Zack: I do like the trade (Cole for O’Sullivan). I just was definitely not one of the people chasing him out of the city. Much like Jarret Stoll, he had a lot of value outside of scoring goals, but couldn’t seem to put the puck in the net despite the skill level being there.

As much as I didn’t think I would say it, maybe it’s time to move a Cogliano/O’Sullivan and/or Offensive d-man for some size. Just a thought.

gr8one: honestly if we haven’t improved by midseason, I say ship out all the vets for picks or young players with maybe the exception of some core leadership players(ie Souray) tank the second half, Pick Taylor Hall, and see what MPS, Eberle and Omark can do for us next year…I’m not saying this is a “panic” sense either, but I’m with Chucker, it’s the same shit every year, we have high expectations that managemnet will make a huge trade and/or sign some crazy good UFA’s and nothing really happens, than we go into the season with the high hopes that the previous years players will suddenly “play to their potential” which they do, all the way to mediocrity and it really blows.

I among probably all the other Oilers fans out there know where you are coming from and what you’re saying gr8one.

It kind relates to and reminds me of when I was 4 or 5 though, and I asked my Grandpa after watching a game why the other team pulled their goalie. Why doesn’t the one team do that all the time to let the other team score? Then he simply replied “Because no one would want to go to the games to see that.”

So if we decided to ‘tank’ what kind of identity would the organization be putting out to the team, fans, or even the league. As nice as it would be to be guaranteed the first pick overall to help improve our team, I can’t really see ‘tanking’ an option in our market. That and the fact that we’d be relying pretty much on a team of rookies, with the exception of a vet or two like you mentioned, that and we’d have little to go from at an NHL level. I wouldn’t like to see our organization take the risk of going first overall anyways, I’d rather see the Oilers in a “die trying” mentality. We’re not even sure yet if Taylor or Tyler will go first, what if the first pick ends up being a dud. This organization just has to do a better job at doing lateral trades ‘in our favour’.

Pennzoil27: With news that the Blackhawks are close to terms on long term contracts with Kane and Toews and Keith we should make a pitch to acquire Patrick Sharp.

Well I know Lowe hasn’t made the best contract deals necessarily, but at least he didn’t sign Hosa to a career contract and if the rumours of signing Kane or Toews for 10+ years are true this could make Lowe’s signings not that bad. Personally I don’t like to see an orginization sign a player for 4+ years unless they are a bona-fied superstar. Even then 5 or 6 year contracts would be pushing it, I think it’s too risky for a franchise unless they get a pretty good signing, like Hemsky’s.

On topic though, could you imagine requiring Sharp though? Not too bad but we wouldn’t be able to do a salary dump, cough coff.