The Edmonton Oilers have signed goalie Martin Gerber to a one-year two-way contract. The signing was done on Friday.

The deal brings Gerber back to the National Hockey League after he spent last season with Altant Moscow of the KHL. He played 30 games there and finished with a 2.19 GAA and a .914 save percentage.

In the NHL, Gerber has spent time with the Anaheim Ducks, Carolina Hurricanes, Ottawa Senators, and Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite posting good numbers, he never really caught on with any one team and it was almost inevitable that he’d be heading to the KHL. In 226 NHL games, Gerber has a 110-78-21 record, a 2.65 GAA and a .910 save percentage.

The signing is essentially an insurance policy for the Oilers. With Nikolai Khabibulin, Jeff Deslauriers and Devan Dubnyk on tap, it isn’t likely that Gerber will see much ice time in Edmonton. In the event of injuries, Gerber can step right in and put in quality performances and it’s this aspect that makes him a good decision for the Oilers.

There’s a risk of Edmonton racking up goalie salaries in the minors, sure, but it’s not a terrible problem to have and it still gives the Oilers some considerations should Dubnyk or Deslauriers go down. It’s a sensible signing, one that makes even more sense when you consider Khabibulin’s legal issues with drunk driving in Arizona.

Should he not show up for training camp due to these issues, Gerber provides the Oilers with a back-up plan.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

The first overall pick of the Edmonton Oilers is focused on making the roster of his NHL team and, as a result, will be skipping the world champion tourney of the Canadian juniors.

Taylor Hall will miss out on junior camp in St. John’s in order to focus on making the Oilers hockey club for the upcoming season. Skipping the camp means Hall won’t be eligible to play at the tournament in Buffalo because Hockey Canada insists that all players must take part in camp in order to earn a spot on the team.

“Ideally we would have liked him to come to the summer camp to keep that option open, based on our policy. But his preparation for the upcoming season is focused on the NHL,” said Brad Pascall, Hockey Canada senior director of national men’s teams.

Hall was a key component in last year’s tournament. He notched six goals and added six assists, but the Canadians wound up losing to the Americans in the final.

Hall’s focus on the Oilers has got to excite local fans, however, and his desire to make the team should be applauded. He signed an entry-level contract with the club on July 5 and will be paid the maximum base salary of $900,000 per season. With performance bonuses in place, though, Hall could be making nearly $3 million a year right out of the box.

One has to wonder just how much Hall’s potential salary has to do with his motivation at making the big club. Waving that kind of cash in front of the kid probably made the decision to skip camp a little easier for Hall, although one has to wonder how long it’ll take for him to want to get the heck out of Edmonton…

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

As Friday night’s NHL entry draft nears, speculation is running wild as to who the Edmonton Oilers will pick. Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin are the clear-cut top two prospects at the draft, but who the Oilers will go with is still shrouded in secrecy.

The draft takes place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and will take about two days to complete.

Recent NHL draft days have been fairly predictable, at least in terms of how the top few selections have gone. This year, the picture is a little less clear as the Oilers have to make a major decision to kick things off.

Pundits and fans alike have been going over the differences between Hall and Seguin for what seems like ages now, but it’s hard to find any consensus as to who should be picked first. Both players are high-scoring forwards from Ontario and both have won top prizes. Hall’s Windsor Spitfires faced Seguin’s Plymouth Whalers in the playoffs and Hall’s team came out on top, but that’s hardly indicative of any single player’s superiority.

The Boston Bruins will pick second and it’s thought that they’re angling for Hall more than Seguin. The Oilers have been apparently listening to offers, but it isn’t known if anything’s been put in circulation just yet. It’s conceivable that Edmonton might make a small deal with Boston to pass on Hall initially, but how or if that’ll come about is anybody’s guess.

It’s hard to pick a loser between Boston and Edmonton. Of course, the Oilers are a rebuilding club and the recent restructuring of the coaching staff has to be a factor in the team’s mission going forward. The Bruins, meanwhile, are a playoff team and have a tested history in the post-season. Getting such a high pick after a decent season has to be considered a win-win.

Florida will step up to the podium after the Oilers and Bruins have had their picks. The draft is heavy with offensive defencemen and big physical forwards this year, with reports revealing a lack of top-end goaltending and European-based players.

Defencemen Erik Gudbranson, Brandon Gormley and Cam Fowler may be in line next after Hall and Seguin are taken. They’re all scouted to be NHL-ready defenders that should be set to step into a team’s roster immediately. And WHL forward Brett Connolly was expected to go higher, but a recent rash of hip injuries has kept his name out of the top of the charts. He could still go quite high, however.

In any event, it’s sure to be an interesting draft in Los Angeles. Things get underway Friday night.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

It might be hard to believe, but the Ottawa Sun is reporting that the Edmonton Oilers are trying to shop Sheldon Souray around to ditch his cap hit. Souray is worth $5.4 million against the cap and that might be something the Oilers are interested in getting rid of, says the paper.

Of course, Souray has a no-trade clause and will thus have to give the a-okay to any deal struck. Whether the Oilers want to go down that sort of road again remains to be seen and there doesn’t seem to be much sense in the team moving their power play point man at this point. Finding a replacement for Souray’s shot would be difficult, but stranger things have happened.

Souray is 32 years old and has three years left on his contract, so moving him would free up a good amount of cash for the Oil.

Among the teams shopped around for Souray’s services in the rumour mill are the Montreal Canadiens. This is especially interesting because it would that Sheldon would return to the fold. The Oilers have been showing considerable interest in Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn, says the Sun, and could be jockeying for position to gain their services by batting Souray’s name into the mix.

The Oilers were also discussing a deal involving Andrew Cogliano and the Habs in some capacity, so that also may come about. Cogliano’s name has been included in various trade rumours as of late.

Trading Souray might look like an odd, unbelievable move at this point and time. The Oilers would certainly miss his presence, but if they have a goal in mind and a set of players they’re interested in they could reasonably pull the trigger on a trade with the big defenceman.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

It doesn’t seem like things can get much worse for fans of the Edmonton Oilers. The club has already lost 145 man-games due to injuries and recently broke the news that Ales Hemsky will be out for the remainder of the season thanks to shoulder surgery.

Robert Nilsson (concussion), Taylor Chorney (ankle), Mike Comrie (mono), Denis Grebeshkov (knee), Nikolai Khabibulin (back), Fernando Pisani (colitis), Ryan Stone (knee), and Marc Pouliot (sports hernia) are also out of the Oilers’ line-up.

The team is near the bottom of the Western Conference, as you might expect, and is struggling to put together a full 60-minute game. Even with such adversity, Oilers GM Steve Tambellini wants to stick with the group he has for the time being. He’s in no hurry to make a trade, he told the Edmonton Sun.

“A lot of teams deal with injuries at different times of the year,” Tambellini said. “This has been a hard month for us, dealing with the flu virus, concussions and now this with Ales. But that’s what you’re dealt with and we’ll find ways to get through.”

Word around the campfire has been that Edmonton is looking for a top-six forward to transition into the line-up. Now would be a great time to make a deal, of course, and there are a few possibilities for the Oilers that could work snugly with their current roster. Still, Tambellini says he’d prefer to see how the Oilers react to this adversity.

“We’ll see how our guys react. There are some people that we know we can get more out of offensively. So we’ll see how this group reacts and we want to see how the team looks with some people coming back in a couple of weeks. But these situations can present opportunity also, so we’ll see what happens,” he said.

For the time being, it looks like Edmonton fans will have to be satisfied with the team they have on the ice. With a little more hustle and some grit, that may not turn out to be such a bad thing after all.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

To say that the Edmonton Oilers aren’t expected to do much in the upcoming NHL season would be an understatement. While many thought the club would be near the top of the league last year, the upcoming 2009-2010 season has most pundits and analysts pegging the Oilers as missing the playoffs altogether and taking up residency somewhere near the bottom of the pile.

But that’s just the position the Oilers want to be in.

Sure, the Oilers have the Dany Heatley saga to contend with, but it looks like they’ve come out of that with little more than hurt feelings and a whole lot of hometown animosity towards the new San Jose Shark. With the trade talks being so out in the open and the players on the block for Heatley fully aware of their team’s intention to trade them, the situation could leave some locker room problems to be solved.

On the ice, however, the Oilers have a whole lot to prove. Young players will need to bounce back and prepare themselves for the long haul, while the completely revamped coaching staff will need to prove their stuff behind the bench. With Craig MacTavish out and Pat Quinn and Tom Renney in, the Oilers will be a new team with a new direction.

The workload from the coaching staff is going to be shared, with Renney dealing with the team’s defensive corps while Quinn handles five-on-five situations and all other major aspects of coaching. Wayne Flemming will chip in with coaching assistance on the power play, while former Oiler Kelly Buchberger will lend his expertise to the penalty kill.

Nikolai Khabibulin has a lot on his shoulders between the pipes, too. He’ll need to show that he can still backstop his team to some wins and his enormous salary demands a top-tier performance from the former superstar. Does he still have it in him? There’s only one way to find out.

On paper, the Oilers look like a bit of a mess. There’s a lot to make up for in the off-season, but at the end of the day all that matters in this league is what happens on the ice. With one of the best work ethics in the league and some truly talented young players, Edmonton might surprise a few people in this upcoming season.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Mike Comrie will be returning to play for the Edmonton Oilers. He signed a one-year contract to play with the team he spent three years on previously. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Comrie was drafted by the Oilers in 1999 and notched 63 goals and a total of 133 points in 192 games with Edmonton.

A contract dispute led to his being traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in late 2003, however, and he’s been a bit of a journeyman forward since then. Comrie has played on the New York Islanders, Phoenix Coyotes, and Ottawa Senators as well.

“I realize that the last six years was not easy on me,” Comrie said. “It wasn’t, obviously. I wasn’t a fan favourite for the reason, for leaving Edmonton. But having this chance to work hard and to try to, you know, help this team — all I can ask for is a chance.”

Comrie came off like a bit of a spoiled brat upon leaving Edmonton. He was young and impulsive, however, and indeed deserves a second chance to play for the club. I think he could be a healthy addition to the roster and has developed a reliable skill-set that should contribute to various on-ice situations.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

It looks like Steve Tambellini and the Edmonton Oilers are moving on from the Dany Heatley saga. Friday featured the Edmonton GM publicly announcing that he was no longer interested in procuring the services of the disgruntled, dickish Heatley.

“We gave ourselves an allotted amount of time internally … to explore every opportunity to see if there was something that would work - it didn’t,” Tambellini said during a conference call. “It’s time for us to move on. We’re very comfortable with that.”

Tambellini and the Oilers have been courting Heatley for a while now, even beyond his initial refusal to join the team. The most recent attempt included a video package and, presumably, a lovely basket of fruit.

The mess all started after Tambellini hammered out a deal for Heatley with the Senators only to have the winger refuse to waive his no-trade clause. This has kept Heatley in limbo with the Senators and GM Bryan Murray, who has continued to say, rightly, that his player is still a member of the Ottawa team. Heatley was also paid a $4 million bonus from the Senators, as per his contract, despite the fact that he had asked for a trade and then refused the one set up for him. Ah, money.

Tambellini outlined the proceedings with reporters somewhat, noting that things were going relatively well in the early going of negotiations. “Then there was a change of position with the way Dany’s advisers were talking about things,” said Tambellini. “Things changed after that and really never got back on track. That’s fine - they can explore options elsewhere.”

Tambellini expressed disappointment that details of the deal were made public, especially given the fact that the deal went nowhere, but didn’t apologize for his team’s aggressive approach at trying to land the star player. “We took a very aggressive approach on July 1,” said Tambellini. “There’s not too many people out there that are in the prime of their career and have the potential of scoring 50 goals every year.”

While some say the Oilers were aggressive, still others say that they came off as desperate. Their desperation, in my view, was especially palpable towards the end of the negotiation process after Heatley had already made it clear that he wasn’t interested.

Tambellini says he’s ready to roll with the team he has and should be about done in terms of making big moves. “I didn’t feel that it was stopping us from doing anything else,” said Tambellini. “We had to make a decision that it was time to move on. We did everything that we thought we could. We’ve got a team that we’re looking forward to seeing in September.”

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

The Edmonton Oilers are continuing to court disgruntled forward Dany Heatley despite his earlier refusal of their advances. It’s beginning to look like the Oilers’ organization is resembling a desperate teenager, complete with sweaty palms, pursuing a potential date.

The most recent attempt to get Heatley to notice them came when the Oilers packaged up some videos and sent them along. The organization sent an employee to deliver the videos personally to Heatley’s agent, who happens to be staying in British Columbia. One can only imagine the humiliation the employee must have felt and one can only wonder whether he or she also brought flowers, chocolates or champagne.

For whatever reason, the Oilers organization has struggled to entice big money players to stick around in Edmonton. Chris Pronger wasn’t interested in staying for long and the team had to dangle a bigger-than-necessary salary in front of goalie Nikolai Khabibulin to get him to sign up.

According to reports, the video package featured clips of the offensive “wizardry” of players like Shawn Horcoff and Ales Hemsky. The intention to woo Heatley with these clips is somewhat sad, especially given the fact that should Heatley actually arrive in Edmonton he’ll be much more trouble than he might be worth.

The time for Kevin Lowe to stop the insanity has long passed, but it’s not too late to save face and stop pursuing a player who obviously has no interest in playing for the Oilers. The whole thing is a joke, resembling a monstrous appeal to Heatley’s swelling ego more than an earnest attempt to win a valuable player.

The Oilers already outdid themselves and made themselves look stupid when Steve Tambellini and Lowe headed to Kelowna for a meeting with Heatley at the end of June. It was a waste of their time and made them look, well, pathetic. To follow that mistake up with another one in the form of this video package is just silly.

The Edmonton Oilers used to have a proud history and they used to be THE place to play in Western Canada. With moves like these, it looks as though the Oilers have lost their sense of history and their sense of pride. It’s up to Tambellini and Lowe to save face and give Pat Quinn something significant to work with in the upcoming season. And it’s up to the entire Oilers organization to prove to Edmonton, to the fans and to the league that they’re worth something again.

Screw Dany Heatley.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

It looks like the Edmonton Oilers are moving on up in the world with two top-tier coaches being added to the franchise. The Oilers named Pat Quinn as their head coach and Tom Renney as an assistant today, also retaining former Oiler Kelly Buchberger as an assistant.

On a personal note, it’s nice to see Pat Quinn behind the bench again. It is especially nice that he is yet again coaching a Canadian team, given his history with Team Canada. His most recent coaching assignment came with the 2008 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships as his squad won gold over Team Sweden.

“If I think of leadership, I think of Pat. If I think of the way you want to be treated as a player, I think of someone like Pat Quinn. I’m very excited that he accepted this job as head coach,” said Edmonton general manager Steve Tambellini.

Having played for the Edmonton Oil Kings in his junior days, Quinn certainly isn’t a coach without a regional attachment. He is also well aware of the tradition of the Oilers hockey club and, at 66 years of age, will bring a wealth of experience to the franchise. With two Jack Adams awards under his belt, it will be interesting to see which direction he takes the Oilers team. The players will respect him and he should be a nice fit.

That he has Tom Renney at his side is quite the added bonus, too.

The decision was not altogether surprising coming from Tambellini, who knows both Quinn and Renney well from his days in the Vancouver Canucks organization. Apparently Marc Crawford was also being considered for the job.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.