Defense of Champions

I have been saying in a few places that the Edmonton Oilers have a boatload of acceptable bottom pairing defensemen.

In fact, I'd suggest Tjarnqvist, Hejda, Bergeron, Smid and Greene would all make terrific 5/6 defensemen on a team with a good or even average top 4.

I also suspect Gilbert, Roy, Syvret and maybe even Chorney could fill similar 5/6 roles effectively.

That's impressive bottom pairing depth. Striking even. However, it all means absolutely nothing when you only have two guys who are legitimate top 4 defenders.

Steve Staios and especially Jason Smith have the weight of the entire city of Edmonton on their shoulders. They have the weight of Chris Pronger's departure on their shoulders. They have the weight of a team coming off an appearance in the finals on their shoulders. They have the weight of 12 forwards who aren't playing confidently because of their awful defense on their shoulders. They have the weight of a goalie who'd been bailing them out but is getting tired on their shoulders.

It's all too damn much for Jason Smith and Steve Staios.

These guys are top 4 defensemen on any team, and in another situation no one is going to be unhappy with them. In this situation Kevin Lowe and Craig MacTavish are just plain asking too much of the poor guys.

Some of us (myself included) felt a strong group of forwards would be able to overcome our current situation at last until the deadline. At that point adding one pretty good veteran should be enoughl. A little examination of NHL history proves us wrong as much as the current results do.

• The Carolina Hurricanes of 2005-06 had a defense that we enjoyed comparing our group to in pre-season projections. However, I would suggest Kaberle, Hedican, Ward, Commodore and Wesley all qualify as potential top 4 defensemen. Wallin still would rank as fairly inexperienced and more at the 5/6 level. Tverdovsky was also at the 5/6 level but barely played in the playoffs. The "no #1 defensive depth" system can work if you have 5 guys who could all be relied upon as at least second pairing guys. That means the workload is split appropriately among reliable guys. Ask yourself who among the defensemen on the Edmonton this year would supplant someone from Carolina's group last year. I would suggest only Jason Smith and Steve Staios. The comparison unfortunately does not hold up. Remember also that the Hurricanes had a relatively weak group on defense for a Cup champion.
  
• The Edmonton Oilers of 2005-06 had a defense dominated by one of the three truly elite defenders in the game today. Chris Pronger played half the game every night including a spot as our primary shut down man and offensive quarterback. There were also 4 defensemen who would legitimately qualify on almost any team's top 4. Bergeron, Greene and Tanstrom were acceptable as 5/6 guys in this case because we only needed them to play limited minutes with such a solid group ahead of them.
• The 2003-04 Tampa Bay Lightning didn't have anyone who would even compare to a Chris Pronger. They also wern't carried by their defense, but the group was certainly a capeable one. Both Dan Boyle and Pavel Kubina at the time would find their place on the top pairing of almost any team in hockey. Sydor is on perhaps a bit of a downturn, but still playing at a top 4 level. Brad Lukowich had all ready been through a few playoff wars with Dallas and Tampa and was by no means a shaky rookie. Sarich is into his 4th year of hockey and is reliable enough. They also rotate in a couple of other guys into that 6th spot throughout the playoffs. Kubina and Boyle carry a lot of the load, but importantly are not being backed up by a bunch of kids. At the very least Boyle, Kubina and Sydor are top 4 on most teams. Once again I'd suggest only Smith and Staios from this year's Oilers would supplant anyone on this unit. However, our 5/6 guys would look fine playing that role on this team because they wouldn't be relied upon for as much.
  
• The 2003-04 Calgary Flames had Regher, Lydman, Leopold, Warrener and Ferrence with Montador stepping in for Gauthier come playoff time for a reason I don't recall. Once again at least four guys who'd qualify as top 4 defenderse with Regher playing well enough to be at least a #2 on any team in hockey. Our group isn't in this league.
  
• The 2002-03 New Jersey Devils start with a similar situation to the 06 Oilers as they have one of those elite defenders in Niedermayer. Employ someone that good and you could have 4 bottom pairing defensemen like we do. Of course they didn't, the Devils also happened to have a future Hall of Famer and 2-time cup champion in Scott Stevens. They had a very capeable #2 on any other team in puck moving Brian Rafalski. If those are your top 3, Rory Fitzpatrick could be 4th. Rafalski is only in his third NHL season here, but he's all ready outscoring Niedermayer so he's well established. Colin White is also in his thid full season, but he'd all ready been a full time part of two runs to the Stanley Cup finals and a championship. There's your top 4, and for an encore you have Tverdovsky, Albelein and Daneyko sharing the bottom pairing duties during the cup run. It's almost unfair. I suspect Jason Smith could have cracked the top 4, but it's entirely possible he and Staios would be the 5th and 6th guys on this depth chart. Think about that.
  
• The Anaheim Mighty Ducks of 2002-03 had a similar group to the recent Hurricane team. Sandis Ozolinsh, Niclas Havelid, Keith Carney, Ruslan Salei, Vitali Vishnevsky (in his third pro season) and rookie Kurt Sauer. I'd say this group is even weaker than Carolina's group due to the inclusion of a rookie and the questionable top 4 status of a couple of those guys. They're the group who gives Oiler fans the most hope out of all recent finalists. This group suggests that if we add one legitimate top 4 guy who could run out PP (ala Murray getting Ozolinsh in 03) and Roloson played out of this world hockey for the entire playoff run, we could possibly contend. However, Giguere played so well during this cup run that no team could even hope their goalie would match that. Regardless, this unit is at least a reachable comparison if Lowe makes only one move. At that point we could only be playing a single rookie at a time (or two at most) and would have at least 3 guys who are reliable top 4 defenders.
  

The year before Detroit beat Carolina. Do I need to mention Lidstrom and Chelios? Carolina had a very similar group to the recent Cup winning unit except they had Ozolinsh and Sean Hill (who was playing very good hockey at the time) instead of Commodore and Kaberle.

In 2000-01 Ray Bourque and Rob Blake led Colorado to a Cup win over Scott Niedermayer and Scott Stevens. Of course, Scott and Scott had just won a cup of their own the year before.

Point made?

As it stands, this small sample of the last several Stanley Cup finalists makes it clear that Kevin Lowe must trade for at least two reliable, veteran defensemen who would qualify for almost any team's top 4. If he doesn't, we shouldn't even bother showing up for the playoffs. One or no moves means we're not even trying to win it all. With a 37 year old goalie and 2 key unrestricted free agents (Smyth and Sykora) that would be a shockingly foolish course of action.

Get it done, Kevin.

(P.S. I also think we need at least another two-way forward. We've got basically a whole fourth line of rookies, and that's not going to cut it. It would be cool if we could bring in someone like Radek Dvorak or Dallas Drake from the Blues. How about Jackman, Brewer or Backman with Drake or Dvorak? I'm sure we have the horses to make that happen. Larry, lets talk!)