The Oilers training camp started on Friday with medicals and yesterday with scrimmages. The Joey Moss Cup is being played right now with team Blue leading the Whites (Penner and Nilsson for Blue and Cole for White). This is a very exciting time for us Oiler fans. We've been without hockey for ~171 days. That is a loooong time! I guarantee we won't have that much time between hockey next year. This team makes the playoffs: no doubt about it!
I think this will be a breakout year for the team, and they'll fight for the division title with a very good chance of winning it. The other teams in the division did not improve their teams over the summer, and you could even say some of them are worse off this year. Calgary is one team that comes to mind: trading Tanguay and signing Bertuzzi were the two big moves. Neither one improves the team and the team could possibly miss the playoffs if Kipper plays like he did last year. One can only hope.......
Back to our Oilers: with new players Visnovsky, Cole, Brule, Potulny coming to town and with some other prospects (Schremp)....the team has some nice depth. This should be Hemsky's breakout year. Looks like Cole will be tried out on his wing but knowing MacT and his blender, don't get used to seeing that as things will change and change. And change.....
The first pre-season game is tomorrow and I shall be sitting in my season seat ready to cheer loud for my Oil. 171 days between hockey games.......bring on the Oil.
GOILERS!
