The Joys of Forward Depth: Realization

<![CDATA[(Note: This is part one of a series that examines the different options that present themselves within the Oilers bottom 6 group)

Wednesday's silly season came and went without much fireworks for the Edmonton Oilers. Outside of two minor deals, in which the club picked up veteran center, David Desharnais, and, depth forward, Justin Fontaine, the team was rather quiet. The acquisitions were aimed to reinforce depth at the forward position, as the team prepares to head into the stretch of the season. This sentiment was echoed in Peter Chiarelli's post-deadline media availability as he described the Beck/Fontaine swap as being a move that gave them "legitimate depth" while also confirming that Desharnais was acquired with the intention of him filling in as the team's new third line center.

As important as it is to have a team with a large degree of depth at the forward position, it is something that the Oilers have lacked for quite some time. However, as I revisited this topic last night, I realized that the current roster has a
surprising amount of depth in their bottom 6 group.

When you dig into who currently plays within the Oilers bottom 6 you will get a list of around 7-8 players. 6 on the roster and 2 extra but, when you take this past weeks moves into consideration and look at who we currently have on the farm, that number can get to as high as 12. Don't believe me? Well, lets take a look at who the Oilers can potentially insert into lines 3+4:

• Benoit Pouliot
• David Desharnais
• Drake Caggiula
• Zack Kassian
• Mark Letestu
• Anton Slepyshev
• Ilro Pakarinen
• Jujhar Khaira
• Matt Hendricks
• Jesse Puljujarvi
• Justin Fontaine
• Anton Lander

Yup, that is a list of 12 candidates for a total of 6 available roster spots.

Now, sure, some of these players are not on the same level as each other, the ideal situation wouldn’t have Anton Lander playing on the third line for example, but that isn’t the point I am trying to make. What this does for the team is bring about an ability to be extremely flexible in how they deploy that bottom 6 group. The ability to move around this many pieces to create different combinations and line configurations is invaluable to a team that is trying to push themselves into the postseason.

This is something that hasn’t gotten much attention as it probably should. The realization that the team has adequate depth at the forward position has been so much of a foreign concept for the past decade, that many fans around the team don’t recognize it when they have it. Even a hardcore fan like myself, who lives and dies alongside this team, just realized this in the wee hours after Wednesday’s deadline.

Perhaps this is testament of how management has handled the team in the past few years. Sure, the Chiarelli regime has had its harsh detractors but, much can be said about the job that Peter Chiarelli and co. have done to this point. Out of the 12 forwards listed above, 6 of them have been acquired by Chia. That goes without mentioning top 6 guys like Milan Lucic and Patrick Maroon, who were also acquired by the current management group.

This is a very well done job by Oilers management. Despite the high degree of push-back that they have received for controversial moves such as the Hall trade and Kris Russell signing….the fact of the matter still remains that they have built a team that can compete like no other Oiler team has in the past 11 years. Although this is a result of an overwhelming culmination of moves relating to all facets of the team, we cannot turn a blind eye to his revitalization of the Oilers forward depth.

While the team stayed relatively quiet during this year’s deadline, the two moves that the club did make went toward improving this very thing.

You can knock on Peter Chiarelli and his management team for making bad trades, the acquisition of Griffin Reinhart comes to mind, but to say that he hasn’t done anything to help the Oilers or make the team that they are today is ridiculous.

This is an example of just one of the joys of forward depth.

In the next installment of TJoFD I will discuss the options that exist with, rookie centerman, Drake Caggiula.

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