Yesterday the Oilers signed Sheldon Souray to a 5 year contract worth $27 million (from what I've seen around the net). I'm happy the Oilers have finally signed a "big name" free agent. I also have mixed feelings about it being Souray tho, his +/- is a bit of a worry and I hope that he wasn't just signed by Kevin Lowe out of desperation to sign someone, anyone that was remotely big name to a contract.
It should be interesting to see how MacTavish handles Souray. MacTavish is not a coach that has ever dealt well or liked players that are laps defencively and Souray certainly has his defencive short comings. Who knows, maybe MacT will actually get Souray to play better in his own end. Stranger things have happened in Oil Country
I do like the fact the Souray isn't afraid to mix things up and should provide a lot of grit to a defence that suddenly doesn't look half bad at all. It now looks like the Oilers, who last season had no puck rushing defencemen, now have 3 puck rushing defencemen and 3 pretty good stay at home defencemen. Souray and Staios would be a good defencive pairing in my mind follow that up with Pitkanen and Green, and a third pairing of Tarnstrom and Smid and the Oiler defence actually looks pretty good.
One thing is clear after yesterday, if Craig Simpson can't get a power play working with Souray, Stoll, Pitkanen, Horrcoff and Hemsky then he's gotta go. The Oilers power play has always been suspect a best under Craig Simpson. Now he has all the tools in the world and ther should be now excuses.
I'm liking the look of our goaltending situation, the defence looks like something that belongs in the NHL and should produce points, now it's time for Lowe to go out and get a top 6 forward, because right now the offence looks like one hell of and AHL line up.
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