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The major news around the Oilers these past few days is the imminent return of Fernando Pisani and the news that Ethan Moreau is just two weeks away from having his cast removed and is perhaps just four weeks away from, GASP, actually playing for the Oilers for the first time in over 100 games.

Let me try and explain how long it’s been since Moreau played a game: the last time we saw #18 in action, the NFL was still partially planning it’s TV sked around Micheal Vick and the Falcons.

Speaking of Falcons, now there’s a segue folks, the return of first #34, and the later on #18, is great news for the Oilers AHL affiliate in Springfield. What’s currently an already formidable roster will be strenghted by whomever gets the demotion once the big club becomes further populated with actual NHL players.

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There was an interesting little snippet in a story in a The Hockey News blog written by Rand Simon.  Simon wrote:

If you are a stats junkie like me, I suggest you check out the website Behind the Net.

My favorite stat there is the “Quality of Competition” which does a great job of showing which players are used against the other teams’ top skaters.

Now that’s standard stuff - I suspect that pretty much everyone reading this is familiar with Gabriel Desjardins’ stuff.  What’s not so standard is the line at the bottom of the piece:

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This isn’t meant to usurp anyone else’s postgame thunder, though right now I’m not sure if anyone else plans to post one, but I haven’t seen this “reported” anywhere else around the sphere so I figured I’d throw it up and we could bat it around.

After reading earlier in today’s Sun that Nilsson was getting another chance with the 10/83 duo,  I later checked the Oilers official site for their daily podcast only to discover that MacT has decided to throw young Gagner up with with Horcoff and Hemsky duo.

It’s a move I’ve suggested for a little while now, and by suggested I mean that it was necessary to break up with Gagner/Cogliano duo as that combo was bleeding both scoring chances allowed, and not so subsequently surprising, goals against.

Also, this is just guesswork, but when quizzed about how this demotion would affect Nilsson, MacT said he should be OK because he’s going to be playing with two very good players. Now, using deductive reasoning, we’ll assume that the 8-19-51 will be kept together so the two good players that Nilsson will mesh with will either be Cogliano-Penner or perhaps more fittingly,Stoll and Torres. Of course, using logic, we could argue just how good those players are;)

But that’s for another time:)

So, we know MacT believes in the ideas of combos, so no line is safe from the blender. That’s not a process that frustrates me, but it’s one I’m familiar with nonetheless. This means that Gagner may start with 10/83 but who in the hell will he finish with?

In any case, and upon looking at some numbers, I’m not so sure this is a good bet. Gagner’s played the softest minutes of any Oiler and has still come out at -7 at evens. Even though I believe in the ability of the 10/83 duo, isn’t combining your best two players at evens with your worst just an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face?

I think it is if MacT has decided to go power vs power against the Nash line and I don’t think he can use the 10/83 duo in any other fashion.
Overall, the Oilers are -17 at 5-on-5 and the Jackets are even so that gives them a decided edge. If the Nash-Peca-Zherdev line starts carrying the play in a suspected PVP matchup, then MacT will have to switch gears and Gagner will be moved further on down the line, or lines as it were.
What it boils down to is that the way this team was constructed, along with injuries to Moreau and Pisani, it’s created a situation where, as Vic would say, you can only hold so many corks under water at the same time.

Will Gagner’s addition sink the 10/83 duo when it comes to evens? Or is the kid skilled enough to be able to keep up with the young vets and will that lead to a situation where the puck’s in the other end of the ice enough that the defensive zone isn’t a really worry?

This could be interesting if MacT sticks with the matchup for most of the evening.

Mirtle has an interesting post up showing how tough guys get slaughtered at actually, you know, playing hockey.  It’s well worth checking out.  MacT is widely suspected to dislike having a designated goon on his roster.  Given that they seem to get slaughtered, generally speaking, on the ice, that I think it would be uncontroversial to describe MacT as preferring to roll four lines and that the Oilers have had a lot of success with their bottom six during his tenure, I’m not sure that he’s wrong.  It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like a real tough guy on this team, where the bottom six is a Saskatchewan-esque wasteland but generally speaking, this might be some evidence in support of his practices.

A remark in David Staples’ most recent post caught my eye. The whole post is worth reading - I never knew the story behind how the Canadiens ended up with the star crossed pick that they used on Doug Wickenheiser before - but there was one thing in particular that jumped out at me:

One final thought for now — when Lowe was considering signing a Restricted Free Agent last spring, he checked with the NHL to see if he could give up any first round draft pick in compensation, or if he had to give up the Oilers’ first pick. Of course, he found out he had to give up the Oilers’ pick (rather than, for instance, return the 2008 first round pick he had acquired from Anaheim in the Pronger trade.).

This ruling has tremendously negative consequences for weaker NHL teams. If a strong team like Detroit were to sign Dion Phaneuf this summer, it would have to give up its next four first round draft picks, which might not hurt so much, as Detroit tends to be a top team…

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I wrote a post a while back with the percentiles for certain stats for the 2006-07 season.  I’ve gone and assembled some percentiles for the 1997-98 to 2005-06 seasons, inclusive.  Even strength tonight.  The charts are based on all forwards who played at least 120 minutes.  It’s a bit misleading in that the years before 2005-06 have the EN goals in - the era was actually less offensive than it appears.

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Another game, another shootout win and another contest where the opposing coach is tearing his ass off to get his big guns pointed at any line that’s built around the combination of Cogliano and Gagner. That’s no slight against either of these kids, but the bottom line is that you can’t expect those guys to play together and not bleed more than a couple of scoring chances against a night. Not to mention more than a few goals.

Not to step on Lowe’s toes and make excuses before him before he gets the chance to do so himself, but the Oilers are limited with their choices at forwards given that both Pisani and Moreau are out of the lineup. I’m sure Lowe was counting on their participation when he built this mess of a roster and there’s no doubt we’d be a better team at EV if both guys were in the lineup. But they’re not available, and won’t be for some time, so now we have to roll with what’s left.

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Just for fun, given the widespread reports that Zach Stortini will be playing on a checking line against the Sedins tonight, I’m collecting predictions as to how much time he actually plays against them. My guess is 2:30 edit versus the Sedins.  2:30 versus the Sedins.  I figure MacT gives him a couple of nightmarish shifts before shutting things down.

Noted Oilers blogger Lowetide and myself can agree on a lot of things. Like myself, he’s first and foremost an Expos fan and the guy has also been known to show some chops regarding some cool old-school music, ie it seems like the fellow knows an awful lot about old Rolling Stones gear.

That being said, it seems like him and I can never get on the same page regarding one Mr. Kevin Lowe. Without even touching on what I thought was the touchstone quote from Staples newly minted blogger expose, LT and I had been going back and forth on his site regarding what it is exactly that Lowe can do to improve this team and just how much it would cost to do it.

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Andy’s pointed to it as well but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point to David Staples’ fine story about the Oilogosphere, with bonus mc79hockey.com information available at this post on his blog.  I completely disagree with what he says about Horcoff on the PP in that same post but I tip my cap to him for using rate stats in doing so.

I was interested to learn that Lowetide works for the Team 1260.  I’m surprised that his blog isn’t hosted on their site - he’s a brand now as far as Oilers commentary goes and I suspect he’d pull a significant amount of traffic for them.

Also:

Today, six Oilers blogs stand out, including Hot-Oil, a site run by young women and devoted to treating the Oilers as sex objects (see sidebar).

I always thought that that site was tongue in cheek but this certainly sounds a lot more terrifying.  Restraining orders for everyone!