Oilers Shifting Into A New Gear

A busy off season has turned the morale around in Edmonton. The largest contributor of that boost has been Drew Doughty. With an infectious attitude and a win at all cost mentality, Doughty is bringing something to the Oilers locker room that's been missing the past 2 years - confidence. "Yea I don't care about the last two years. It sucked, I saw it from the winning side. We're in the here and now and it's time to turn this city around dammit."

Doughty will be anchoring the top pairing alongside Rasmus Andersson, who is hoping to pick up as much as he can from the veteran. So far though the pairing of Shea Theodore and Brian Dumoulin has stood out most in preseason and the team's first 2 regular season games. With a combined 4 assists, 10 blocked shots, and 3 hits, the lanky second pairing has been leading the charge. Oilers' depth on defense also continues to stand out with Matt Benning, Justin Holl and Mark Giordano locking things down in the middle of the lineup.

Depth however comes at a price, as reports say recent 1-way signings Nick Seeler and Troy Stecher are not happy with starting the season in the press box of (not Rogers) Rexall Place. Unable to play in the minors, both are hoping to get some games in soon as that morale rating continues to drift into the unknown. "I didn't sign here for this, not like this." said a visibly unhappy Nick Seeler leaving the arena.

The team is also thrilled so far with the play of free agent signings Jordan Martinook and Travis Boyd. Both have been able to contribute offense from the 3rd line and lead a so far 100% penalty kill. Of course with this article, the Oilers are guaranteed to give up a power play goal in their upcoming game.

More will be needed from the 4th line and especially rookie Lukas Reichel who is on a two-way contract. A talented dynamic forward, Reichel is hoping to learn all he can for now in limited minutes with the big club, and possibly encounter some type of performance enhancing drugs in the middle of the season. Another 4th line forward hoping to grow into more is recent signing Phillip Di Guiseppe. A hard working two way puck hound, Phillip has aspirations to be a 1st line complementary forward to JT Miller maybe as soon as this season. "I know JT, we're good pals from another league so I'm hoping they put me on the top line some day to show what I can do." 

There are talks of bringing in another forward to help ease the load in the middle of the lineup. Management learned from last season that sometimes a trade does more damage to the morale than it's intended benefit, which is why the desire is to do things earlier if needed. On the developmental side the Oilers are especially happy with the progress of Drew Commesso, Jagger Firkus, and Roni Hirvonen, as well as recent draftees Beau Akey and Felix Unger-Sorum. There is also still strong belief in draft faller Luca Cagnoni who is off to a fast start with 2g 5a +6 in 5 games in the WHL.

Finally it's a crazy world that feels like is only getting more difficult by the day, which is why Oilers decided to lower ticket prices for the upcoming season for all but the luxury box. With all the endless pain and suffering sometimes, all we have is each other and hockey, so we want all our fans to have more access to it. Oil up.