Thursday, July 26, 2007

Kevin Lowe, Pirate


Damn. Twice now I've picked up the phone at work and had Kinger tell me Lowe has done something ridiculous. He's optimistic. As for me, not so much.

First off, I love that Lowe is willing to go for the RFAs. I may question his target and price, but his strategy and methods are, if nothing else, immensely entertaining.

Penner might be a solid player. He saw a lot of the soft minutes last year, but at least he got a taste of what riding shotgun with Todd Marchant is like. Getzlaf made that whole line look good, but I think I'd take Penner ahead of Perry for the Oilers. My main concern with him as a player was that in the playoffs he had about two games where he really impressed me. That being said, I do like the guy as a player.

It might be a little generous, but lets say he's an even bet to cover his contract number over the term. Then the issue comes down to compensation. Would you give up a 1st, 2nd , and 3rd for the guy? I think that the Oilers have the prospect depth that I'd toss the 2nd and the 3rd without a second thought. A mid to late round first and I think the prospect pool can absorb that. However, if that turns out to be a top 5 pick, this becomes terrible asset management.

What this really comes down to is how good that first is. Are the Oilers with Dustin Penner a playoff team? I have my doubts. Are they a lottery team? Lowetide seems to think so. I don't. Lets say I'm cautiously optimistic about this move as a whole, but I think this move has a much better chance of absolutely blowing up in Lowe's face than it does of turning out brilliantly.

I loved the Pitkanen trade, and I loved the Vanek offer sheet. I'm definitely behind the overall RFA raiding strategy. If Burke doesn't match, the Oilers will certainly be a better team next year. What this is really coming down to for me is this: If I told you two weeks ago that the Oilers were going to add 10 million dollars in salary for the next 5 years and send out a 1st,2nd and 3rd, wouldn't you have expected a better team than this?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm starting to think that Lowe thinks he can move Torres as the centrepiece in a trade for bonafide first liner (and maybe already has a deal negotiated), and wants to replace his production at LW with this move.

Marsha said...

I don't think this is a lottery team either. But are they a playoff team? Same old as usual, fighting to make the playoffs the last week of the regular season. But they may surprise us all.

I liked the Pitkanen and Vanek offer sheet 10 times better than this deal. They're spending money, that's the good news. Bad news, they're not spending it wisely. I guess we can't have it both ways!

Unknown said...

If we had a decent GM we could. I've tried to rationalize K-Lowe's poor decisions on my blog, but it isn't easy.