I would as well. I think Toews brings more to the table. But I just like stronger/grittier guys rathar than primarily "finesse".

Who else do you guys have playing at C?
- ChetManly

Shaw , Kruger and Brad Richards, it is an area that needs improvement.

Not the question again. Only was who else is playing as a 1st centre. If you had today Gagner, and Draisaitl as opposed to Nuge, and Draisaitl, but had drafted a stud D or even had used the Nuge pick as a trade for a stud D would the Oilers be any worse off then they are now in your opinion? Honest question. Not trolling here either.
- mnhockeyguy

We really missed with the drafting of Gags and Cogs both were hopefully for top 6 roles when realistically they were 7-9 forwards all along... and we got reimbursed table scraps for both... that set the org back a fair bit as well- not including schremp and plante and dubnyk really... but hindsight is a wonderful tool to use now isnt it...

I think Philly and Hextall would be the team and GM I would be calling right now if I were MacT... There is good opportunity to maybe get the some better pieces that fit for each team- without making earth shattering splashes...

I think Philly and Hextall would be the team and GM I would be calling right now if I were MacT... There is good opportunity to maybe get the some better pieces that fit for each team- without making earth shattering splashes...
- saskoil21

Yeah both teams need D but they could be a good place to find a decent vet centre.

I hate that Vinny contract, but maybe if we could send the right salary their way.

http://www.tsn.ca/c-mon-r...n-goal-can-stand-1.140015

Yeah both teams need D but they could be a good place to find a decent vet centre.

I hate that Vinny contract, but maybe if we could send the right salary their way.
- Morris

NN (salary retained)??

Wow nothing has improved here since I left to go run some errands

[quote=gravis1982]at some point in the future....say 3 years from now

1d -???
2d - Nurse
3d - Petry
4d - Marincin
5d - Klefbom
6d - Schultz

we will never have a franchise defenseman like webber or a doughty or a chara. We simply have not drafted a sure thing like that. What we need is a #2 through free agency or trade and get him on a good contract. Then, we pray that Nurse develops into a #1 one day, but to not count on it happening. And over the next 5-7 years while we have 2 #2 dmen we just wait to see if we can package our non-drafted #2 D plus a 1st and a good prospect for a #1 D on a team thats looking to rebuild and/or shed salary.

The fate of the oilers right now is resting on darnell nurse and mac T's ability to acquire a #2 or higher defenseman sometime in the next 3 years. Center is a problem, but we only really need a good #3 C, which shouldn't be too difficult.

Things are so easy on the internet
- mnhockeyguy[/quo'

Hamilton as #1d. And contrary to that Chara sheltering him crap, Chara has been hurt pretty much all year and Hamilton is still progressing very well. Nuge has not shown enough to be considered the #1 centre of the future.

You are hilarious. You list Hamilton as a player that has proven himself as #1 DMan of the future ( and by the sounds of it the present as well) , and Monohhan and Grandlund have done enough to be considered legit top line centers yet Nuge has not done enough to be considered a 1C of the future?

Holy (frank), man.

okay. Let me ask my fellow Oilers fans this:we all expect the Oilers to eventually contend. Is this the core roster you expect them to dominate with 4 or 5 years from now?
Hall RNH Eberle
(2016 1st ) Leon Draisaitl Nail Yakupov
Mitch Moroz Yakimov Chase

(2015 1st)Darnell Nurse
Fayne Marincin
Schultz Klefbom

Brossoit /yet undrafted player

???????
Serious Question. Is this how you all see it going down?
My vision is quite different.
- Jeropotato

Increasingly, teams don't "dominate" the NHL with much sustainability. LA and Chicago each have two cups in the last 5 years, but neither has really been a dominating presence in the regular season for a lot of that span including right now.

St Louis has an awesome looking roster with good depth in most areas, but they've been merely competitive. SJS is the perfect example of that.

So I hesitate to say the Oilers will ever dominate the NHL. All of the Pens superior building through the draft has won them a total of one cup, so I'll say the Oil will be lucky to get that let alone 2-3.

That being said, maybe I'm an optimist but that is fairly close to a group of guys that could be a perennial playoff team.

We'd be much much closer if we took that 2015 1st, the 2016 1st, and Eberle and went and got a surefire vet dman to fit into that top pairing gap. That's too big a question mark to be any more sure than to say "with this much talent we're bound to be in the playoffs a few times in the next 10 years before we rebuild again".

Not the question again. Only was who else is playing as a 1st centre. If you had today Gagner, and Draisaitl as opposed to Nuge, and Draisaitl, but had drafted a stud D or even had used the Nuge pick as a trade for a stud D would the Oilers be any worse off then they are now in your opinion? Honest question. Not trolling here either.
- mnhockeyguy

My question was what players drafted since Seguin are 1C's. You named 2 players that play Center on the top line, yet excluded Nuge. You can claim Nuge isn't legit but then neither are those 2 by comparison. You're not showing me any logic in that arguement.
As for your second question RNH is waaaaaY better than Gagner and the addition of a great 21 year old Defensemen would not make us any better with an even worse pair of centers.
4 years from now when LD is a stud you might be right but the current impact I feel is negative.

We really missed with the drafting of Gags and Cogs both were hopefully for top 6 roles when realistically they were 7-9 forwards all along... and we got reimbursed table scraps for both... that set the org back a fair bit as well- not including schremp and plante and dubnyk really... but hindsight is a wonderful tool to use now isnt it...
- saskoil21

Agreed. We drafted too many midgets .

Wow nothing has improved here since I left to go run some errands
- Morris

What did you really expect?

You are hilarious. You list Hamilton as a player that has proven himself as #1 DMan of the future ( and by the sounds of it the present as well) , and Monohhan and Grandlund have done enough to be considered legit top line centers yet Nuge has not done enough to be considered a 1C of the future?

Holy (frank), man.
- Jeropotato

Fun fact:

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is the leading scorer so far of drafts 2011-2013, but unfortunately he's only 4th in PPG if you include the 2010 draft, behind Hall, Seguin and MacKinnon.

BUST!

Increasingly, teams don't "dominate" the NHL with much sustainability. LA and Chicago each have two cups in the last 5 years, but neither has really been a dominating presence in the regular season for a lot of that span including right now.

St Louis has an awesome looking roster with good depth in most areas, but they've been merely competitive. SJS is the perfect example of that.

So I hesitate to say the Oilers will ever dominate the NHL. All of the Pens superior building through the draft has won them a total of one cup, so I'll say the Oil will be lucky to get that let alone 2-3.

That being said, maybe I'm an optimist but that is fairly close to a group of guys that could be a perennial playoff team.

We'd be much much closer if we took that 2015 1st, the 2016 1st, and Eberle and went and got a surefire vet dman to fit into that top pairing gap. That's too big a question mark to be any more sure than to say "with this much talent we're bound to be in the playoffs a few times in the next 10 years before we rebuild again".
- Morris

All I know is that we can either wait h til our developing talent catches up with the clubs ambition or we can start parlaying the assets into a competitive team. I do t have 3 more years of development left in me as a fan.

Fun fact:

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is the leading scorer so far of drafts 2011-2013, but unfortunately he's only 4th in PPG if you include the 2010 draft, behind Hall, Seguin and MacKinnon.

BUST!
- Morris

They are all busts. Hamilton is the best.

All I know is that we can either wait h til our developing talent catches up with the clubs ambition or we can start parlaying the assets into a competitive team. I do t have 3 more years of development left in me as a fan.
- Jeropotato

I think we can make the playoffs within 5 years if we make a good move to acquire a good dman.

Nurse, Klefbom and Marincin are all left shots and we don't have a perfect cap situation. Something's gotta give anyway and it stands to reason that in addition to bringing in some solid talent, it could bring clarity to the picture to move one of Nurse/Klef/Marincin, one of Eberle/Perron/Yakupov and one of the 15 or 16 1sts to acquire a soild left-shooting offensive dman.

They are all busts. Hamilton is the best.
- ChetManly

If his point is that we could use defense, I agree with him. I just wouldn't have pinned my hopes and dreams on Hamilton to be our #1 dman any more than Darnell Nurse, who was also a top 10 draft pick and the 2nd best scouted D prospect of his draft. It's a hindsight argument. I'd file it in the same category as "We should have drafted Datsyuk, Giordano and Jamie Benn instead of whoever we took".

Hamilton looks pretty sweet now, but my order of preference would still be as follows:
1) Draft Nuge
2) Trade down and get assets and draft a dman (maybe Hamilton) around 10th.
3) trade the pick outright and get a real impact veteran dman
4) Go off the board and pick Hamilton 1st overall.

They are all busts. Hamilton is the best.
- ChetManly

Just for fun, how would this team look if the following things didn't or did happen?
1. Sheldon Souray quietly addressed his situation quietly and was moved for a 1st and prospect that summer ( 20th-30th overall, 2011 draft).

2. Ales Hemsky was traded at the Taylor Hall draft when we decided to go full rebuild.

3. Ryan Whitney didn't get hurt and continued to progress rather than regress.
Interesting but it shows how a couple poor decisions and some bad luck has really set us back.

You are hilarious. You list Hamilton as a player that has proven himself as #1 DMan of the future ( and by the sounds of it the present as well) , and Monohhan and Grandlund have done enough to be considered legit top line centers yet Nuge has not done enough to be considered a 1C of the future?

Holy (frank), man.
- Jeropotato

And he is really down playing Chara's role with Hamilton. Yes, Hamilton is doing well with Chara out hurt but how would Hamilton's development been to date if he didn't have Chara as teammate? It helps a lot when you have one of the top D in the league on your team to be able to help mentor your young D prospects. I am sure Hamilton has learned a lot from Chara and that has helped make him the player he is to date. The real question to ask is where would Hamilton be today with his development if he was being mentored by Phaneuf? Valid question as it could of happened. With that said say we did take Hamilton, who do we have on the team to mentor him that could come close to Chara?

Just for fun, how would this team look if the following things didn't or did happen?
1. Sheldon Souray quietly addressed his situation quietly and was moved for a 1st and prospect that summer ( 20th-30th overall, 2011 draft).

2. Ales Hemsky was traded at the Taylor Hall draft when we decided to go full rebuild.

3. Ryan Whitney didn't get hurt and continued to progress rather than regress.
Interesting but it shows how a couple poor decisions and some bad luck has really set us back.
- Jeropotato

As I said, the problem with defense was that

We turned Matt Greene into Visnovsky into Whitney into nothing in like 5 years.
We also turned Smith into Pitkanen into nothing in two years.
We also turned Souray into nothing in three years.

Our team was sitting pretty with a pretty solid Dcore all under the age of 30, so where was the need to invest in a ton of dmen especially when our forwards were so bad? There wasn't one. We didn't bank on Lowe/Tambs deer-shanking almost every trade and injuries being such a concern.

This, and not drafting, has caused the biggest problems with our defense.

Arugably, our drafted/young dmen (Petry, Klefbom, Nurse, Marincin, Schultz) are the best part of our dcore and our signed/acquired ones (Ference, Fayne, Niktin, Aulie) are the worst part.

My question was what players drafted since Seguin are 1C's. You named 2 players that play Center on the top line, yet excluded Nuge. You can claim Nuge isn't legit but then neither are those 2 by comparison. You're not showing me any logic in that arguement.
As for your second question RNH is waaaaaY better than Gagner and the addition of a great 21 year old Defensemen would not make us any better with an even worse pair of centers.
4 years from now when LD is a stud you might be right but the current impact I feel is negative.
- Jeropotato

Nuge, Forsberg, MacKinnon, Bjugstad maybe?? All top line C's right now but not #1's

#1C's are hard to come by..... only way to get them is through the draft.

Seguin is a true #1

Just for fun, how would this team look if the following things didn't or did happen?
1. Sheldon Souray quietly addressed his situation quietly and was moved for a 1st and prospect that summer ( 20th-30th overall, 2011 draft).

2. Ales Hemsky was traded at the Taylor Hall draft when we decided to go full rebuild.

3. Ryan Whitney didn't get hurt and continued to progress rather than regress.
Interesting but it shows how a couple poor decisions and some bad luck has really set us back.
- Jeropotato

If we're allowed to use tons of hindsight and wild speculation (theme of the day )

1. we use the 19th and 20th-30th picks to move up to 9th overall and draft Dougie Hamilton

2. Hemsky goes for a late 1st in 2010 and we probably draft Mark Pysyk.

3. He plateaus and comes down to earth a little bit, but he and Petry form a decent enough stopgap 1st pairing until Dougie is ready.

4. Apparently we still get a chance to draft Nuge, Yakupov and Nurse because in hindsight situations you always fallaciously seem to get the best of both worlds.

Nuge, Forsberg, MacKinnon, Bjugstad maybe?? All top line C's right now but not #1's

#1C's are hard to come by..... only way to get them is through the draft.

Seguin is a true #1
- nanook82

Where do people draw the distinction between "bad 1st line centre" and "not a true 1st line centre?"

I find a lot of time that when people are commenting about someone's talent, they're often talking inadvertently about depth and organizational structure.

Just for fun, how would this team look if the following things didn't or did happen?
1. Sheldon Souray quietly addressed his situation quietly and was moved for a 1st and prospect that summer ( 20th-30th overall, 2011 draft).

2. Ales Hemsky was traded at the Taylor Hall draft when we decided to go full rebuild.

3. Ryan Whitney didn't get hurt and continued to progress rather than regress.
Interesting but it shows how a couple poor decisions and some bad luck has really set us back.
- Jeropotato

I really wish #3 had taken that route.

If his point is that we could use defense, I agree with him. I just wouldn't have pinned my hopes and dreams on Hamilton to be our #1 dman any more than Darnell Nurse, who was also a top 10 draft pick and the 2nd best scouted D prospect of his draft. It's a hindsight argument. I'd file it in the same category as "We should have drafted Datsyuk, Giordano and Jamie Benn instead of whoever we took".

Hamilton looks pretty sweet now, but my order of preference would still be as follows:
1) Draft Nuge
2) Trade down and get assets and draft a dman (maybe Hamilton) around 10th.
3) trade the pick outright and get a real impact veteran dman
4) Go off the board and pick Hamilton 1st overall.
- Morris

This is, quite possibly, the most accurate, truthful and on-point comment I think I've ever read.