Racki:
Yah I’ve been saying for a while too, we need to get some good shut down D-man here. Smid seems to be coming along nicely though, but I hope the loss of Visnovsky doesn’t have too big of an impact on him.

“the loss of Visnovsky” — makes the Souray injury so much more of a piss-off! Souray’s departure was inevitable and I would rather they have traded Souray for Whitney and keep Visnovsky 1 more year… but I digress.

I am glad that one of my favorite players (Gilbert) had such a strong finish to the season. One positive going forward. This wasn’t the worst ever Oiler team, and would have been much better healthy. Both Phoenix and the Avs were supposed to be near the bottom of the league, and if management is smart, then the Oilers don’t need to suck next year.

To demonstrate my trust in their ability to improve the team, I fully expect Oiler management to trade Souray for a forward and leave us with 1 1/2 good defensive pairings, and then trade one of the smallish forwards for a 5/6 defense-man creating a d-core that cannot move or shoot the puck (except Gilber & Whitney). The Oilers get to replace Visnovsky AND Souray, ya-friggin-hoo.

With all the bullshit Oiler fans have had to listen to the last few years due to Burke vs. Lowe, Penner, Cole, Hossa, Heatly, Vanek, and Mr. where is he now who went to the Caps… now Souray calling out Oiler management at the TIME he did pisses me off. Now we get to listen to the media BULL SHIT force fed with a mining truck and a back-hoe!

I don’t seem to be very good at digressing

Coach pb9617: They need to find a pair of Michalek / Schultz types to run the second pairing and penalty kill next year.

Yah I’ve been saying for a while too, we need to get some good shut down D-man here. Smid seems to be coming along nicely though, but I hope the loss of Visnovsky doesn’t have too big of an impact on him.