MVN - Most Valuable Network

Lowe making some big moves in etown

The Edmonton Oilers certainly received the best player in the Stoll and Greene for Lubomir Visnovsky trade.  Stoll is a good NHL player and Greene is OK but Visnovsky is a perennial all-star candidate.  It is somewhat unfortunate that the Oilers lost Stoll though.  Not too long ago the guy was being touted as a future team captain and was an extremely important part of the Oilers run to the Cup finals.  However, since his concussion a few years ago the guy hasn’t been the same guy since.  If the guy rebounds this season the Kings should be getting a very good player at a reasonable price because I don’t expect his contract to be too high.  I still feel that Stoll could be a 65-70 guy.

With the acquisition of Visnovsky the Oilers should now have one of the better powerplays in the league with what hopefully will be a healthy Sheldon Souray and Visnovsky running the points.  Last season it was 20th in the league firing at a 16.6% clip, if the Oil can even get it up to the 18% range this season that would be huge and would go a long way to helping the Oilers secure a playoff spot.

Furthermore, some people have criticized Lowe for making this deal because of Visnovsky’s age and contract.  However, if the Oilers were to acquire a player of Visnovsky’s caliber through free agency they would likely be paying that player more than the 5.6 million average cap hit that they are paying Visnovsky.  Dan Boyle for example has a cap hit of over six million dollars. There is Redden but I would take Lubomir over Redden right now.

The acquisition of Visnovsky made Joni Pitkanen trade bait and he was moved to the Hurricanes for forward Eric Cole. Pitkanen has crazy hockey skills.  He is one of the most talented players I’ve ever seen to put on an Oiler uniform.  Unfortunately he lacked consistency this past season and when the Oilers couldn’t sign him to a contract he became trade bait.  I like Pitkanen but with this trade the Oilers do address their need for another winger who can score goals and Cole can certainly do that.  However, if Pitkanen realizes his potential in Carolina the Hurricanes have won this deal by a country mile.  That will be a big “if” though.  This deal has also been rumoured to be in the works for quite a long time as well as if I remember correctly I think Jim Matheson had it in one of his Hockey World articles back in January.  I remember reading about, just not sure about the date.

One of the worrying trends with Cole though is that his production has been steadily declining over the past three seasons.  He’s gone for 30 goals, to 29, to 22.  However, it is a trend that should at the very least stabilize this season if not reverse.  He’s a good player.

The other deal was Raffi Torres to the Jackets for prospect Gilbert Brule.  Torres stock has been declining since the Oilers made their Cup run a few years ago.  He really hasn’t been the same player since for whatever reason.  He is best suited for a second or third line role who can hit and score some goals.  Torres is also extremely inconsistent and can go long stretches without doing much at all.  When Torres is on his game though he is a joy to watch.  He hits, he can fight, and he can score goals.

Brule is a top notch prospect and was ranked 14th by the Hockey News in their Future Watch.  However, it doesn’t make much sense that they would trade such a highly touted prospect for a guy who didn’t even score 20 goals last season.  They must know something about Brule that we don’t.  Brule was the sixth overall pick from the 2006 draft.

These deals also added some much needed veteran experience to the Oilers and the team now has a good mix of vets and youngsters.  I felt that the Oilers were a little too young before these deals are made.  I liked the moves made by Lowe and I feel that is a team that can now challenge for the Northwest Division title.  The Flames are not that good of a team, the Avs are going to be decent to good and could challenge. I would be surprised if the Canucks won it with their lack of scoring but who knows who they will get in free agency and the Wild have lost their top two centres.  How well the Oilers do with really depend on how Sam Gagner and Robert Nilsson fare this season.  Them along with Penner will likely now be the Oilers 2nd line and they are no longer unkowns and teams will be making adjustments to them.  This is a huge turn around for this team in under a year.  At the beginning of last season the Oilers were one of the worst teams in the league and now they are a legitimate contender to win it all in the Northwest.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 1:32 pm and is filed under off-season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.