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Springfield Edmonton: City of Champions

Hey, who said having the Falcons Oilers in town was a bad thing? When the veterans aren't able to deliver every night and the sophomores are slumping, what can kickstart a team better than a fresh injection of farm team phenoms?

Ryan Potulny looked great out there, skating around making plays and hitting people. Gilbert Brule's goal was great and Sam Gagner continues to turn his game around with the winning goal. Cogliano also looked good but was not rewarded. This turn of events does not bode well for a certain Robert Nilsson.

It's a testament to the versatility of the players (Pouliot, DesLauriers) in the system and the scouts in that the players from the farm can fit in so seamlessly with the current team, perhaps with the exception of Liam Reddox (who looks lost beside Penner and Horcoff). Furthermore, the recovery projects named Brule and Potulny, acquired in exchange for Syvret-a guy who was the odd man out, and the oft-injured Torres, have turned out not so bad after all.

Here's my fingers crossed that they can make a player out of Rob Schremp.

T.J. Kemp

The Montreal Canadians acquired former Oilers prospect TJ Kemp the other day. They acquired him for a bag of pucks.

He is probably to shore up their AHL power play or add defensive depth, despite TJ Kemp only having 10 points so far this season.

Last season, as a member of the Springfield Falcons, TJ Kemp led the team's blueliners with 46 points and was the offensive blueliner on a Falcons team with little or no offensive weapons on the back end.

The Oilers let him go and he was signed by Pittsburgh and assigned to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins.

I'm not sure why the Oilers let him go, though. Sure, he's 5'11 and 197, but size has never been an NHL deterrent for guys like Lubomir Visnovsky and Marc-Andre Bergeron, and perhaps with Montreal's powerplay stinking with the departure of both Souray and Streit, with some hard work and good luck, he may find himself on the Habs powerplay sooner rather than later.

Jesse Boulerice Out - Tim Sestito In

Tim Sestito recalled from the Springfield Falcons. He is seen here as a member of the Stockton Thunder stick-checking some guy who is protecting the puck along the halfboards.

Here are his stats:

2007-2008 77 GP 7 G 10 A 17 PTS -25 175 PIM
2008-2009 16 GP 2 G 1 A 3 PTS -1 6 PIM

Now I know the +/- statistic is usually frowned upon as useless. But -25 is an alarming number by an rate. Good thing he's been on pace for a much better overall performance as Captain of the Oilers farm squad. Lowetide was suggesting that they called up Sestito as a MacTavish/Buchberger kind of player but I think that's not a good enough reason if that's the one that led them to this decision.

Another consideration is that the Oilers may be trying to keep the Springfield "core players" as intact as possible, "maximizing the competitiveness" of both teams. I'm not agreeing with this consideration, though I think it's a possibility.

The team has needs to address and I think Tyler Spurgeon would have been a better call up at this point in time.

We'll have to wait and see.