Ahhh one of my favourite teams of year. When the autumn air becomes crisp enough to light the first fire of the year to take the chill out of the air in the house. Aaaaaaaand when your a die hard Oiler fan the first taste of misery after just the first game of the year. When we learned yesterday that Adam Larsson was going to be out 6-8 weeks it seemed like a story that us Oiler fans have seen all too often over the last generation basically. One step forward with a nice win over division rival Canucks and 2 back with the loss of one of the few defenceman capable of playing top 4 minutes on the blue line.
Instead of wallowing in the grim details of the day we will, in the wise words of Ken Holland “dig in”. So with that in mind let’s take a look at the Oilers options to pick up the slack left by the injury to Adam Larsson.
Yesterday the Oilers recalled Evan Bouchard and sent down Ethan Bear in conjunction with them putting Larsson on LTIR. Everything I’ve seen and read this is strictly a paper move designed to recapture as much cap space as possible when putting Larsson on LTIR. Although Bouchard is most likely the Oilers most talented Offensive dman I don’t view him as a likely replacement on the roster for Larsson. I think Holland and the Oilers Player Personnel department want Bouchard, as with all prospects, developing in the A not on an NHL roster.
With that in mind let’s have a look at who are viable options to step in and play and what impact they will have on the Oilers on ice success. The most likely scenario, out of the gate is to move Persson off of IR and on to the active roster as word came down yesterday that he is very close to being ready for s return to active duty. With him in the line up the pairings could look something like this: Klefbom w/Bear, Nurse w/ Benning and Russell w/Persson. Bear had a good start in the 1st game but with Larsson out they will have to take on more and tougher minutes. A little scary asking Benning to play more and tougher minutes as well. Was strong vs the Canucks but playing up in the line up is a proposition that makes many of us Oiler fans shudder.
Another scenario the club is mostly likely contemplating is moving Russell up to play with Nurse and then either putting Manning on the 3rd pairing with Benning or recalling Lagesson. This would allow the Nurse/Russell pairing to take on tougher minutes leaving the other pairings to play softer minutes. Russell definitely not a great option and is a downgrade from Larsson in that role but he’s done it before albeit with limited success but the Oilers may have little options at this point.
Whatever path the club decides to go down I will be watching curiously on Saturday night as the Oilers welcome the LA Kings to town. Despite the horrible news with Larsson the team has to “dig in” and put 2 points in the bank against a very venerable Kings team.
The Oil Patch 