The Edmonton Oilers announced today that Dany Heatly will take over as team captain from the departed Roberto Luongo.
"As an Oiler I should be able to win lots of these in World Championships"
Heatley who spent last year in Anaheim is a perfect fit as the Oilers captain because of how realistic it is. The assistant captains will be veterans Kris Draper and Sergei Gonchar. Gonchar will be charged with Willy Mitchell's old duties of planning potential parades.
The team is pretty much set as Chris Thorburn is expected to make his way back to the big club to serve as the teams 12th forward. Although GM Syl has not ruled out the possibility of another deal to try and create room so that T.J. Oshie could be brought up for that role.
It is expected that a few guys will be shifted around positionally in hopes that it will allow the team to perform better in the new SIM. Heatley, Hemsky, Cammalleri, Weiss, and Erat will be expected to be the main offensive forards. Upshall, Filpulla, and O'Sullivan will be asked to be two way types and Kelly and Draper will be the main defensive specialists. On the backend the team expects to have a pretty skilled group as Gonchar, Bieksa, Suter, and Carle are the top 4. The third pair now features the likes of Scuderi, and Krajicek who could move up a spot on the depth chart if required.
In net the team will hope Chris Osgood can turn in 55-60 solid stars and that Pekka Rinne can actually do something as the backup goaltender this year. Osgood won't give the team the same goaltending Luongo did last year. Than again this team hopes to be better in front of the goalie that it's not a neccessity.
Overall we are one of the CPHL's younger teams. Up front Kris Draper is the only player over the age of 30. On the backend only Gonchar and the recently acquired Scuderi have seen 3 full decades on this planet. In net Chris Osgood, is old. The price of a younger team is zero prospects and zero draft picks.
In a quick Q & A a few questions are addressed.
Why is T.J. Oshie in the minors, why didn't you find a way to get him to the CPHL level?
Simply put he has a tweener rating. He's a scoring type guy who's not quite god enough to be a top 6 guy, but not good enough defensively to really be a good bottom 6 guy at that salary. So for now we felt his best role was as a top 6 injury replacement. We hope by next year he's ready to be a full time top 6 forward.
Q:So last year you selected Zach Bogosian 2nd overall, don't you feel like a dummy now that Drew Doughty has officailly been called the second coming by Bob MacKenzie?
Lost on many is the fact that Bogosian became the first defencmen since Scott Stevens and Phil Housley in 1982 to be drafted and move into the NHL and score at least 9 goals. Bosian also did it in 47 games and was a +9 for the NHL Thrashers. Furthermore Bogosian is almost one year younger than Doughty is. So although Doughty gets a tonne of hype and rightfully so. I still think I picked a good player, just a guy who's not Canadian so we don't get to hear the media hype on this guy like we would if he was a Canadian guy playing for the NHL Maple Leafs.
Q: Having no draft picks or propects what is your plan to avoid epic failure as you move forward.
If you look at most of this years strong teams like the Habs, Ducks, Flyers they all had to take a year to set their team up to make their current runs. We're at 6 straight seasons being in the playoffs which is the second longest in the CPHL. This team should be able to do it again this year and probably next year. After that we'll have to overhaul it and start over. Unless you're the Wild and Penguins and keep suckering other teams into giving you a top pick for less than star level talent every year. It's tough to avoid a flush out year. Only 7 CPHL teams are younger than us right now. Really out of the 10 youngest CPHL teams, I'd say only the Devils are a team that wouldn't make the playoffs. The Wild, Penguins, Flyers, Kings, Canadiens, and San Jose are all considered elite, and St.Louis, and Ottawa are both teams who should contend for playoff spots. Even in the CPHL, young on ice teams are what you need to succeed.