My take on who the Oilers should draft 1st Overall

It appears to be that time of the year again. No, not baseball season, but rather the starting date for the great debate of who the Oilers should take with their (hopefully) 1st overall selection. There has been three names thrown about as the only options for the pick, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of the Red Deer Rebels in the WHL, Adam Larsson of Skellfelta AIK of the Swedish Elite League and Sean Couturier of the Drummondville Voltigers in the QMJHL. Each prospect has their own question marks, Nugent-Hopkins is a tad on the thin side, Larsson might take time to make an actual impact and Couturier is apparently slow.

Oilers fans will remember last year when there was the whole Taylor vs. Tyler debate and it was actually somewhat close, that is until Hall showed us that extra gear he has and completely dominated during the playoffs and a 2nd straight Memorial Cup MVP. The reason I brought this up is that it appears that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is showing us his extra gear right now. He went on an unbelievable stretch after being cut from Canada's sliver medal World Juniors team and had a rather impressive start to his playoffs. Could he be the answer at center? I would like to think so. Despite being listed at 164 pounds on the WHL website, one would have to assume that since September that he has added around 10-15 pounds to his body. Many would argue though that given the Oilers recent struggles, the D man in Adam Larsson would be the right pick. The only thing that would prevent us from doing that would be how the D would look with him in the lineup next year. We would have Whitney, Gilbert, Smid, Peckham, Petry and Larsson as our 6 D coming out of camp. I don't know about you but that is not the 6 players I would like playing in front of our goaltending.  Couturier, the other real option has been known to be slow. He is a big body, something the Oilers need at center but given the style of play in the Q, who knows if he can be as effective of a player in the NHL.

Some would say this is a tough decision to make, it's really not, the Oilers should take the BPA in June and as of right now that Nugent-Hopkins kid is playing way too good to ignore. The only question is, which of his last names will he drop to shorten his name.

My Thoughts After 6 Games

As I sit here and admire the nice green grass still outside(yes, it has not yet snowed here) there are a few thoughts that I must clear fom my mind. Let's be honest here, this Oilers team looks bad, I'm not talking last year bad, but if we can't learn to kill a penalty, we better hope Adam Larsson can, because that's where we're headed. On our potential top 3 pick, what the hell is with the love affair with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins? The guy is a pencil! If we do have the opprotunity to pick there, I sure hope we do not pick RNH, sure he has talent but he has to do a lot to fill out, time I don't think we can waste. Speaking of #1 picks, holy hell is Taylor Hall the most inconsistant player I have ever seen, he goes and has a great game against Minnesota then does, next to nothing against San Jose. I think once he finds the consistency in his game then he will turn out to be the player we have been looking for.


Another weakness that the Oilers have is special teams, not just on the PK but on the PP as well. I think the solution to the PP is a simple one, change the strategy. I get why they use an overload strategy on the PP, but it makes 0 sense to have two forwards within 10 feet of each other, what they should do instead is switch to something that resembles the umbrella strategy. Have two of the forwards on each side of the ice with someone creating traffic in front, and get the puck to Foster more, the guy was signed to replace Souray on the powerplay and we have not been going to him quite as much as we need to be. The penalty kill leaves a lot to be desired as well, I don't know if it is the players that they use or what, but we just can't seem to kill penalties. What the team should do is make a call to Oklahoma City, and bring up some players who, until yesterday, killed off 35 straight penalties. If they can't do any better than what we have now, there is little to no hope for us, and like I said earlier, we had better hope Adam Larsson can kill penalties, because no one on this team seems capable of doing so.

The defense of this team is more than just an achillies heel, it is more like a gunshot wound that just doesn't stop bleeding, you can't honestly sit there and tell me that you would rather have Theo Peckham, Jim Vandermeer or Jason Strudwick on the back end over someone like Shawn Belle. We need to send a goalie down and maybe Ryan Jones and bring up Reddox and Belle. Those two, I think would make a difference right now as well as send a message that there is no job that is safe on the team.