nexttothemoon
and again...
Smith is easily the most critical new addition imo... he could add a lot of stability to the team in net and if he plays well (91%+).. that essentially becomes easily as important as adding a top 6 forward or a top 4 dman.
If I had to make a wild guess on which other player could really surprise... probably Persson. If he plays as well as he played in the SHL... it's like essentially injecting a top 4 dman into the lineup for free out of nowhere.. which would be a hell of an addition. I don't think we should "expect" that... but the (outside) possibility is there that he pans out and it really helps the Oilers D group become more balanced.
I think Archibald will be solid in the bottom 6 so I'm not really expecting a "surprise" from him... just that he'll be a solid and hard working player that gives his all while chipping in 10+ goals (which we obviously haven't had a lot of on this team in the bottom 6 in the past 2 seasons).
Others like Nygard... hard to say... has the potential to be a great addition because of his speed but we have to see if he can play at the NHL level. If he can even put up 20-30 pts in the bottom 6 that would have to be considered a success.
Jurco/Haas... again we basically just have to wait and see... Haas looks to have good speed and Jurco has offensive skill... so some ingredients are there to be solid contributors but we've all seen players with solid potential fizzle once they hit the NHL level.
If I had to make a wild guess on which other player could really surprise... probably Persson. If he plays as well as he played in the SHL... it's like essentially injecting a top 4 dman into the lineup for free out of nowhere.. which would be a hell of an addition. I don't think we should "expect" that... but the (outside) possibility is there that he pans out and it really helps the Oilers D group become more balanced.
I think Archibald will be solid in the bottom 6 so I'm not really expecting a "surprise" from him... just that he'll be a solid and hard working player that gives his all while chipping in 10+ goals (which we obviously haven't had a lot of on this team in the bottom 6 in the past 2 seasons).
Others like Nygard... hard to say... has the potential to be a great addition because of his speed but we have to see if he can play at the NHL level. If he can even put up 20-30 pts in the bottom 6 that would have to be considered a success.
Jurco/Haas... again we basically just have to wait and see... Haas looks to have good speed and Jurco has offensive skill... so some ingredients are there to be solid contributors but we've all seen players with solid potential fizzle once they hit the NHL level.
