Prospect Problems?

Today is the last day of the Penticton Young Stars tournament, the Oilers rooks play the youngins from Vancouver this afternoon at 3 MST. Which by the time this piece is published should be near the end of the first period. There has been a lot of talk about the poor performances given by the Oiler kids the last 2 days and in fact even new Oilers bench boss Dallas Eakins, when asked during his press conference what he thought of the tournament so far he said “To be Honest, I didn’t like it much”.

So what’s the problem or is there one? Something that the fans really have to remember is that the Oilers have been drafting skill for the last number of years. They have brought in players like Sam Gagner, Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall, Magnus Paajaarvi, Ryan Nugent Hopkins and Nail Yakupov. These players were clearly brought in to be the offensive dynamo’s of the team, and it’ very clear they are set to do just that.

Ok so now that that’s covered; the rookies that are at this tournament right now aren’t mean t to be dynamic offensive stars. These players are drafted on their potential to be really good bottom six forwards, and the good news coming out of Penticton is at least three players on the rookie roster are showing some ability to do just that. Newly signed Jujhar Khaira, and this year’s draft picks Marco Roy and Greg Chase are showing some plusses. Chase and Khaira have a goal each so far and have shown the willingness to go to battle in the corners win them too. Marco Roy has looked good with the puck on his stick, making smart plays and not turning it over too much.

What I am getting at here is this; no one should expect this team to be scoring six or seven goals a game. It would be nice, but let’s face facts folks 90% of the players on the rookie squad are never going to see ice time at the NHL level. However, it would have been nice to see where Mitch Moroz was at in his development curve, but he’s out with injury. So too is Jackson Houck who left last night’s game after taking a cheap shot right to the numbers from a Winnipeg defender. Houck wasn’t doing anything spectacularly noticeable out there but would have been nice to see a bit more of him, hopefully the injury isn’t too serious and he can have a speedy recovery.

The defense hasn’t looked that great either, It’s nice to see Brandon Davidson playing after his battle with cancer last year. The two Martin’s, Gernat and Marincin, have looked decent out there, but have still been caught out of position a time or two (or three). We only didn’t see Darnell Nurse last night, but should see significant ice time today. Possibly the biggest disappointment so far has been the play of Swedish defenseman Oscar Klefbom, He’s been very inconsistent, showing flashes of brilliance at times and other times looking like Cam Barker on bob skates. Hopefully it’s just Oscar getting used to the smaller NHL ice surface and we will see improvement as camp moves forward.

In Goal we only saw Tyler Bunz in the first game and while he didn’t look great he will still get an invite to main camp, which just goes to show how shallow the goaltending depth pool in Edmonton really is. Cadorette, the goalie who played last night couldn’t stop the puck if he was tied to the net. But he can’t take all the blame for the 7 goals against either, there were some terrible giveaways. Other invite goalie Palazzese get’s the chance today, we’ll have to wait and see what he can do with the opportunity.

So folks main camp starts this week and we don’t need to panic just yet, the top six is pretty much set in stone and I only see one player on the rookie squad that has a real chance to make the team, and that’s D man Klefbom, who’s chances are slipping away faster than you can say Färjestads.

Thanks for Reading.