Patrick O'Sullivan Faces LA

2008-09 Stats while with LA

62 GP

14 G

23 A

37 PTS

16 PIM

0.596 PTS/PG

2008-09 Stats while with EDM

16 GP

1 G

4 A

5 PTS

12 PIM

0.312 PTS/PG

2008-09 Stats Combined

78 GP	15 G	27 A	42 PTS	28 PIM

1.70 PTS/60
Corsi = +7.3*

A glimpse at Patrick O'Sullivan:

• Highest Corsi number on the team
• PTS/60 is 10th on the team
  
• TOI/60 is 9th on the team (but Visnovsky and Smid are injured, so he is now 7th)
• In terms of QUALCOMP and QUALTEAM he is just a John Doe
• GFON is 45 and GAON is 46 - practically a wash
  

Now, it's interesting to find Patrick O'Sullivan trailing Rob Schremp, JF Jacques, Ryan Potulny, and Zach Stortini in terms of PTS/60 - but then again, so is pretty much everyone else on the team. I'm guessing this is from a small sample size and not that accurate. But it does show one thing about Zach Stortini who's played quite a bit this season - he's pretty damn reliable.

The highest Corsi number on LA? Trevor Lewis at 20.1 and the pair of Tom Preissing and Anze Kopitar at 10.4 - but Lewis has spent most of his season in Manchester though.

What I seem to get from these stats is that Patrick O'Sullivan is not as great as I keep hearing that he's supposed to be - at least not yet. He has all the skills, but is he using them effectively? His points-per-game clip has dropped but I think some of that is attributable to coming to a new team. Is his frustration boiling over - or is it the new system? Who knows, but he has almost matched his entire season's output of PIM from when he was in LA in just 16 games here in Edmonton.

Current Lineup:

Kotalik - Horcoff - Hemsky
Nilsson - Gagner - O'Sullivan
Moreau - Cogliano - Pisani
Penner - Brodziak - Stortini

Souray - Staios
Gilbert - Grebeshkov
Peckham - Strudwick

O'Sullivan and Nilsson seem to have chemistry and have reignited the fire under Sam Gagner's ass. I'm still worried about the size of that line should we make the playoffs or even next season. As for Penner on the 4th line - that's just a total mismanagement of human resources.

Jacques and Stortini usually hem the opposition in their own zone and Penner is a 1st-2nd line player who is not that useful in a 3rd-4th line kind of role. Out of Penner/Nilsson/O'Sullivan/Kotalik you can only play 3 of them and right now it's not smart to play Penner on the 4th line where he is not effective: I think they should just play him or scratch him, and put Jacques in.

A Better Lineup:

Kotalik - Horcoff - Hemsky
Nilsson - Gagner - O'Sullivan
Moreau - Cogliano - Pisani
Jacques - Brodziak - Stortini

Souray - Staios
Gilbert - Grebeshkov
Peckham - Strudwick

Going Downhill Fast

Yikes.

Zach Stortini, that must've hurt. I refrained from putting up an image of Stortini injuring his leg because I'm a big Zach Stortini fan and seeing what happened makes me kind of sick to my stomach.

But in other news, Sheldon Souray is injured as well. On top of the Hemsky and Pisani injuries, and with Horcoff playing hurt (and probably Staios too), this team is going downhill and downhill fast. Not because the team doesn't want to win and it's not like the whole team isn't performing. But the team has not played as an entire unit since the Nashville game and scarcely before that.

Stortini may not shoot out the lights, but he's the kind of guy on your team that is willing to do all the things that nobody else is willing to do. Who else is going to take out the trash?

Don't take this the wrong way. I love MacIntyre and Strudwick. But Huggy Bear is a very character guy who actually shows up every damn shift and he's not somebody you're worried about playing against the other team's more skilled players because he's good at getting the puck out of the defensive zone as well.

Out of lineup: Souray, Hemsky, Pisani, Stortini
Playing hurt: Horcoff, Staios

The Oilers better do something and do something fast.

Somebody call Tambellini. Let's make a move. If we don't do something quick, we might as well give up on the season and pack it in for John Tavares. The Islanders already have a head-start on us. Crap.

Smid is Ready for the NHL; Prospect, Player, or Trade Bait? Vol. 2

Bryan Young is an underrated defensive option who is seen hammering some guy to the ice. I think Bryan Young is the kind of player we need to call up to the team. More on that later.

The Oilers won 3-0 with Vancouver in town tonight in what was a bit of an unorganized game. What counts though is the 2 points in the standings, not the way you win the game. Though the puck movement was a bit off tonight, two things were noticeably improved tonight:

a) defensive zone coverage
b) intensity

With the exception of our lacklustre 5-on-3 powerplays, our intensity was consistent throughout the game with perhaps the end of the 1st period as the opposite. However, watching puck movement by defensive guys like Smid has made one thing apparent to me: if Strudwick and Staios could be considered expendable before, they pretty much don't contribute anything now. Souray can play defensively and offensively; Gilbert has held his own; Visnovsky and Grebeskhov are smooth puck movers. What does Staios bring to this team? He doesn't even lead the team in blocked shots or ice time. The warrior has been on this team a long time and is a leader in the dressing room.

But his time has come.

Bryan Young is a stay-at-home defenseman who might be described as a cross between Scott Ferguson and Colin White. If MacTavish is going to play anyone who does't contribute on the scoreboard (Staios), it might as well be someone who hits people and hits them in a devastating way. Bryan Young is well known for his open-ice hits.

As for Theo "the Sean Brown comparable" Peckham, who is either NHL ready or almost NHL ready, he too would be a useful addition to this team. But with all the offense being exhibited by the top 3, I would argue that Young is more needed at this moment.

Plus, we would save a ton of cash playing Young over Staios and Strudwick. Smid has shown he's ready in my opinion The organization gave up on Greene and if it was because they felt they had enough D depth in the system, then its time to hand Smid the reigns.

As a result of Nilsson reasserting the lock on his job against Vancouver tonight, he has proved that he is more valuable on this team than not. I don't think that Sam Gagner has done that yet, not the way that guys like Andrew Cogliano or Ladislav Smid play like NHL regulars. He still needs to show that he can do the job better than AHL callups like Schremp or Brule. The kid line experiment may not be over but the fact that the components are so replaceable means bad things for job security. At least it should in a fair world. Even poster boys like Sam Gagner should need to prove their worth once in a while.

Movement in the ranks...

Prospect, Player or Trade Bait?

None	Franchise Player
Andrew Cogliano Denis Grebeskhov Jeff Drouin-DesLauriers	NHL Regular
Ladislav Smid Robert Nilsson Sam Gagner *	NHL Project
Rob Schremp Gilbert Brule	Questionable Roster Spot Zone
Marc-Antoine Pouliot Kyle Brodziak Zack Stortini **	Prime Trade Bait
Liam Reddox Theo Peckham Bryan Young Steve MacIntyre	Questionable Roster Spot Zone
Ryan Potulny Carl Corazzini Sebastien Bisaillon Tim Sestito Guillaume Lefebvre	AHL Prospect
Mathieu Roy **	Dump Zone

* Sam Gagner - he's a clever one this Samwise and he makes all sorts of smart plays, sure. But he's still a work in progress.
** Zack Stortini - there are guys who can do his job on this team. His trade value might be low, but his value to this team is lower.
*** Mathieu Roy - I still think he's a great player but he is an NHL ready player who deserves a chance in another NHL city.

Note: for anyone unfamiliar with the rules of the list, listed players must have at least one game of NHL experience.

Full rules and notes here.

Edm @ Car : The Road Trip From Hell Begins

This is Anton Chigurh.

Okay, well it's not. This was my friend Sam's costume for Halloween. In all honesty though, he looks a lot more like Zack Stortini than the main hellraiser from the 2007 blockbuster No Country for Old Men.

Now, about Carolina.

Well folks, we all knew it was coming.

The road trip from hell. It starts with a two-game weekend and then another back-to-back set in CBJ and PIT later in the week.

If there's a good time to find some team chemistry, it would be now. Or soon. If there's a good time to fall farther behind in the standings, this would also be an ideal time - for the other teams in the NW division. Luckily for us Joni Pitkanen is injured so for the time being we can still brag about Erik Cole being the steal of the trade. Hopefully, for our sake, he plays the way he did in Vancouver and against Boston. Even better, he should rip it up against his old team.

One can hope.

Some other former Oiler players and draft picks have also made their way onto the Carolina squad. Dwight Helminen (as mentioned on Lowetide), Sergei Samsonov, and Dan LaCouture. Ray Whitney was already there when we played them in the SCF in 2006. Last season we played Carolina in Edmonton and we destroyed them. Hopefully, we can go into their rink and do the same thing again.

Fingers-crossed.