MOST VALUABLE PLAYER Ales Hemsky, night in and night out, was their best, most consistent and most productive player. He wasn't just a standout player himself, he made everyone he played with better, too. Even after losing his first-line center and being saddled with third-line checking center Jarret Stoll, he still put up team-leading numbers.
MOST DISAPPOINTING PLAYER Jarret Stoll started the season as their second-line center, and by the end of the year his role had been reduced to plumber and penalty killer. He didn't produce 5-on-5 (three even-strength goals all year) and finished with a gargantuan minus-23 rating.
FREE AGENT FOCUS The Oilers only have two unrestricted free agents (Marty Reasoner and Curtis Glencross) and both of them want to stay, so retaining their services shouldn't be a problem. GM Kevin Lowe locked up a few of his restricted free agents early in the off-season, but still has Joni Pitkanen and Jarret Stoll to deal with.
PLAYER NOTES
--D Joni Pitkanen left the World Championships amid some controversy. He was complaining of a sore knee while Finnish coach Doug Sheddon blamed it on lack of commitment. Either way, they parted ways on less than friendly terms.
--G Mathieu Garon is Canada's third stringer at the World Championships and isn't expected to get in any games. That's fine by him; this is his first experience wearing the national team's colors and he's happy to be along for the ride.
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Now that you are officially eliminated from the playoffs, we wish to thank you for giving us the now wonderful 1st, 2nd and 3rd round picks for Dustin Penner. These picks will bring us another round of great young players, and restock our lineup once some of our veterans retire. Maybe in a few years your GM can, once again, po
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a couple of months ago when Katz (how do you get "Cates" out of that, someone plz explain that to me) made his last offer he was shut down and the ownership group went so far as to pass a motion to never put the team up for sale again, saying they wanted to protect the integrity of the team, or some such prattle. Also from Edmonton Journal.
Alright here we go, now this
is the page you heard about.
Here you will fine the link
to the petition to offically
retire and keep 31 off the
ice for good.
I have not set a goal for
the amount of signatures to stop
at and send in.
With all the changes to the Make up of the Oilers I think they should be ready to come together now and make a solid run at the playoffs... I like the way Garon, Smid, Stoll and Hemsky are comming around... I think its go time! Go Oilers Go!
