Reversal of Fortune

Guess who is an Edmonton Oiler?? Yes this guy, Sheldon Souray. I don't know details of the contract yet, but this is a surprising signing. Wikipedia has info on the contract already but not sure if it's accurate (they say it's a 5 year deal 27 million which averages to $5.4 mill). So what do we think? Yes, we might actually have a successful powerplay this year. Although, we give up something even strength.

Some facts on Souray:

- 19 of 26 goals came on the powerplay last year, so he is almost one-dimensional in his scoring
- plus/minus last year was -28 (damn, Lupul had a -29)
- he'll win the next Hot Off easily

So is the bad outweighed by the good? Also, how was this guy not signed sooner? Is it his even strength play that kept some teams on the sidelines?

So our defense is set. It's a complete reversal from last year. Now we'll watch Kevin Lowe wait until February to fix our offense.

Update: Is Patrick LaForge an idiot? Here are some of his comments on Primetime Sports today (sportsnet):

- Edmonton is not a great city. It's a fine city
- You need to budget for snow tires
- We wouldn't want another franchise in our background (in reference to the Hamilton issue and more Canadian NHL teams)

And many more gems of wisdom from him. And basically the dude on the show kept asking about the Hamilton issue and nothing much about the Oilers themselves. Nice to see Toronto being Toronto: self-centered!!! Also, the Canadian teams don't want to share their television contract with another Canadian team: Laforge basically admitted that. Good one!

AND, we now have two replacements for the number 44: Souray and Pitkanen. Who gets the number?

AND a nice quote from Souray:

"If no one else wants to be associated with the organization, believe me, there's one guy here who does."