Christmas in March

The title refers to the NHL trade deadline, of course. It seems the "March trade" has been a hallmark of the Oilers organization since they came into the league. There's been a lot of player movement in the last month or so. Let's recap:

Departing:
Marty Reasoner
Tony Salmelainen
Jan Stastny
Cory Cross
Jani Rita
1st round pick
2nd round pick
conditional 3rd round pick

Arriving:
Dwayne Roloson
Sergei Samsonov
Jaroslav Spacek
Dick Tarnstrom

So basically, 3 draft picks, 3 non-roster players, a 4th line center and a 7th defenseman for a #1 goaltender, a top 6 winger, a #2 defenseman, and a good offensive defenseman. Sounds pretty good to me. I'm not really concerned about giving up draft picks given the Oilers horrible drafting history, especially in the first round. The last first rounder the Oilers drafted that cracked the lineup and made an impact was Ales Hemsky (2001), and before that, the last one was Ryan Smyth (1994). However, they have been able to pick up good players in the later rounds, such as Horcoff, Stoll, and Pisani. Comrie was also a pretty late pick (91st overall) but we'll just forget about him. I must say, I was quite surprised to see the Wild doing business with the Oilers since they're only 7 points out of the playoffs and still have 4 games to play against the Oilers.

I guess all this trade activity does reflect less than spectacular drafting, since it has been non-roster players flying off the Oilers shelf (let's not forget about Doug Lynch and Jeff Woywitka in the Pronger deal) but an Edmonton Journal article from May 10, 1984 said the exact same thing, and two pages later, several experts confidently predicted an Islanders win. But I'm not planning to riot down Jasper Ave. in June just yet...I'll wait until Roloson plays a few games first.

I was a little sad to see Mayor Quimby (Mike Morrison) go to the Senators. It's a shame because he was a player that MacTavish actually liked, and those seem hard to come by on the team these days (unless your name is Georges Laraque...)