Edmonton Oilers Half-way mark report

Edmonton Oilers Stats (January 8th 2011) 42 game mark



NHL Western Conference "Half way" mark



Edmonton's Future Outlook
"We're doing slightly better than we had hoped" admitted General Manager Morgan Kowalski at the half-way mark (+1 game). "The guys are working hard, committed to Kevin (Constantine)'s game plan and we are delighted to see that." Kowalski continued. Edmonton ran into somewhat of a mire with a period of frequent losses lately, which might be attributed to the tough schedule.

Kowalski revealed that there might be some trade activity on the Oilers part between now and the trade deadline. "We are always working to transfer our assets from old to young, from short contract to long and from one-dimensional to multi-dimensional. Right now, there is interest in a number of our players, but we're still assessing whether we have more use for them ourselves. It is safe to say we won't be picking up any veterans, though, unless it some special circumstances apply."

When asked about the draft, Kowalski was very straight forward and stated that "I am not very impressed with the overall quality of this draft, but I think we can get something from it. The general impression of the draft pool does lessen our interest in draft picks, at least the pricey top end ones. We might add a depth pick or two if we can."

Reporters probed Kowalski on the Matt Lashoff trade, pointing out that Lashoff has been brilliant since his move to Phoenix, and although Krysanov has done fairly well, asked if there was any regret in that trade? "Bitter-sweet" replied Kowalski, "because I don't mind Lashoff's success, but I had hoped he could do better here. He is a quality player, but the roster issues left him on the outside."