The Oilers and the Heavyweight

Yesterday, as most all of you know, Craig MacTavish picked up heavy weight fighter Steve Macintyre. On again off again Big Mac was placed on waivers by the Pittsburg Penguins with the intention of being sent back down to the minors. But like I said you already knew that.

Since the move yesterday, everyone, and I mean everyone has been debating the effectiveness of a player such as Macintyre. Does a fighter actually scare other players from targeting stars? The Oilers have a lot of young star talent, and the idea behind Smackintyre is that he’ll have opposing teams looking over their shoulders before taking a run at the likes of Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle or Nail Yakupov Similar to what was witnessed in the other night’s pre-season game versus the Vancouver Canucks.

I was asked last night, by a buddy from work, what I thought of the waiver pick up? And I told him that I absolutely hated it. That Macintyre can’t be an effective deterrent when he’s stapled to the bench for 57 minutes a game. What would opposing players have to be worried about if the guy was never on the ice at the same time? Well, my co-worker disagreed, he said that if Macintyre isn’t afraid to go out there and go after the best players on the Ice for the other teams that it can be effective. Then he asked me if I saw the video of Macintyre going nuts during a game in the minors (below) and that if Big Mac could play like that, with a mean streak, that it could work for the Oilers.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hImezA0nbDU&w=420&h=315]

One of Macintyre’s problems I think, is like his Oilers predecessor Georges Larocque, he’s too nice of an enforcer, doesn’t want to hurt anyone and has to follow the fighters “code”. Well that won’t work, but neither will getting yourself kicked out of every game play, or sitting in the press box while you serve out your suspensions Shanabans. A player just can’t be effective that way anymore.

So what will work?

 

I heard a great idea yesterday from Will Fraser on the Nielson and Fraser morning show on the Team 1260; during the round table segment they were talking about just what works now a days in the NHL when it comes to protecting your star players. Fraser came up with a gem; why not have a bunch of pests in the bottom six, guys who can play hockey, but aren’t afraid to go after the other teams best players a little bit. Then the opposing team has no choice to focus on the guys that are running around not the stars.

Wow, great idea. Boston has a few players like that Marchand, Thornton, Kelly, they’re not afraid of much. How about Burrows in Vancouver, he’ll go after just about anyone and isn’t afraid to muck it up with a bigger enforcer type player, why isn’t he afraid? Because most heavyweights won’t do much to players like Burrows because they don’t fit in to the code. It actually makes sense to me; it is also a sign of the times, the end of the heavy weight enforcer era.

Who Fills this Role?

 

The Oilers should be ok in this department if certain players can play up to their potential and can play with more of a mean streak. Players like Ben Eager, once thought to be a super pest, can play that way. Newcomer Jesse Joensuu has the size and skating ability to fill such a role, and has even shown a bit of prowess around the net. Mike Brown, the guy skates well enough and loves to play the body he’s an option too. Ryan Hamilton seems to have the ability and he’s already in Coach Eakins good books.

Another name I heard mentioned was Detroit Red Wings forward Jordan Tootoo. He’s been on the market previously and might be available for a reasonable price.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/UkQF6WySu0U?t=40s]

 

Change the Targets

 

Fighting is decreasing and Will Fraser’s suggestion might be just what the Oilers need. Other teams in the league appear to be phasing ideas like this in. Essentially what they are doing here is taking the focus off the star players when it comes to physical play and putting it on the other role players who might be running around causing trouble, changing the target so to speak.

Thanks For Reading

Also Don’t Forget this Wednesday we’ll have another installment of Oilers Rig Radio, stay tuned for guest announcements and just exactly what we might be talking about… You can follow us on twitter @theoilersrig and on facebook on The Oilers Rig page