The steady vets or the flashy youth?

By Dan Thompson

Pretty soon, the Edmonton Oilers are going to need to select a course for this season. They could opt for the safe choice – to keep a stable of veterans and hope they play better than their career averages – or the flashier, risky call of mixing in the young guys who could vault them more immediately to the top of the Northwest Division.

Seemingly, the Oilers are prepared to go either route, as indirectly suggested in Jim Matheson’spiece 

in the Edmonton Journal today.

There are good reasons behind both, as Matheson outlines. Consider the upsides to each.

By infusing youth, the Oilers would be throwing a ton of pressure on Jordan Eberle and – to a lesser extent – Ryan Stone, who are 19 and 24 years old, respectively. If they kept both and jettisoned, say, Robert Nilsson and Fernando Pisani, they would be telling Eberle and Stone that they need to produce big numbers this year, because look who the team got rid of to give the young pair roster spots.

Eberle and Stone could very well become great players – and in Eberle’s case, there doesn’t seem to be much doubt – but the concern is asking too much too early of a 2008 first-rounder. Ditching a home-town guy like Pisani wouldn’t be a brilliant PR move, either.

On the other hand, the squad of veterans, like Nilsson (if a 24-year-old can be a veteran) and Fernando Pisani, would give the Oilers a steady, rather predictable production. Nilsson is a career plus-2, Pisani a 15-goal, 15-assist type of player. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that approach, considering the beat-’em-up nature of the Northwest and how much other young talent the Oilers possess.
 
Patrick O’Sullivan could return to his 22-goal form of three seasons ago, provided he stays healthy. Ales Hemsky has scored 13, 20 and 23 goals the past three years, respectively. Plus, guys like Marc Pouliot and and Sam Gagner are still young enough to be gauged by their potential and not by their past.

There are good reasons for the Oilers to go either way. But the bottom line remains: Edmonton needs someone to step up and score goals. Otherwise, the Oilers are on their way to another ho-hum campaign in a division stuffed with better versions of mediocrity.

Tags: Eberle, Edmonton, Edmonton Journal, Gagner, Matheson, Nilsson, Oilers, Pisani