Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Oilers Look To Ice A Winner In Final Year Of Falcons Affiliation


Last season the Oilers decided to add D Jake Taylor and forwards Carl Corazzini and Guillaume Lefebvre to play key roles for a very young and inexperienced Falcons team. This offseason they've added Chris Minard, retained Charles Linglet (who they acquired for Carl Corazzini), resigned AHL ace Ryan Potulny, resigned Liam Reddox, signed D Matt Nickerson, and they are bound to have at least a few more potentially solid AHLers sent to them at the end of Oilers training camp if they aren't claimed on waivers on their way down. Let's take a look at what the Falcons Forward lineup could look like.....

Schremp-Potulny-Minard
Lerg-Stone-Linglet
Reddox-O'Marra-McDonald
Kytnar-Paukovich-Spurgeon?

Minard-Potulny-Stone
Lerg-Brule-Linglet
Reddox-O'Marra-McDonald
Kytnar-Paukovich-Spurgeon?


Either way it's looking pretty good. However IMO the team could use 1 more vet for the bottom 6. Preferably a guy that's been around for a long time and works his tail off and lastly a guy that can fight. A re-energized Slava Trukhno returning would be a big help as well. Time for O'Marra to prove that he still has a shot at getting a 2nd contract because players that have shown much more at the AHL level have been offered AHL only contracts, at this point he'd be lucky to get one of them.

Now the Defense.....

Peckham-Taylor
Wild-Nickerson
Young-Chorney

Young-Taylor
Wild-Nickerson
Chorney-Plante/Motin


Pretty crowded on D down there especially if there are no trades to move a d-man from the big club. 2 highly touted rookies in Plante and Motin could very well start the year in Stockton.

3 comments:

Oilcan said...

Hi I am a longtime reader but finally decided to post. I have some questions for you. First, weren't Arsene(sp?) and Jamie Bates signed as well. Where do they fit in (ECHL-yikes)? What happens to new players such as Motin and Plante? It looks like defense is crowded, especially if Peckham stays in the AHL.

Bryanbryoil said...

Good call, truth be told it must've slipped by me that they signed Arsene or I didn't pay it much attention at the time. Wow are Plante and Motin ever in tough to get into the AHL this season. It would probably make more sense to send Plante back down to Calgary unless he is clearly ready. This would allow him 1 extra year of development on his first pro contract. Motin has already signed and could be headed to the ECHL as Wild and Chorney are both pretty highly touted guys.

Seems like to me that they've signed one too many veteran d-men.

Bryanbryoil said...

Sorry I forgot about Bates, IMO he's got a shot at the team but I don't see him as a sure bet.