The Oilers crucial next 10 days

What the team looks like next year and what we look like in future will hinge on decisions made over the next 10 days.

June 15 – 30 - Buy-Out Period (June 15-30) 

Sheldon Souray will be offered around at the draft, and if there are no takers a buyout will take place. Any chance Kbabby might get bought out, I don`t think so, but one can hope.

 June 24-25 - NHL Entry Draft – St. Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Center

2011 OILER DRAFT PICKS

June 27

Deadline for clubs to make qualifying offers to their restricted free agents.  Qualifying offers must be received by this date.  Players, however, cannot accept those Qualifying Offers officially until July 1.  I have indicated my suggestions in the right hand box.

June 28

Impending restricted free agents are free to open talks with any NHL team, including the team holding their rights.  However, no official offers can be made, new contracts, offer sheets, etc, until July 1. This is when you can go after a player with an offer sheet, don`t see the oilers doing this and in his press conference Tambolini indicated this was not part of their plans.

http://www.capgeek.com/free_agents.php?year_id=2011&team_id=-1&position_id=-1&fa_type_id=1

July 1 Noon eastern: Free agency period begins. Also the first day teams can begin negotiating a contract extension beyond 2011-12, this is when many on the blogosphere hope some holes in the line-up can be addressed.

According to Capgeek these are the pending Un-restricted free agents

http://www.capgeek.com/free_agents.php?year_id=2011&team_id=-1&position_id=-1&fa_type_id=2

I perused the list and found to many choices and wonder if the Oilers Pro scouting are up to the task of Identifying possible diamonds in the rough. That goalie or defensemen, who develops into a useful player when they get a change of scenery.

Oiler 2011 Unrestricted Free Agents

What an exciting time to be a fan, I hope the management team is up to the challenge and decisions made now will have a positive impact on the future.