) 4.8%
8) New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers (9) 3.6%
9) Columbus Blue Jackets and Montreal Canadiens (8) 3.2%
10) Calgary Flames (7) 2.8%
11) Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings (6) 2.4%
12) Nashville Predators (5) 2%
13) Los Angeles Kings and Ottawa Senators (4) 1.6%
14) Philadelphia Flyers and Phoenix Coyotes (3) 1.2%
15) Atlanta Thrashers, Minnesota Wild, San Jose Sharks and Toronto Maple Leafs (2) 0.8%
16) Anaheim Ducks, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Tampa Bay Lightning (1) 0.4%

See some people will jump to conclusions and think that this is a horrible thing for Edmonton and that it will affect our ability to sign free agents. However, this is why I think that you have to take this particular poll with a grain of salt.

First, this Poll was only 33% of the players in the NHL with no names attached. Personally, do you care if Brad Isbister ever wants to come back to the Oilers via free agency or a trade? I don’t.

Second, the first poll says to pick one team. What if the Oilers or any other teams were their second choice? Sorry, but Toronto, New York, and Detroit can not add many more players to their rosters, so these players will have to find work somewhere else

Third, how could you not want to be traded to the Pittsburg Penguins to play with some of the games brightest stars? Remember they were 3rd on the least want to get traded too.

Fourth and finally, remember the question "What’s the worst thing about your job?" This is the 14th most popular response:

"Protein shakes, watching video, late nights, filling out forms, fighting, autographs, missed childhood, girls, money, Cam Janssen, getting yelled at, pre-game skate, coaches and being booed (1) 0.4%"

Just goes to show you how serious at least one of the players took this poll. Not saying the others didn’t but you never know.

If players really believe what the poll results are yes, it will be hard to find people willing to come here via trade and free agency. However, we Edmontonians and die hard Oiler fans can take solace in the fact that the players that come here (even if it is 1 out of 283) want to be here and will embrace the opportunity.

By the way whatever happened to Brad?