Season Review: Edmonton Oilers

Well, now that people are talking playoffs, I will be reviewing the seasons of teams as they're either eliminated from the playoffs or eliminated from playoff contention before the end of the season. Obviously, the last team reviewed will be the one that wins the Cup.

Now the first team to be eliminated from playoff contention: The Edmonton Oilers.

Season expectations: After making the Stanley Cup Finals in 2006, the Oilers have failed to qualify for the post-season for every season thereafter. Former coach Craig MacTavish was fired and former G.M. Kevin Lowe, whose embarrassingly terrible skills as a G.M. had a lot to do with the current situation for the Oilers, was somehow promoted, yes... promoted, to a senior position while Steve Tambellini took over as the G.M. Pat Quinn was brought in to coach the squad after being inactive as a head coach in the NHL since... well, the last time the Oilers appeared in the playoffs. While the team didn't make a plethora of moves in the off-season, they did land goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin to go and take over as the starting goaltender for the team.

My prediction: I figured the Oilers would have finished fourth in their division and 12th in the Western Conference.

The truth: Unless a pandemic causes teams seeded 8-14 to forfeit the season, the Oilers will finish in the basement of the conference.

What went wrong?: You mean besides... well, everything?

A plethora of injuries and no proper action to correct it.

First Nikolai Khabibulin goes out with a "sore back" that eventually requires surgery (but doesn't stop his ability to get hammered, as he is currently facing charges in Scottsdale, AZ for extreme DUI.) This catapults Jeff Deslauriers from being the third goaltender last season to being the starter. He had some brilliant nights, but as the injuries became an issue, he couldn't keep the team up to task. Now, since then, both Manny Legace and Michael Leighton were very much available on waivers, but the team didn't make any moves and now have given rookie goaltender Devan Dubynk the honor or appearing in nine games without a solitary win.

Not even a week later, first-line forward Ales Hemsky goes down with a shoulder injury that required season ending surgery. With all due respect to Dustin Penner (who after seasons of scrutiny became something of a go-to guy on the team once injuries took place), Hemsky is the most talented forward on that squad and with no proper top-six forward to be traded for, left the team to lean on players who just don't have that kinda scoring potential. Patrick O'Sullivan would be an excellent option if he didn't have an absolutely nauseating -32 at the time that I write this.

On the blue line, the team was going to rely on shipping Sheldon Souray out to a contending team in the southwest in exchange for some players and prospects... until Souray broke his hand in a fight. This left the team to ship out Lubomir Visnovsky to the Anaheim Ducks for Ryan Whitney but didn't do much else to fortify the group other than to make a move for the future in acquiring Aaron Johnson at the deadline for Steve Staios. Come to think of it, the ineffectiveness of both Staios and Denis Grebeshkov is essentially what made them expendable for futures.

With the team having 8 injured players, 5 of which on IR, you'd think the team would have done something sooner. Nevertheless, in hockey-mad Canada, teams can tank for a season under the guise of "rebuilding", which is exactly what it seems like the team did this season.

So what's next?: The good news, if any, is that they're very much in the sweepstakes for Tyler Seguin and Taylor Hall come draft day. One of those players will very much likely be an impact player for the NHL team that drafts him (see: John Tavares, Victor Hedman, and Matt Duschene.) However, the team's got a lot of RFA's to strike deals with (or let walk) and considering that most of them will be asking for raises, they're not likely to have cap room without letting a few players go (though, this could change if the Oilers look to have Khabibulin's contract voided due to his legal issues in Arizona.) It'll be interesting to see if they can have the same type of turnaround the Colorado Avalanche did, but methinks it's going to take another season or two before they're back to being competitive.