#1 pick- Winger or Centre? – from 2010

Today I will republish a third post from the now defunct Low on Oil site. This sure beats coming up with new ideas; I feel like a modern day Rick Reily.

This post originally followed the Taylor vs. Tyler debate that I posted last Sunday. When reading, try to eliminate the “Ilya Kovalchuk is currently in the Stanley Cup” narrative from your mind. I would quickly counter that the Kings made the dance with three quality centres in Kopitar, Richards and Carter.

And that is gist of the post. If you can draft a centre who is almost as good as a winger, draft that centre.

—original post below—

Taylor Hall vs. Tyler Seguin – from 2010

Below is a second post that I wrote for Low on Oil back during the 2009-2010 hockey season that I will republish on this site. It was a debate on who the Oilers should draft with their first #1 overall pick. I said Tyler, the Oilers went with Taylor.

A couple of years on, the Oilers find themselves with their third straight #1 overall pick. The discussion this year is do the Oilers draft the best player available or a defenseman?

I have read a few compelling articles on draft value that suggest a limited amount of elite talent available each year. Top 5 picks are sacred and really should be spent on the best player available if possible. None of this year’s defensemen available are good enough to select with the #1 overall selection.

Getting back to Taylor vs. Tyler, the post below is a pretty good read and I think it has implications for this year’s draft. I don’t think the question should be Nail Yakupov vs. Ryan Murray. It should be Yakupov vs. Alex Galchenyuk, or Yakupov vs. Mikhail Grigorenko. Should the Oilers pick a winger or a centre?

For this year, the post from 2010 below has my answer for the 2012 #1 pick. If given the choice between a greatly skilled winger and a greatly skilled centre, the Oilers should pick the centre.  From there, I would defer to Corey Pronman over at Hockey Prospectus and take Grigorenko over Galchenyuk.

——the original post below—- 

Living and Slowly Dying in Phoenix- from 2009

I noticed a couple of months ago that the Oilers site that I used to write on, Low on Oil, has been taken down. Fortunately I was able to get into the back end of the site and retrieve some of the posts I wrote back during 2009.

This ole site has suffered from a lack of ambition, a bit of writer’s block and a lack of effort. I would offer up some excuses but they don’t matter. I would suggest the possibility of new entries soon, but I am not sure that is true. I have started a couple of things the past month that aren’t good.

I find it interesting that as I read more and more great sports writing, I seem to have lost my voice. I like writing posts with a statisitical slant, but find my old theories have been largely replaced by better theories put forward by others. It has been great from a learning perspective, but leaves me a bit dry on the original ideas front.

Anyways, I thought I would throw up a few of the posts that I liked from the Low on Oil days. This first one details my trip down to Phoenix to watch the Coyotes and Cardinals. Most of what I wrote holds true today. The deep playoff run this year doesn’t change the fact that the Phoenix area cannot sustain a NHL team. Perhaps some can admire Gary Bettman’s determined effort to keep the team from moving, but it is an exercise in delusion. Any owner dumb enough to keep the team in Phoenix better have a couple hundred million dollars they are willing to throw away.

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