tom-gilbert Stories - The Copper & Blue
Somebody's Gonna Hurt Someone Before The Night Is Through - Grebs to Arbitration
TSN has reported that Denis Grebeshkov has filed for salary arbitration. The Oilers should hope that this is a stick being used by Grebeshkov's representation and not a path to actual arbitration. It's been widely reported that the Oilers and Grebeshkov are "very close" and Tambellini has been...
Oilers join Team USA
As per TSN, both Tom Gilbert and Matt Greene have been named to the U.S. team going to the World Championships. This is Greene's second stint at the Worlds, and Gilbert's first. No word yet on whether straight-man Gilbert is ready to sign on to Greene's proposed two-man comedy show "I Only Score...
Three Defencemen
My personal belief is that Joni Pitkanen will not play another game in an Oilers uniform. I think Lowe looked at his core, young defencemen (Gilbert, Grebeshkov, Pitkanen), and decided that Gilbert & Grebeshkov would be on the team moving forwar, whereas Pitkanen would not. I fully expect a...
Offensive Defensemen
Craig MacTavish is a good coach. I firmly believe that he's in the upper echelon of NHL coaches, and that he has put together some pretty remarkable seasons with some fairly dysfunctional teams.Case in point: offensive defensemen. MacTavish has been criticized in the past for playing a stifling,...
The Case for Another Defenseman
I've been practicing cart-before-the-horse style thinking at this blog lately. My "UFA Option" pieces are posted with the assumption that the Oilers have two or three significant areas of need, which I would categorize like this:1) Veteran defenseman2) Top-six forward3) Checking line centrewith the...
The Glaring Weakness Almost Nobody's Talking About
The Oilers defense corps currently looks something like this:LD: Grebeshkov, Souray, Smid, RoyRD: Gilbert, Visnovsky, StaiosWe can toss in some of the kids on whatever side (Hrabal, Peckham, Chorney) but the odds are really good that none of them are even-strength difference makers in their rookie...
I Don't Believe in the "Sophomore Slump"
I have some time this morning, and I thought it might be nice to have a look at the younger players entering their 2nd/3rd season, and trying to decide what a reasonable expectation for them would be next year. This is a very, very young team (did you realize Ales Hemsky will still only be 25 by...
Shooting: What and Where
As anyone who reads my writing knows, I'm an avid fan of the work done by Gabriel Desjardins at Behind the Net. One of the many things he does to improve game analysis is provide individual shooting data at even strength, taken from the individual game play-by-play logs at NHL.com.Here's some...
The Development Myth
A common refrain among fans of all stripes, and probably in all sports for that matter, is the need to "play the kids". In this same vein comes a theory that’s espoused by a whole bunch of people, a theory that works something like this:If a team has an obvious hole and the only options to fill it...
Tom Gilbert, 6yrs, 24 million
Tom Gilbert was signed by the Oilers today to a 6-yr, 24 million dollar contract. Other players recently signed in similar dollars & years range : CGY - Robyn Regehr - 20mil/5yrs (4)CHI - Brent Seabrook - 10.5mil/3yrs (3.5)COL - Brett Clark - 7mil/2yrs (3.5)MIN - Brent Burns - 14.2mil/4yrs...
Showing 1 - 10 of 11 Next
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
