NHL Preview: Edmonton Oilers

Edmonton mightn’t win the Stanley Cup, but they will be fun to watch. Charlie Boccanegra writes about the rebuilding Oilers.

The Oilers are still in the rebuilding process but appear to be heading in the right direction with a lot of young talent. They’ve had the #1 overall pick in back-to-back years and appear to have a couple of franchise forwards in Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. It’s still unlikely this team will challenge for a playoff spot – Edmonton is an 80/1 NHL betting longshot for the Stanley Cup and 20/1 for the Northwest – but it would not be a complete shock if the young talent develops earlier than expected, giving them a chance to grab one of the final playoff spots in a deep Western Conference.

Forwards: This is the strength of the Oilers team. It all starts with five young forwards all under the age of 22 with a ton of offensive talent & potential. Leading the way is last year’s #1 overall selection Taylor Hall, joined by other first round picks Jordan Eberle, Magnus Paajarvi, Sam Gagner and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, this year’s first overall selection.

In addition, they have a nice blend of veteran forwards to complement the youngsters – Ales Hemsky could still be the best scorer on the team and the old Oiler legend Ryan Smyth is still skating.

Defense: Ryan Whitney are Tom Gilbert are Edmonton’s top 2 defenseman. Both of them have good offensive upside and can QB the power play. But they do not play physical enough and have too many turnovers in their own end to be good overall complete defenseman. Ladislav Smid has never lived up to the high expectations of being drafted 9th overall in 2004 and it doesn’t look like he will ever be a quality top 4 defenseman.

Signing Andy Sutton was a quality move because he does address some of their issues on the back end, as more of a physical, stay at home defender. After that there isn’t much else in terms of depth.

Goaltending: Nikolai Khabibulin is past his prime and does not offer much at this point of his career, especially with everything he’s gone through off the ice. Devan Dubnyk has been a project in waiting since being drafted in 2004 and looks to take over the reigns should Khabibulin falter. I can see both of these goalies really struggling with a weak D in front of them having GAA’s over 3. This means the best way to make money in Oilers games throughout the year will be betting OVERS, OVERS and more OVERS. As I alluded to this team has a ton offensive talent and should have no problem scoring, but will have plenty of trouble keeping the puck out of their own net.