Deadline Day! Hero Or Goat?

While Kevin Lowe is no longer the GM by name, he still calls the shots and his fingerprints will undoubtedly be all over this deadline day. This team does not have the organizational depth at forward to start tossing away young forward prospects like they're used Q-tips. They have an abundance of young defensemen both in the prospect ranks and on the big club, so they could probably stand losing one or two for some immediate help.

If Lowe trades away any of Petry, Nash, Eberle, Wild, or Peckham for a rental he is sniffing glue. That leaves us with the rights to Alex Plante, Taylor Chorney, and Sebastien Bisaillon as tradeable assets on the blueline. Chorney will undoubtedly fetch the most of the 3 unless we deal with Toronto (it was said that Brian Burke coveted Plante at the '08 draft). Bisaillon's value is low because he has seen duty in both the AHL and ECHL this year.

Rob Schremp comes to mind as the most likely forward prospect of significance to be offered up for prospective sellers. He's young, highly skilled, and may just use a change of scenery and a chance. It worked well for other young players in the past, players like Boyes, Grabovsky, and even on our team in Grebeshkov and to a lesser extent Nilsson. The rest of the Oilers forward prospects that I mentioned above are really the only significant ones that could garner much interest outside of Hartikainen and Omark overseas. Unless of course you are talking about the fabled Alexei Mikhnov.

Mikhnov is another guy who may not get a chance here but wants to be in the NHL. A team with a good track record with Russian players could be a good fit for him. His name will probably also be on the table tomorrow.

Lastly we have our plethora of press box visitors on the big club. Marc Pouliot, JF Jacques, Robert Nilsson, and Dustin Penner. Any of these guys could be on the menu for opposing GM's tomorrow.

I am not opposed to dealing some of these players and prospects however if Lowe can somehow convince opposing GM's that Ryan O'Marra is a great prospect (hell we were told that when Garth Snow sent him our way!), or that Slava Trukhno's development has been held back because they've been trying to showcase Schremp for the last 2 years, he could be seen as a shrewd hockey man again.

In the meantime, if it is to be assumed that the reason that Tambellini came on board was because Lowe "burned too many bridges", then let's see what he can do as the mastermind without any restrictions from opposing GM's.

I'm anxiously awaiting what will go down and whether or not it will affect the playoff push, or whether it will just be the same old, same old.