Earth to Lowe!

So they announced the Hart Trophy finalists the other day and something stood out to me. Russians. Young Russians. Ovechkin and Malkin make up two of the three finalists, and if one should win it will be the first time since Federov in 1994 and only second time ever. Apparently the Motherland has started churning out a very creamy crop of competitors (Alliteration!). Though it is rare to see Russians amongst the finalists of this award it will undoubtedly be a continuing trend. Three of the top four point getters in the NHL were Russian, and thats not including guys like Kovalchuk, Kovalev, and younger stars like Zherdev and Radulov. Players like these bring finesse and skill to a team and even more importantly: Goal Scoring.

This is where Stu MacGregor and Kevin Prendergast come in. This team is in dire need of a one shot goal scorer not seen in these parts since the first 20 games of Petr Sykora. This team is lacking and as Lowetide put it, there is one clear reason, "Russia is Death Valley for the Oilers at the draft table". The draft list of Russians for this team is nothing short of pitiful. The list since the 2000 Draft:

• Alexander Bumagin
• Vyacheslav Trukhno
• Roman Tesliuk
• Mikhail Zhukov
• Ivan Koltsov
• Alexei Mikhnov
• Alexander Lyubimov
• Evgeny Muratov

Not a single NHL player on that list. Trukhno is the only one who might break that curse but even he is not a sure thing. That is eight Russians selected of the 77 picks the Oilers have used in these drafts(10%). In the last three years the Draft average is 5.4% so we are drafting Russian born players at a high clip and have nothing to show for it. We can point the gun at Kent Nilsson and Frank Musil who were both brought in as European scouts by Kevin Lowe. This team is clearly not doing enough to bring in European and specifically Russian talent. Now I understand Ovechkin and Malkin went 1-2 at the 2004 draft but Oilers have had ample opportunity to draft skilled Russians high. Taking Plante over Cherapanov at last years draft was as much about Cherry being Russian as it was about them deciding to take a defenceman no matter what. The scouting staff needs a serious wake up call and hopefully that call answers our scoring needs.


Ovechkin for the Hart.

What if?

What if the Oilers had not signed Penner to the offer sheet? We could assume that the Oilers would have finished with a worse record, due to the fact they would have been short a 23 goal man. Sure someone would have picked up a piece of that but likely not the entire total.

The question is then how much worse would the overall record have been? Currently the Oilers or really Anaheim holds the 12^th pick overall. Say for simplicity sake, say that no one was able to pick up the 4 game winning goals Penner scored this year. That is 4-8 points missing from the overall total, dropping the Oilers down to 80-84 points giving them the 6^th – 9^th overall pick. Which is around same pick that landed them Gagner last year, in what is said to be a deep draft.

So my question is simply would you rather have Penner or the possibility to take a player like:

Player	Team	Position	GP	Goals	Assists	Points
Luke Schenn	Kelowna	D	57	7	21	28
Kyle Beach	Everett	C	60	27	33	60
Zack Boychuk	Lethbridge	C	61	33	39	72

?

Pretty Lackluster

It is the second intermission between Washington and Philly and I am bored so I will throw out some stats:

Former Oilers involved in the Pitkanen trade:

Player	Goals	Assists	Points	TOI	+/-
Jason Smith	0	0	0	18:35	-6
Joffery Lupul	0	1	1	15:38	0

Now those are some pretty lackluster numbers. First, Jason Smith is -6 (really -7 since he was on for AO’s goal in the second period). That is pretty brutal for a guy that seemed like a decent shut down d-man while he was in Edmonton. Second, 1 point in 6.6 games for Lupul is atrocious.

*Note* Jason Smith has be on the ice for 16 out of the 23 goals Washington has scored during the series

Think the Flyers would like to have another puck moving d-man during this series?

*Well with Lupul scoring the OT winner throw this one away

The Crescendo

Its been a rough spring to be a Oilers fan trying to speculate on what moves will be made for next year. By most accounts its looking like we will see the same team next year as we did this year. This does not, however, prevent the rest of the teams from making some interesting moves during the summer. Ottawa and Buffalo stand out as two teams clearly not happy with how their seasons went and may be looking to make a shakeup. Putting trades aside free agency provides some interesting opportunities.

The UFA market is lacking in real block buster talent. You have Hossa who may or may not stay with the Pens but then you have guys like Brian Campbell, Mats Sundin, and Joe Sakic who likely won't be going anywhere (Sundin/Sakic for obvious reasons, Campbell because the Sharks need him too much). As well the Goaltending market is relatively stable (as pointed out by Mirtle) so you won't get a lot of action there, though Emerygate 2008 should provide some interesting dramatics or at least if anything average T.V.

That leaves us with a very interesting crop of R.F.A.'s to be had for an expensive contract and your best draft picks. Names like Bouwmeester, Carter, Green, Weber, Bouchard, Svatos, and yes our dearest Pitkanen fill an impressive list. The supply and demand along with a growing cap tell us that something has to happen. This year could provide with quite a few offer sheets being tendered by teams looking for a quicker rebuild.

Last summer saw the Oilers sign two players to offer sheets, a duty that has made Kevin Lowe the Lex Luthor of the NHL. So now that he has started punching babies and kicking dogs the other 29 GM's can follow suit with much less risk of villainy. The history of offer sheets shows us that it has been around for awhile and if anything Lowe just took it to the next level. A brief history since 1997:

• Dustin Penner - 2007 - signed to a 5 year, $21.5 million contract from Edmonton
• Accepted and Anaheim received 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks in 2008

• Thomas Vanek - 2007 - signed to a 7 year, $50 million contract from Edmonton
• Buffalo Matched

• Ryan Kesler - 2006 - signed a 1 year, $1.9 million contract from Philidelphia
• Vancouver Matched

• Sergei Fedorov - 1998 - signed a 6 year, $38 million from Carolina
• Detroit Matched

• Mattias Ohlund - 1997 - signed a 5 year, $10 million contract & $7.5 million signing bonus from Toronto
• Vancouver Matched

• Chris Gratton - 1997 - signed a 5 year, $16.5 million contract from Tampa Bay
• Accepted and Philidelphia got four 1st round picks, traded back to the Flyers for Mikael Renberg and Karl Dykhuis with Flyers picking up part of Renberg's salary

• Joe Sakic - 1997 - signed a 3 year, $21 million contract from New York
• Colorado Matched

This list is going to grow this summer and I have a feeling teams won't be as willing to match. With a Cap system now there are a few teams who put themselves in prime position to be poached. Remember when New Jersey was having cap problems and snuck out the back door with the Mogiliny deal? They are a prime example of a team that had an RFA (Parise) that could have been had for a slight over pay. More and more GM's are going to be using offer sheets and Brian Burke may be the last man standing in the past.

2008 NHL Attendance Figures

Well I thought that it would be time to do a follow up to a previous blog on attendance figures so as to compare and contrast the results. So let’s get on with it.

Rank	Team	Games	Total	Average	Percentage
1	Montreal	41	872,193	21,273	100.0
2	Buffalo	41	817,956	19,950	109.4
3	Ottawa	41	812,665	19,821	107.1
4	Philadelphia	41	801,797	19,556	100.3
5	Toronto	41	796,803	19,434	103.4
6	Calgary	41	790,849	19,289	112.4
7	Detroit	41	775,394	18,912	94.2
8	Tampa Bay	41	766,412	18,692	94.6
9	Vancouver	41	763,830	18,630	101.1
10	Minnesota	41	761,288	18,568	102.8
11	NY Rangers	41	746,200	18,200	100.0
12	Dallas	41	739,585	18,038	97.3
13	St. Louis	41	722,021	17,610	83.9
14	San Jose	41	713,863	17,411	99.5
15	Anaheim	41	704,932	17,193	102.6
16	Pittsburg	41	700,137	17,076	100.7
17	Colorado	41	690,552	16,842	93.5
18	Edmonton	41	689,949	16,828	98.4
19	Chicago	41	689,377	16,814	82.0
20	Carolina	41	681,962	16,633	88.8
21	Los Angeles	41	680,877	16,606	92.0
22	Atlanta	41	648,811	15,824	85.3
23	New Jersey	41	638,144	15,564	88.3
24	Washington	41	634,381	15,472	82.9
25	Florida	41	632,881	15,436	80.2
26	Boston	41	630,750	15,384	82.6
27	Nashville	41	611,328	14,910	87.1
28	Columbus	41	607,757	14,823	81.7
29	Phoenix	41	607,638	14,820	84.7
30	NY Islanders	41	559,247	13,640	83.7

So when we look at the statistics a couple of items jump out at me.

1. The numbers on espn.com must be a little off because the Oilers have played over 100 consecutive sell-outs which means that they obviously played to 100% capacity rather than 98.4%, as well to further prove that the numbers must be a little out that the Flames played to 12% over capacity seems like it must be off.

2. To reiterate the point the Oilers need a new arena because when you sell out your current one each and every game and you end up 18^th in league average there needs to be a change

3. 
   
1. Detroit rebounded nicely from 17^th 5 games into the season to 7^th overall.

2. Colorado however did not rebound as greatly and ended roughly where they began in 17^th place

4. That all 6 of the Canadian teams played to sellout crowds each and every game of the year. As well, half of the teams with a 100% attendance rate were Canadian teams.

5. Nashville fans actually decided to show up down the stretch run and pushed their overall attendance above 14,000 so even if Balsillie had been able to complete the purchase, he would not have been able to move the team to Hamilton.

6. The easiest way for fans in western Canada to see Alexander Ovechkin would be to fly to Washington D.C. and buy one of the available tickets.

7. When you look at the bottom 10 teams in the league what jumps out? How about that 6 of them are expansion teams or relocations. Which makes up about ½ of the expansion or relocation teams since the early 90s

Well you now know what I think does anything stand out to you?

Caution!

While taking a management class in University I actually came across a useful piece of information (if you've ever taken one you'll understand how amazing this is). I had a prof once say to me "people are often promoted to their highest level of incompetence" and that statement has stuck with me. Its shockingly true, organizations see someone doing good work at their position so they promote them into the next opening. There is little to no thought put in to whether they would be good at this new job, just that they were good at their last one. This continues to happen until they stop performing well, and then they are stuck in this position. So now you have someone doing a job they are not very good at and their stuck there.

So I plead discretion to not only Oiler fans, but the team itself. There looks to be a high risk of this happening to this team next year, and there is evidence that it happened this year as well. Look at a guy like Dustin Penner who had a great rookie year in Anaheim. He scored 28 goals playing with Getzlaf and Perry so the Oilers paid him big bucks to do more. Except he was no longer playing soft 2nd line minutes, he was playing on the top line against the other teams top checkers. Not only that but he is now playing with Hemsky and Horcoff who rely on speed, which exposed Penner's footspeed.

I will admit that Penner has surpassed most expectations placed upon him and has had a nice second half to the season but I could only imagine what he could have done if the Oilers played him in the role he had previously succeeded in. His struggle is no more obvious than his horrible EV production (EV/60 1.33)

So now I look to next years team and can foresee some problems there. There are young players on this team who are going to have increased expectations on them, whether desereved or not.

Nilsson/Gagner/Cogliano - three players who had outstanding breakout seasons. I can see MacTavish leaning on them more heavily, especially if the top line struggles. These kids did well but did it primarily against soft comp. Playing them against top defensive players could shatter their confidence.

Glencross/Brodziak - two guys who did insanely better than anyone could have imagined. Glencross for a UFA Tarnstrom and Brodziak with their 7th rounder in '03, these guys have overachieved already. Both showed offensive skill this season but lets not kid ourselves, they did it against the other teams worst players.

Gilbert/Grebeshkov - probably the most amazing surprises of the season, specifically Grebeshkov. These players will be relied upon to play top 4 minutes and maybe even top 2 minutes next season. Though they have been successful in this role at times both had terrible stretches. Gilbert showed signs of wearing out for a large stretch towards the end of the season and Grebeskov had a tumultuous first 2/3 of a season. These guys are probably a safer bet to cover their increased roles than the others.

I"m not saying players need to be babied along, I just want people to use some discretion before assuming great things and an immediate payoff from these players. It will be interesting to see who is given the opportunity and who succeeds in this opportunity. Any thoughts?