The Difference Talent Makes

I had the great displeasure of watching last night's Columbus versus Edmonton tilt with a die hard Montreal fan. A short aside note here: I gave him 16-1 odds on montreal winning the cup this year, so if Montreal figures out a way of winning the cup, I owe him 320 bucks. I think I'm pretty safe in this bet though, we will have to see.

This particular fan said that there is no one on Montreal's top two lines that he would trade for Ales Hemsky, my first thought was that it is probably a good thing that a person this dumb isn't managing an NHL Hockey team.

My second thought was that this is unfortunate for the rest of the league, and fortunate for us. Ales Hemsky will probably always be kept the NHL's best kept secret. Unless the Oilers go on a Stanley cup run and make it really deep, or Ales Hemsky is traded he will probably always be hidden from the spotlight of the Eastern North America press monsters.

The one benefit to this lack of spotlight is that it tends to allow the team to sign the player for slightly less than market value when it comes time to extend/renew a RFA contract (A contract that other teams usually do not interfere with). This benefit is small though, because it is offset by the fact that if a player feels like he has been low-balled by a GM during his tenure with a club, this will make him more likely to want to leave that club. You have to believe that every GM in the league knows how good of a player Ales Hemsky is, and if Hemsky ever makes it to UFA status he will get some serious offers.

So just how good of a player is Ales Hemsky? Set aside the fact that we probably would have lost the last two games if it wasn't for him.

Where does Hemsky stack up in the list of Oiler greats? I did some comparisons to other Oiler greats (and some not-so-greats) to see where this slick winger fits in inside Oiler history.

Player Name	Games Played	Goals	GPG	Assists	APG	Points	PPG
Ales Hemsky	385	84	0.22	222	0.58	306	0.79
Wayne Gretzky	1487	894	0.60	1963	1.32	2857	1.92
Paul Coffey	1409	396	0.28	1135	0.81	1531	1.09
Mark Messier	1756	694	0.40	1193	0.68	1887	1.07
Ryan Smyth	889	300	0.34	337	0.38	637	0.72
Doug Weight	1168	272	0.23	729	0.62	1001	0.86
Jari Kurri	1251	601	0.48	797	0.64	1398	1.12
Dave Semenko	575	65	0.11	88	0.15	153	0.27
Mike Comrie	491	150	0.31	176	0.36	326	0.66
Miroslav Satan	995	350	0.35	365	0.37	715	0.72
Glenn Anderson	1129	498	0.44	601	0.53	1099	0.97
Chris Pronger	988	139	0.14	448	0.45	587	0.59
Ray Whitney	958	294	0.31	479	0.50	773	0.81
Esa Tikkanen	877	244	0.28	386	0.44	630	0.72
Craig Simpson	634	247	0.39	250	0.39	497	0.78
Jimmy Carson	626	275	0.44	286	0.46	561	0.90
Petr Klima	786	313	0.40	260	0.33	573	0.73
Martin Gelinas	1273	309	0.24	351	0.28	660	0.52

From a sheer numbers perspective, Hemsky's production falls somewhere between Craig Simpson and Doug Weight. Keep in mind it is a lot harder to score in the modern era than it was during Craig Simpson's era, and it's a little easier to score in the current era than it was in the Doug Weight era. (We don't have Patrick Roy and his Rubber Dingy Sized pads and Sumo Wrestler sized jersey to contend with)

Hemsky IS the Oilers right now. The one difference that the Oilers currently have against Columbus is that there are two or three more talented players on the Oilers than in Columbus. Columbus has Rick Nash, and Kristian Huselius, and then the talent pool steeply drops off.

Oilers have lots of depth in the talent pool, but most of it has been under-performing for most of the year.

In order of decending Talent: Hemsky, Visnovsky, Cole, Horcoff, Souray. This says nothing about work ethic mind you, and the talent we have waiting in the wings with Cogs, Nillson, Gagner, Gilbert, Brule could make your head spin if we could ever put everything together.

I think maybe by getting rid of Garon, maybe the Oilers have isolated their identity somewhat. Kevin Lowe has basically said that he is sick of waiting for Garon to get his act together, and we will go with the average but relatively consitant goal tending of Roloson to try and get through the season. The offence knows this now, and realizes that they are going to have to score 3 goals or more each game if they want to have a chance at winning the game.

If Hemsky can play the second half like he played the last two games the Oilers are going to the show.

Bits and Bites

Forsberg apparently is thinking about coming back for another shortened season. Wouldn't that be great if we could just come to work when it's fun? Skip all the hard parts of work, and just come for the extra long lunches, and christmas parties.

Please Foppa, it's over bud. 6-8 years ago you were the best player in the world, but you are a shell of your former self. Let it go, stop taking advantage of owners that think it might be possible for you to reclaim your former playing prowess and let some younger players take the reign.

I would love to see Foppa come out and say to the Colorado management, "Look guys, I know I kind of screwed you over last year because you gave me all this money, and then I was basically injured for the whole time I was supposed to play, so I'll tell you what, don't pay me anything and I'll play for you this year for free."

Wow, am I living in bizzaro world or what?

Pete recently had a great post dissecting the Oilers mid-season performance, and did a really great job with it.

Couple points I'd like to make on it.

In my opinion, I think Visnovsky has been the best all around consistant performer this year. You watch him with the puch in his own zone and he rarely seems to make mistakes, and he breaks out of the zone wonderfully, and makes huge passes that generate great scoring chances. If only we had another play maker other than Hemsky to take advantage of those create passes.

Speaking of great playmakers, did you guys see the pass that Olli Jokinen made over top of a sprawling defender's body, and the even better 'pick out of the air' to stuff it past Roloson top shelf by Peter Mueller? Wow what a great pass and goal.

Sharks do not have enough post-season grit to win the cup. The improved on paper a bit this year with the addition of Blake, and I think that Joe Thornton is still one of the top 3 all around perfomers in the league. Lemieux is the Joker's choice this year, lets see if is 43 year old legs can still skate in the NHL. The one thing that the addition of Claude Lemieux adds to this team is a bonafide pest. Just not sure if anyone will take him seriously.

My choice to win the cup this year has gotta be Detroit. They were a great team that improved in one of their weaker areas by adding Hossa last season. They also proudly have the oldest player in the NHL on the roster (Happy Birthday Chelios, blow those 46 candles out quick the cake is melting!) Conklin is a good solid backup and the guy has attitude to boot. I wish Ty the best, probably my favorite ex-Oiler backup goaltender. (I used to love the way he would talk to his father (deceased) before playing each game, plus his interviews were always very real. None of that 'you know we gotta give 110%, and no I in Team B.S. that all the cookie cutter brainless players resort to).

I was thinking about players I miss from the Oilers the most, and the ones I miss the most are the ones that really loved Edmonton the most, not necessarily the most talented

Here's my list in no particular order:

Janne Niinimaa
Doug Weight
Ryan Smythe
George Laraque
Ray Whitney (man did K-Lowe drop the ball on this guy)

That said, here is my list of players that I miss the least, or more appropriately am glad to be rid of.

Mike Comrie
Chris Pronger
Miroslav Satan
Marius Czerkawski (remember this goofball?)
Tom Poti (special mention to him, he was villainized, but was a huge distraction for the team)

That's basically it for me, I still think the Oilers will sneak into the playoff's this year, 7th or 8th, but it will be a battle the whole way. I hope that some of these assets that have been stockpiled can be used to swing a deal to better the team, not necessarily for just a playoff run, but maybe for a player who has 2 or 3 years left on his deal.

If the Oilers could pry Vincent Lecavalier from Tampa I would go out and buy a Jersey today.

Pete you are right about that, the Oilers need a bonafide Center and a real number one Goalie. As Good as Roloson has been on a few nights, he has looked shaky on the same number of nights. JD isn't ready this year (or probably even next year) to take the helm over, so we need someone to fill the gap for next season.