Dallas Screwed by System

This is Toby Petersen (and Dwayne Roloson). He now plays with the Dallas Stars.

First of all: Souray with the two goals at the All Star Game... too bad he didn't get a hat trick. And yes, I spend a lot of time talking about the Dallas Stars in this post, but it does come back to the Oilers eventually.

Second of all: TSN with the story today on Dallas' lack of a farm team. Current Dallas Star Toby Petersen was a product of that debacle just a few years back, when he was an Oiler prospect playing for the Iowa Stars. A few other notable Oilers prospects have been jostled by the inconsistency of not having the Springfield Falcons around, such as Jeff DesLauriers, Rob Schremp, Marc-Antoine Pouliot, and Bryan Young.

Let's have a look at the top Dallas Stars prospects (according to Hockey's Future) and look at where they've played this season:

Ivan Vishnevskiy, D - Peoria Rivermen
James Neal, C - Manitoba Moose/Dallas Stars
Mark Fistric, D - Manitoba Moose
Fabian Brunnstrom, LW - Dallas Stars

The Oilers elected to keep most of the prospects on the farm in favor of developing them further, and this had more to do with the big club's own poor performance than the elite status of the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins or the Iowa Stars. Rather, it made more sense having the prospects play big, important minutes on a mid-level AHL team than small, unimportant minutes on an NHL team performing poorly.

Has the Dallas Stars' strategy of playing their prospects on the big team rather than the farm team worked in their favor? Mind you this will not be reflected in how they are doing in the standings, but rather in player development.

Ivan Vishnevskiy
AHL 38 GP 3 G 9 A 12 PTS 18 PIM

Vishnevskiy is supposed to be an offensive defensemen and his numbers are similar to Taylor Chorney and Mathieu Roy of the Springfield Falcons. They are, all 3 of them, being outperformed by Theo Peckham.

What does that mean, that the AHL is unfriendly to offensive defensemen? Or does that mean both Vishnveskiy's partner and Mathieu Roy are incompettent as defensive defensemen?

Mark Fistric
NHL 11 GP 0 G 1 A 1 PTS 4 PIM
AHL 27 GP 0 G 7 A 7 PTS 24 PIM

Mark Fistric projects to be a Denis Gauthier type of defenseman, which is peculiar since he's only being outscored by Vishnevskiy by 5 points. This either means Fistric brings a lot more to the team than meets the eye, or Vishnevskiy brings a lot less. With a point total as low as 7 total points, I would think the second argument holds more water.

Fabian Brunnstrom
NHL 31 GP 10 G 4 A 14 PTS 2 PIM

These numbers are comparable to Robert Nilsson, which is not exactly something to write home about. Nilsson and Brunnstrom are both great, skilled players on somewhat affordable contracts. Nilsson has a whole lot of heart and that, unfortunately, does not say much about Brunnstrom. Having been rushed into the NHL, I'm not sure he will take to being sent to the farm team to hone his assets - especially if the ones he needs developed are intangible.

James Neal
AHL 5 GP 4 G 1 A 5 PTS 2 PIM
NHL 40 GP 13 G 6 A 19 PTS 33 PIM

These are Kyle Brodziak numbers, but James Neal is not projected to be a Kyle Brodziak type of player. Here is his description from Hockeys' Future:

Potential: Top-six, two-way power forward, like a somewhat slower version of Shane Doan.

Either somebody is not doing their job or the scouts got it all wrong. With Fabian Brunnstrom struggling, Brendan Morrow injured for the long term, you'd think that James Neal would get more opportunity. Is that the player's fault - or the team's fault?

Considering all the problems the Oilers had a few years ago before the Springfield Falcons signed on as the affiliate, I have a bit of sympathy for them in their dire situation. It would seem that the system is ruining the development of their prospects (with the exception of Fabian Brunnstrom) and if the Dallas Stars are paying attention to the Oilers from a few years back, they know the system can turn out some Petersens and it can turn out some Rob Schremps, who may be a comparable to Fabian Brunnstrom in terms of skill and consistency.

With their team in the basement and the prospects' future in jeopardy due to farm team troubles, the Dallas Stars are in a world of hurt and the NHL should forget about failing franchises like the fanless Phoenix Coyotes and focus on saving teams like the Dallas Stars that actually have a fan base worth saving.

That goes for the NY Islanders too.

The question is: do teams benefit more from playing their prospects in the NHL or the AHL when the farm team situation is in question? I think the answer is obvious that being a leader on an mid-level AHL team is a lot better than plugging it out on an NHL team playing nightly forfeit matches. NHL experience is valuable, yes - but value is subjective and I question the value of an NHL start spent in the league basement.

Good luck, Stars.

(P.S. I have not forgotten about all the playoff series we lost to you, so with all that sympathetic B.S. behind me, I just want to say, na na na na boo boo)

Oilers beat Stars 4-1; Secondary Scoring & Team Depth

It's great that with Hemsky out we're starting to see some of the other players pick up their game to exciting new levels, like Erik Cole, Sam Gagner, Liam Reddox, Dustin Penner, and Robert Nilsson.

But who is the most consistent Oiler outside of Hemsky? Horcoff, Visnovsky, Souray, Gilbert, Grebeshkov, and Pisani might have a chance - but I think it's clearly Andrew Cogliano.

He may not shoot out the lights - but he's the only guy I can remember bringing his A game every damn shift, PP, PK, or even strength.

He's a heckuva player.

Schremp - - Shades of Smyth

I think the photo says it all.

Good win by the Oilers and perhaps they found the spark they needed after all.

Stars @ Oilers & Avery Quotable Quotes

Garon starts. Robbie Schremp plays for Nilsson. The legend continues.

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Proof that readers and writers of our OilersNation have more common sense than TSN

By Jeanshorts:

"I have always hated Sean Avery and the fact that most, if not all of his team, and his GM hate him just as much as everyone else in the league makes me giddy.
And lets be honest, the only reason he’s still in the league is because he’s good at pissing off every single person around him. Because the dude doesn’t hit, doesn’t fight, he can barely handle the puck and he’s a career third liner at best.

But I think it’s ridiculous that the league suspended him for making fun of no one in particular. Sure you know it was aimed at Shrek, but he didn’t come right out and trash him personally. If that kind of thing warrents a suspension then god forbid the league gets anywhere within hearing distance of the ice during a game, because you know that the stuff that comes out in the coarse of a game is 20 times worse. Let the players police themselves, and you won’t get Sean Avery’s running their mouths without fear of retaliation."

"Someone made a really good point on Off The Record yesterday. Basically, if he would have said it on the ice, like you said, no one would have known and it would have been taken care of by the players. But since he did say it in a media scrum and it got all this immediate attention, now Double Dion has to deal with it with his wooms, and now she is involved personally.

I still don’t agree he should have had that thick NHL rule book hurled at him by the Munchkin King in New York, but leave it to the NHL to have knee jerk reactions about everything."

By ThoughtPolice:

"I can’t believe that they suspended Avery over this of all things. Everyone is applauding this decision but it was made at completely the wrong time IMO. Why not punish him for his racial slurs against Georges and Gauthier? things he said to Tucker? And numerous other altercations?

His comment today was harmless only meant to rile up Phaneuf and his ex. I agree it wasn’t smart to say or kind but since when do we censor people for speaking their mind when the speech is clean?….since today in the NHL i guess."

By oilboy76:

"I see what your saying, and I think if this was an isolated incident(ie:not someone like Avery who’s always running on like a soup sandwich) it would of been dismissed as being an ignorant and rude remark."

By Travis Dakin:

"What Avery said was true, plain and simple. At the end of the day, we don’t know what has been said and done in their personal lives that may have contributed to Avery saying what he said. Fact is he may have been over the line with the comments, but he was ready to back it up on the ice. I admire that. Now go back to your bible and pay for the power of christ to compel Avery of his wicked ways. Do you see that black thing on your coffee table with all the buttons? Use it to change the channel or turn the TV off. I’m sure you are capable of making your own decisions as to what you would like to watch or not. Ridiculous."

"You cheer for a game where fighting is allowed and attempts to injure players go pretty much un-punished because that’s “rough and tough hockey” and yet when a player says something to anger another player and is ready to back it up, you get your panties all bunched up in a knot because some moral code was broken? If you want to play moral police, go preach to some sunday school kids. Otherwise, let the grown men playing a game for a living be themselves. And like I said, He was ready to back it up on the ice that same night. Had he said it from across the continent with no fear of retribution, I’d say he was a pussy. But no, just a damn fine showman and funny as hell."

And finally, Scott Gallof, a blogger from Hockeybuzz.com:

"When the NHL decided to suspend Sean Avery for meaningless comments he made in an interview, a big opportunity was lost to actually generate some interest and buzz about a game. The very second Sean Avery was moved from the line up for last night's game against Dion Phanenuf and the Calgary Flames all national interest in said game was gone. The casual American public needs story lines and drama to be interested. Now I wish I could sit here and state that the public should watch for the beauty of the game, and gosh darn it they should, but this is reality.

You need to know your buyers when you try to sell something. Gary Bettman and the rest of the NHL brass seem to have no idea to what the typical American audience is actually genuinely looking for. Sometimes you need to have that Reggie Dunlop ideology and make the people crazy and clamor for something.

If the league really feels the need to punish Sean Avery for those oh-so not nice, hurtful, callous comments, then slap him with a huge fine and go after his Gucci wallet, but let the conflict resolve where it needs to, right on the ice in the game of the week. Instead, Gary Bettman wants to coddle the public and keep them safe, to me it's like he's saying, "What would the public think with such crass comments coming from a hockey player!" Well, Gary I got news for you, right now Joe Public isn't thinking much of anything concerning hockey."

Oilers @ Stars - Jeff Drouin-DesLauriers Starts

The good thing about a big goalie is that he can follow the play from above all the other players' heads. Another good thing about a big goalie is that he can be in the butterfly position and still cover a lot of the net. A bad thing about "dinosaur" goalies is that they have limited mobility. The good thing about Jeff Drouin-DesLauriers? He's not affected by limited mobility.

Lowetide suggests here that one of the goalies could be traded this week of Jeff Drouin-DesLauriers plays well. He probably meant Roloson, but right now I'm not so sure that it's not Garon. People speak about the showcasing aspect of playing Roloson a lot but we'll have to see about that.

Any way we look at it though, its the DesLauriers who stared down the Rangers we want to see today, and not the one who stared down the Leafs. Hopefully, the team can make it a two game winning streak and get some momentum for the home half of the home-and-home with Dallas.