In the 2002 Draft, as the article mentions, the Oil had three second rounders. With those picks, they selected the following three players…

Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers G
Matt Greene D
Jarret Stoll C

Drouin-Deslauriers has been very good in the minors, and looks to be an NHL goalie in the near future. Roloson is surely going to retire soon, and Drouin-Deslauriers will be a backup at the very least.

Matt Greene is a big, tough, physical stay-at-home defenseman who was 4th on the team in TOI last season. A solid 2nd pairing defenseman.

Jarret Stoll, well, nothing more needs to be said.

Meanwhile, Jiri Hudler is a one-dimensional scoring forward who doesn’t score and hasn’t been able to stick. He should stick this year, but that’s because the Wings don’t have a choice thanks to the mismanagement of their idiot GM Kenny Dutch.

Suffice it to say, I doubt that Edmonton is kicking itself over passing on Hudler.

Posted by Thomas on 07/26/07 at 03:05 PM ET

Holland’s “mismanagement” will land the Wings at worst 3rd in the West while Edmonton’s “management” will land them in a lottery drawing.

Posted by Heaton on 07/26/07 at 04:15 PM ET

Holland has the benefit of playing in the worst division in hockey, where his only rival just completed a firesale, and he benefited from having an absolutely LOADED roster when he took over, and it took him years to piss that all away.

The Wings in the Northwest division would be a bubble playoff team at best. The Wings are one of the shallowest teams in the league because of Holland.

Enjoy that.

The Oilers, on the other hand, have a wealth of young talent, and are out there trying to pick off other teams’ young stars to help the team come together and contend. You don’t see Holland out there making moves to better his team because he wouldn’t know what to do.

Posted by Thomas on 07/26/07 at 05:18 PM ET

I wonder if the ‘worst division in hockey’ song was being sung back when the Avs were the beneficiary of 5 straight seasons having no other team in their division hit 90 points.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 07/26/07 at 09:20 PM ET

You’ve gotta be joking.  Lowe is out there trying to pick of other teams young “stars” (if you want to call Penner that) because he couldn’t land any of the big UFAs.  Hell, he couldn’t even land the ones that said yes (Nylander).  Offering $4 million to a player who has had one pretty good 27-goal season (while earining a minus 2 on the Ducks) isn’t the sign of a skillful planner, it’s the sign of a desperate man.

Meanwhile, Kenny keeps one of the best defenses in the league shored up and has a pretty relaxed free agency period thanks to his foresight in signing Datsyuk before the playoffs.

Posted by ColBerdan from San Jose on 07/26/07 at 09:28 PM ET

Don’t bother responding to Thomas, he won’t be swayed by rational discourse.

Posted by PDXWing from Portland, OR on 07/26/07 at 11:20 PM ET

I still don’t understand why people think the Northwest is somehow the “toughest” division in all of hockey.  If I had to rank it, that division would probably be 5th.  Most of that division is built up by average hockey teams. 

The only reason that teams dread the “Western Canada” road trip is the travel.

Posted by Heaton on 07/26/07 at 11:41 PM ET

Meanwhile, Kenny keeps one of the best defenses in the league shored up

Subtract Markov and Schneider and add Rafalski. That’s not keeping the defense shored up, that’s a downgrade.

Granted, they had a very deep defense before losing Markov (Rafalski is a slight enough downgrade on Schneider that you could call it a wash), but still. The defense is weaker than it was.

and has a pretty relaxed free agency period thanks to his foresight in signing Datsyuk before the playoffs.

All that spinning must make you dizzy.

Holland has had a “relaxed” free agency period because he has no money to spend after overpaying Datsyuk, and knowing that Zetterberg is going to need a huge raise very shortly.

Don’t bother responding to Thomas, he won’t be swayed by rational discourse.

*yawn*

I *am* rational discourse, kiddo. I just don’t drink Wings (or any other team’s, for that matter) Kool-Aid.

Seeing through spin is not a lack of rational thought.

I still don’t understand why people think the Northwest is somehow the “toughest” division in all of hockey.

Style of play, and depth from top to bottom. It’s a rough, physical division. The teams aren’t average, there are just a bunch of really good teams that have been pretty much equal the past few years.

Put Edmonton or Colorado in the Central and they make the playoffs easily.

Posted by Thomas on 07/27/07 at 04:25 AM ET

Colorado was 10-9-1 against the Central.  Edmonton was worse (9-10-1).

The Northwest doesn’t have the severe dropoff that the Central had last year between the top 2 and the bottom 3, but I have a hard time believing that makes the NW a ‘better’ conference overall.

This year may be a different story if Nashville completely reeks (and it appears they will), but as I mentioned before, I hardly think Avs fans were droning on and on about how weak their division was while they were slagging a much worse division then compared to what the Central is now.

As far as calling Datsyuk’s contract ‘overpayment’... um, what?  Have you noticed any of the contracts for top line centers lately?  Hell, guys like Penner are getting 4.5 mil a year offer sheets.  It’s impossible to call 6.7 for Datsyuk an overpayment.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 07/27/07 at 09:24 AM ET

I’m not ready to call Jeff DD and Matt Greene better players than Jiri Hudler…the future will tell us.

Personally, I think Kevin Lowe is suffering from the worst professional nervous breakdown in history. He looks like me when I’m losing a Risk game and instead of slowly rebuilding my empire, I go out kamikaze-style in a blaze of glory…

Posted by Luc on 07/27/07 at 10:21 AM ET

Style of play, and depth from top to bottom. It’s a rough, physical division. The teams aren’t average, there are just a bunch of really good teams that have been pretty much equal the past few years.

Put Edmonton or Colorado in the Central and they make the playoffs easily.

Didn’t Vancouver miss the playoffs because they got swept by St. Louis in the first year after the lockout? 

The division doesn’t have one very good team in it, it’s one of the few in hockey.

And yes they’re equal, equally average.

Posted by Heaton on 07/27/07 at 11:40 AM ET

Yeah, Datsyuk’s contract is overpaying but offering Penner two-thirds the money for half the point production is an act of sheer brilliance.  Got it.

Posted by ColBerdan from San Jose on 07/27/07 at 01:58 PM ET

I’d guess the toughest division is the Pacific.

San Jose is very good in the regular season, Dallas is strong defensively, Anaheim is deep and solid, Los Angeles is rebuilding and will (hopefully) start to show some year-to-year improvement, and Phoenix…

Maybe the Coyotes can infect their opponents with rabies and win a few games while they are sick!

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 07/28/07 at 08:15 PM ET