O'Sullivan Will Surpass Horcoff On The Depth Chart This Season

I see a ton of people penciling Patrick O'Sullivan down as the teams 3rd line center if the Oilers intend on moving him to center. I say that they've got another thing coming. Shawn Horcoff is better suited for that role as O'Sullivan is a more highly skilled offensive player. It will be Horcoff that will become the teams "3rd line center".

His large salary really means nothing in the grand scheme of things, he was a favorite of the former coach, and now there is a new coach in town with a different philosophy. Gagner most certainly isn't ready for checking line duty, so Horcoff will drop to the 3rd line spot and go head to head with the other teams best forwards whenever possible while the O'Sullivan line will face the oppositions checking lines or weaker lines whenever possible.

O'Sullivan is a much better defensive player than he's been given credit for by many Oilers fans, and once he settles in, he could end up trailing only Hemsky in terms of team scoring at the end of the year. O'Sullivan is a younger and much more skilled version of Horcoff. It is my opinion that he will be the new blogger savior in Oiltown, however I won't be following the stat parade once they start churning it out. I already know that this kid will be gangbusters for us and Horc will be superb in his new role even if it means that he'll be taking a kick in the junk initially.

Suddenly Horcoff has competition, and it isn't a couple of years away like Gagner would have been anymore. It's here, and Horc had better be up to the task, because he no longer is the automatic top line center on the Oilers.

If We Start The Season With No Changes Up Front, Here's What I'd Like To See

Let's just say for the sake of discussion that we don't make any more moves up front. This is what I would like to see for the Oilers.....


Penner-O'Sullivan-Hemsky
Schremp/Nilsson-Gagner-Cogliano
Moreau-Horcoff-Pisani
Jacques-Pouliot/Brule-Stortini
Pouliot/Brule/Schremp, MacIntyre

Once again we'd start out with a hell of a young team except this time we'd come out with a more offensive style of hockey that plays to our teams strengths. I like O'Sullivan in Horcoff's spot on the top line for 2 reasons, #1 O'Sullivan is more skilled and Horc could be thrown into a shut down roll. The 2nd scoring line would still be very small however they would be a year older and perhaps a new coach squeezes more out of them than the previous one did.

The 3rd line should be considered an exceptionally strong and very expensive 3rd line, but you play your players in terms of what helps the team the most, not who gets paid the most. And lastly we have the 4th line, that seems like the most likely to remain unchanged with the exception of someone filling the void left by Kyle Brodziak's departure.