What to do with Mark Arcobello?

The Oilers are soon going to find themselves with the troubling question of what to do with rookie center Mark Arcobello. When Sam Gagner returns to the line-up and Taylor Hall is healthy (we don’t even know how long he’ll be out yet). The Oilers are going to have an issue with center depth. Didn’t see that coming at the start of the season did you?

Arcobello is having quite the start to the campaign, with 8 assists on the season (good enough for 9^th in the league) he’s currently averaging 17:07 minutes/game and sits 5^th in the NHL in faceoff % at 59.2% (Boyd Gordon is 2^nd at 60.8%). Those are not the kind of stats you want to ship out of the line-up when Gagner returns.

There are a few options, none of which I would think involve sending him to the minors.

Try him on the wing

So if Gagner returns and Taylor Hall is still out, why not try him on the wing with Gagner at center and Yakupov/Perron/Whoever on the other side? If Gagner is struggling in the faceoff circle you can move Arco in to take the draws.

Do Nothing

Basically the exact opposite of the above suggestion. Gagner returns to the wing and Arcobello stays at center. I know the Gagner at wing experiment was tried before and failed but hell why not give it a second look.

Move him down the line up

I’ve be conflicted with this one for a while, He’s playing well and deserves his time but the spot on the second line should belong to Samwise. So what do you do? Move him to the third and Boyd Gordon to the fourth? That’s a tough call for Dallas Eakins to have to make. I think though that I would create a fourth line that looks something like this; Joensuu – Arcobello – Jones.

I know some of you are going to crucify me for that suggestion as it takes away the toughness, but as we’ve all seen the fourth line the way it currently is, is a mess so there won’t be any harm in trying it. At the very least it is a line that should out skill opposing 4^th lines, and Joensuu has some size, Arco has shown that he’ll go to the hard areas and isn’t afraid to throw or take a hit.

The problem with this idea though is you have one of your top producing players now stuck on the fourth line. So what about splitting the minutes between Boyd Gordon and Mark Arcobello? Currently between Boyd Gordon and Will Acton there are just over 24 minutes of average ice time a night. So let’s split that between Arco and Gordon and you have 2 excellent centers who win face offs playing nearly a quarter of each game, and if Joensuu and Jones or any other combination of wingers show the ability to play those types of minutes then boom, you’ve got a 3a/3b line for each game.

No Matter what happens they can’t send the poor kid down, it would show the wrong message. The very last option would be a big decision by management and the coach, and that would be to trade one of Arcobello or Gagner. But a move like that would put the team right back to where they were before the season started, weak at center depth. I will say this though, it is sure nice to be talking about issues of having too much depth at center.

What do you thing the Oilers should do with Mark Arcobello?

Thanks for reading