Pre-Season Review / Season Pre-View Part 5
Parts 1 through 4:
Atlantic - Crosby, Malkin, Staal
Northeast - Forward vs. Defence Salaries
Southeast - Stanley Cup Hangover
Central - Ten Years Too Late?
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Northwest: Best Value or Just the Cheapest?
First off, here’s a real shocker of a statement: Edmonton’s blueline suffered a huge blow with the departure of Chris Pronger.
Now let’s take a deeper look.
Edmonton goes into the 2006-2007 season with the lowest-paid blueline in the west, and second lowest in the league (only Washington is lower). Their highest paid defencemen is captain Jason Smith, making just under $2 million (contrast this with Toronto, who will pay Hal Gill, their number 4 defenceman, just over $2 million). The good news is that Edmonton will have solid Dwayne Roloson in goal for the entire season (barring injury), and perhaps the deepest forward corps in the league. The bad news is that both of those groups will have tremendous pressure placed upon them by the frighteningly thin blueline.
Hope remains for Edmonton in that a number of excellent young prospects will be given every opportunity to emerge as legitimate NHL defencemen this season: Ladislav Smid (one of the key pieces that came back in the Pronger trade), Marc, Andre Bergeron and Matt Greene in particular. And of course there are few mentors better to teach these youngsters than Smith. It will not be surprising in 2 or 3 years if the Edmonton blueline ranks among the deepest in the West. But what about this season?
Craig MacTavish will have his work cut out for him getting his team back into the playoffs in the very competitive west. A trade of one or more of his established forwards, or more likely some of the bubble players not quite old enough or good enough to crack the forward lines could add considerable depth on the blueline. With the abundance of young forwards, a few prospects shouldn’t hurt the Oilers much, and would bring badly needed help on the back end. The Oilers will undoubtedly look at adding help, and have both the depth and the cap space to do so.
The thinned blueline will likely lead to a slow start out of the gate for the Oilers, as the young defence scrambles to keep up with the very competitive Northwest division teams. If Roloson’s goaltending holds up, and there’s no reason to suspect it won’t, the Oilers will remain competitive and could even give the perennial favourite Calgary Flames a run for the division title late in the season. But without either a few sensational performances from young blueliners or a substantial trade to bring in a top two defenceman before the season is too old, I wouldn’t count on too much. More likely the Oilers will be a competitive team somewhere in the bottom of the playoff bound teams.