Ryan Murray of the Everett Silvertips, who is widely expected to be a top 5 pick in the upcoming NHL Entry Draft, seems to have received an invitation from Hockey Canada to play at the World Championships. As far as I can tell, this was first reported by Dean Millard of the Pipeline Show radio show in Edmonton with the following tweet:

We have confirmed that Ryan Murray has been approached by Hockey Canada to play in the World Championship.Should be announced tomorrow.#iihf

— The Pipeline Show (@ThePipelineShow) April 15, 2012

Murray's been discussed at length around these parts as a possible #2 draft selection. Since the Oilers won the lottery though, this news about Murray seems to have fallen by the wayside.

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On his show last night, Dan Tencer and a guy from Sportsnet (can't remember his name) talked about the violence in this year's playoffs and the controversy that surrounds it. With the suspensions and injuries, the general reaction has seemed to be negative. The fans are calling for tougher rulings that must solidify the league's stance on the punishing of such illegalities.

These two gentlemen went on to say that we all secretly love the violence. We'll scream for justice when our player goes down, and we'll cheer when our team gets back at the offender with a punch/stick/elbow to the head. They compared the violence to that of the UFC, which is full of it's Tapout shirts (Ta-pout?), veiny muscles and bloody gore.

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Raffi Torres, just another thug on a long list of players who don't get it. It's also becoming painfully obvious that Brendan Shanahan, Gary Bettman, NHL GMs and anyone else involved with the determination on how players are suspended and fined don't get it either. Players are out of control. We've gotten here due to a system that thinks $2500 dollars to Shea Weber or 1 game to James Neal for plays that intend to injure, are some kind of deterant.

What I propose is a system of discipline that will ring home with players and remove the subjectiveness involved with how the NHL currently handles its Supplemental Discipline Process.

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Edmonton's dancing partner is Columbus with their 2nd and 18th (?) from LA and Nikitin for Edmonton's 1st, 3rd rounder (also from LALA land) and Teddy Peckham. We draft Ryan Murray (a "five to twelve" NHL "D"), Martin Frk (RW) as a future power forward and get the aforementioned Nikitin. Instead of Frk it can also be one of two goalies (Vasilevskii or Dansk). Then in the second we pick Henrik Samuelsson (C/RW) (which will get Martindale flushed at some point in the future, and for us: another 3rd-line centre or power forward). With the first pick in the third (61st) we get Calle Andersson (D). It might look like this:

Murray, Nikitin and Andersson (D)

Frk (RW)

Samuelsson (C/RW)

Then in the future rounds we get: Jon Gillies or Anthony Stolarz (G), Max Iafrate (D) and Tobias Tornkvist (RW).

You thoughts?

This morning the following tweet was sent out from Linus Omark's official Twitter account.

@realoilfan I live to show that the "two" are wrong. But I really hope edm let me have a chance in another nhl team

— Linus Omark(@Limpanomark) April 11, 2012

That tweet has now been up for three hours so it's probably safe to assume that Omark's account hasn't been hacked and that Omark, who will be a restricted free agent this summer, has made one of the most public trade requests in recent memory.

Omark split his time this season between Edmonton and Oklahoma City and was most recently recalled on March 5 but dressed in only nine of the Oilers last 17 games. Given how Omark was utilized over the last weeks of the season it became increasingly clear that, for whatever reason, he didn't have a future with the Oilers and that his time in Edmonton was quickly coming to an end. This public shot at the Oilers certainly takes that to a new level.

With the end of another Oilers season upon us this week, it is about that time to start looking forward to the draft and the off-season to try and figure out how to avoid having another giant bowl of suck to deal with again next season. Before we look ahead to who the team might add though (although that process is already well underway), it is also important to look back at the players the team had this year, and to figure out where they fit heading into next season.

Looking back on the 2011/12 year for the Edmonton Oilers, I think it is fair to say that among the top three most pleasant developments are the progression of Jordan Eberle, the outstanding rookie season of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and the breakout season of Jeff Petry. Petry in particular will be the player of interest among those three heading into the off-season, as both RNH and Eberle have time remaining on their contracts. Eberle and Taylor Hall may begin the process of negotiating extensions this summer, but the team would be foolish to sign them before the terms of a new CBA are finalized. Petry however, is a restricted free agent this off-season, and with the trade of Tom Gilbert (SON OF A B#$%!), Petry finds himself in a position to be a key member of the blueline moving forward.

After the jump, I'll look at Petry's season, where he fits into the depth chart moving forward, some reasonable comparables based on his performance this season, and what it might cost to get him signed to a new deal this summer.

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There are a ton of potentially horrible decisions to make this off season to solidify another year in this land of mystery:

- The Linus Omark mystery. He sits, players get injured, he sits again. Now, he could be in Oklahoma but since they called him up and he doesn't want to go back down, he sits. He'll sit out the rest of the season and then go back to Sweden and we'll never see him again. The worst part is that we have no good explanation or reason why this is the case. Talent wasted.

Decision time: This decision seems to have already been made.

- Teemu Hartikainen scores 2 goals tonight. He hits everything he sees, goes to the net, etc. He's been doing it consistently since he's been called up. Yet, the radio guys aren't quite sold on him. They're wondering if he can maintain that kind of play for a whole season. My question? Who the hell else is getting the job done?! This is nonsense. Play the man, if he struggles, play the man. Give him a spot in the roster next season. He's earning it right now. No one else plays the way he plays. This team needs him.

Decision time: October 2012. Hopefully they give him a legit shot next season.

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For those of you who haven't heard, Duncan Keith laid a pretty nasty elbow on Daniel Sedin on Wednesday. If you missed it, you can check out the video here. As you can see, Keith hit the blindside + elbow + head shot trifecta. Throw in a little interference and some intent to injure and we've got a recipe for a mighty fine suspension. I don't really want to discuss the legality of the hit though as it's pretty clear which side of the law this one falls on. What I want to discuss is the how and why of this hit and how it could have easily been prevented.

The likely motivation for Keith's elbow to Sedin's head was this hit from earlier where Sedin made contact with Keith's head. The referee closest to the action was trying to get out of the way of the play and has his head turned as the hit was made. Unfortunate, but it happens. The second referee is out of the picture. Who knows what he was looking at, but it likely would have been a difficult call to make from as far away as he was. As a result, Sedin's hit went unpunished.

Minutes later, in an apparent effort to scientifically prove that two wrongs don't make a right, Keith got his retribution. Dan O'Halloran (#13) and Francois St. Laurent (#38) both appear to have had a clear view. You can't see St. Laurent in the video but Halloran put his arm up immediately. Based on St. Laurent's position seen in other clips, he had a great view of it too. O'Halloran was farther away but also had a clear view. I'm not sure if they discussed it with the linesmen, but Derek Amell (#75) was 15 feet away from the hit and was looking directly at it. Easy call. Or so we thought. The call was a 2 minute minor for elbowing when a major + game misconduct seemed obvious. My reaction? "Uh oh, here we go again..."

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I really like this Linus Omark fellow. He's obviously skilled, surprisingly strong in the corners, and from what I heard on last night's radio broadcast, determined to put pucks on the net.

Of course, there is a lot of chatter about him not fitting in with the team and the theories on this range from reasonable to hilarious; he's too small, he's cocky, he's a duplicate of our other awesome talent, he whines too much, He's handsome. His name rhymes with 'Venus'. Whatever the reasons, people seem to think that he's headed out of town.

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In addition to the plethora of discussions taking place these days about how to improve the Oilers' blueline heading into next season, there exists another problem facing the organization with regard to their defense corps:

There are not enough chairs for everyone in consideration for a roster spot in Oklahoma City with the Barons in 2012/13.

It's common knowledge to everyone that the Oilers have an abundance of potentially quality Dmen coming through the pipeline, but that they are a few significant steps behind the forward group which already populate the NHL team. Well, the thing about that is, those players need a place to play every year while they develop. While this is a nice problem to have in the first year or two after they are drafted, once we get through this season, there will need to be some tough decisions made about which players the franchise decides to move forward with and which ones they cut loose. I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but everyone's favourite Mr. Dithers, Steve Tambellini has only made his own job tougher with some of the contracts he has handed out recently.

After the jump, I'll go through the organizational depth on the blueline, with particular focus on the developing cluster of blueline assets and provide details about where they are in their development, what the logical next step would be, and how many of those logical steps are in direct contrast with one another.

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