I was surprised to see that I hadn’t posted this yet: a list of ES offensive and defensive zone faceoffs for the various Oilers in 2008-09. Tip of the hat to Vic and www.timeonice.com. I don’t usually think about narrow hockey issues in the summer but, in my various travels on the internet, I’ve become aware that there are a lot of people screaming for another centre for the Oilers. I hadn’t really thought about it but, looking at this list, I’m pretty strongly behind it.
Lowetide had a quote from Kevin Prendergast the other day that suggests that this isn’t happening - Prendergast said “…at this point, it looks like we’ll go to camp with the same team we finished with last year outside of a new goaltender.” That’s pretty troubling stuff - the goaltending is probably likely to be worse than last year once you factor in that Khabibulin will probably play 10-20 fewer games than Roloson did. Basically, it seems that the whole season is going to rest on a bunch of players making a leap forward together.
I hope that it happens and all that, but if I get offered cool baseball tickets somewhere for Opening Day or a chance at some decent spring skiing, I don’t anticipate that I’ll be checking the Oilers’ playoff schedule to see if I’m otherwise committed. The lack of depth that they apparently intend to run with down the middle would be shocking if we weren’t so used to the Oilers starting the season with glaring holes for which solutions are readily available. If I was an intro economics professor in Edmonton, I’d love the Oilers of the past few years, if only because they’re the perfect tool for communicating the concept of opportunity cost: the cost of signing Khabibulin isn’t just the cost of signing Khabibulin but also the opportunities foregone as a result of that. Like a respectable right handed centre.
The numbers here are for faceoffs that the various Oilers were on the ice for. When you look at actually taking the draws, four guys took about 85% of the faceoffs last year: Shawn Horcoff, Kyle Brodziak, Andrew Cogliano and Sam Gagner. When you look at the chart to the left, you can see that Brodziak was one of MacT’s two guys who made it onto the ice for ES defensive zone faceoffs, along with Horcoff.
That’s understandable, to a certain extent: Brodziak was fourth in terms of offensive ability amongst the four key guys and Cogliano and Gagner have defensive deficiencies; therefore, it probably makes sense to have Brodziak be one of the guys in the defensive zone. It’s a decision that’s probably driven more by his limitations than his fortes (although if you’re going to let Cogliano take a draw, you might as well just let the other team start with the puck), but it’s certainly rational.
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