The Edmonton Oilers are ready to get back onto the ice for the 2013-14 season. That sounds really good doesn’t it? The Oilers rookie squad will be heading out to Penticton, BC to take part in the Canucks’ young stars tourney. The Oilers will play three games, starting Thursday and ending on Sunday.
We’ve been over the roster before: http://www.theoilersrig.com/2013/08/21/rookie-camp-roster-announced/, but we’ll touch on it a little bit.
The Oilers offense with this squad is weak on paper, but has some good qualities to it. Center Andrew Miller should be able to tear up this tournament, while forwards Marco Roy and Travis Ewanyk should be top contributors to this unit. There are interesting guys to watch too, like 2013 draft picks Greg Chase and Jackson Houck, along with newly acquired prospect Kale Kessy and the recently signed Jujhar Khaira.
They won’t light it up, but there is some potential with this unit and the Oilers should be able to score enough. It will be interesting to watch this unit, because there isn’t a true star here.
On defense, it’s safe to say Edmonton is loaded. Martin Marincin and Oscar Klefbom are terrific prospects who should totally dominate the competition. Marincin had a great rookie AHL season last year, while Klefbom comes over from Sweden recovering from shoulder surgery. More on Klefbom later on….
2013 1st round pick Darnell Nurse will be on the roster, and should play limited minutes on a loaded blue-line. It will be Oilers fans first look at the young potential star, and he should be in a position to succeed here. Fellow prospect David Musil is prepping for his pro debut this season and will be interesting to watch. He could be the next Ladislav Smid a few years down the road.
Brandon Davidson and Joey Leach will also be on the squad.
In net, the Oilers are weak. That’s the only way to put it. Tyler Bunz had a rough first pro season, and battled some concussion issues. His back-ups are all camp invites, so there isn’t much here. The Oilers are going to have to count on their defense to limit the chances on net.
Overall, the roster has a really good defensive unit, led by Klefbom, Marincin, Nurse and Davidson, while the team also possesses a decent enough offense to put up numbers. While they are weak in goal, the Oilers rookie team should be decent at this tournament.
Players To Watch
Marco Roy: This is a player I wrote up on in the “Just Who Is” series, and is a player that has me really excited for what could be. Roy has skill and can grind it out, and being a second round pick he has a high chance of panning out. I’ll be really interested to watch him play a big role on this team. He’s going to be a prospect to watch as we move forward. Check my write-up on him here: http://www.theoilersrig.com/2013/08/24/357/
Jujhar Khaira: There are a lot of forwards I’m interested in seeing, but after Roy, Jujhar Khaira really sticks out as a guy to pay attention to. He has the skill set Edmonton badly needs in it’s line-up, and he has already signed a pro contract with the team. He had a good year in the NCAA last year and will most likely play a big role in the WHL this season. He’ll be playing a big role on this team too, and I personally can’t wait to see his skill-set in action.
Oscar Klefbom: Say it’s a cop out, but Klefbom is the most interesting defender to watch by a mile. He’s got all the hype in the world around him, and some think he could crack the NHL roster at some point this season. Klefbom put up decent numbers playing with men in Sweden, but is coming off of major shoulder surgery. It will be interesting to see how he holds up and how he performs here. Could be a preview of things to come.
Schedule
The Oilers open up the rookie tournament on Thursday against the Calgary Flames. They’ll play Winnipeg Saturday night and Vancouver on Sunday afternoon before the U of A game takes place on Tuesday the 10th.
The full schedule:
| THU, 5 SEP 2013 | OILERS | FLAMES | 5:00 PM | AT PENTICTON, BC | |
| SAT, 7 SEP 2013 | JETS | OILERS | 8:30 PM | AT PENTICTON, BC | |
| SUN, 8 SEP 2013 | OILERS | CANUCKS | 3:00 PM | AT PENTICTON, BC | |
| TUE, 10 SEP 2013 | U OF A | OILERS | 7:00 PM | AT CLARE DRAKE ARENA |
Be sure to tune into The Oilers Rig radio live debut later tonight! Should be exciting as Josh Rimer and Pat McLean join the show. I’ll be hosting with Dave Gordon and our awesome producer Jeremy Thompson. We’ll be taking your calls as well! It promises to be an awesome show, so please do tune in! You can get all the info from the great flyer below that Jeremy made for us! In the meantime, follow me up on twitter @Alex_Thomas14!
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