The third of three posts delving into the negative, the obvious and the positive aspects of the Souray signing. So...
The Positives
1. First and foremost, he signed. Like him or not Souray was considered one of the better UFA's on the market. Like it or not Edmonton was not considered one of the better UFA destinations in the market.
Always good to break with conventional prejudice.
2. Souray is a good veteran. By most accounts he is good in the dressing room, is professional in his conduct and he seems to be happy to be coming to Edmonton. All good things. Losing Smyth and Smith drops a lot of leadership out of the Oilers dressing room - Souray will help with that.
Souray should work well into the team.
3. Souray has some verifiable skills. He is good (and can be great) on the PP, steady and effective on the PK and is capable of playing it very, very tough. While he is situational, because he lacks a good transition game, he should be very useful to Huddy and Simpson.
His work on the PP will define him and may well determine the future of our season.
4. Souray's piss-poor EV results can partially be tied to the guys he played with and the apparent fact that they, as a group, were playing opposition that they were incapable of matching. This means that his EV results are fixable.
Fixable is good. Here's hoping Souray is okay with being fixed. Unless of course they don't fix him. In which case we're screwed.
5. Souray may not be tradeable but at least we now have depth in regards to having offensive-minded defensemen on the team. The Oilers can show a lot of different looks now and I wouldn't be surprised to see Tarnstrom getting traded at the deadline.
Being able to afford to trade someone without creating a hole at that spot is good.
6. Souray is, apparently, an orgasm on skates. This should really help with with the sale of the 'help-us-build-a-new-building-because-charity-starts-with-us' cheesecake calendar. Some benefits aren't always that obvious early on but the girls at Hot Oil are capable of seeing things I do not.
Eyes on the prize everyone. Eyes on the prize.
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So those points, in general, are the positive aspects to the signing. I am a firm believer that this contract can work to our benefit. Improve Souray's EV game, keep all of his PK game and retain 80% of the improvement in his PP game and we have a winner.
No pressure.
I may not be happy... but neither am I all mad or sad or bad or nad... and I will assume those are good things and I will also assume that I can have a reasonable expectation of more good things.
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Have a great evening everyone.
1 comment:
Enjoyed all three Souray posts. Good stuff.
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