Personally, I’m frustrated about the lack of motivation to get a stronger defensive component in here. While I was excited at the thought of getting a guy like Heatley, I know too that getting a faceoff/pker, a shutdown d-man, and a big forward would have been a lot easier to do because 2 of the 3 were UFA options, and the third could have been done via trade (say Nathan Horton, as an example). Instead, we put all our eggs in one basket, going for the home run hit when a series of doubles / base hits would have got the job done easier and hell… probably even more effectively. I’m not sure if Tambi and Lowe are aware, but the game is played at both ends of the ice.

Tambi is in a tough spot. He can’t trade the vets yet because he doesn’t know what the kids can bring. I thought this was what last year should have been about, but as we all know, MacT saw things differently.

The year of finally getting to see all these guys and clearing out the guys who had no future here is one year delayed. Tambi has no option on that just yet. This year there is no doubt that the Oilers are in assesment mode and there will be lots of movement during the year and after the year is complete. It’s unfortunate that this couldn’t have been the case last year, but I think it’s pretty clear that Tambi was not given full reign until the end of the season.

So for now, we are stuck with basically the same team as last year in terms of vets and prospects. I do think Tambi missed the mark in not signing some character guys and by not trading some guys he knows are not part of the future here. I’m looking at Staios and Pisani here and likely Moreau, but you can’t gut all your vets without something just as good or better in place either. Having said that, this summer was the best UFA pool for depth players and role players I’ve ever seen and we sign a couple garbage men for the farm. I’m not really sure what Tambi could have done to move contracts as everyone is tightening up, but at the same time I wonder if he lost focus with Heatley.

I honestly have no expectations about this year because it seems evident it’s an evaluation year. I expect the coaching to improve, but I truly don’t know if any of the kids other than Peckham and Chorney can step up and deliver.

Again, it’s a shame that we didn’t get this covered last year. I guess a coach on his last legs has a different agenda.

For the longest time Oiler fans have been teased with the potential of a big guy like JFJ in the minors. He was able to put up good numbers in the AHL but when called up it was always a big donut. I personally believe that part of the reason for this was that he was doing two different jobs and it wasn’t so easy to swap whenever he got called up. JFJ in the AHL power forward, goal scorer. Gets called up, 5 minutes a night, checking role. I think for a while there has been confusion over roles on this team. Sometimes guy are trying to do more than they should and that doesn’t help things. Every guy needs to know their role inside and out and they need to be effective in it. If they aren’t, find someone who can do the job.