Souray is Edmonton Bound

Well, if the trades so far this summer weren't enough for you... and somehow I think that's the case, then Kevin Lowe got one of the last marquee free agents to put pen to paper on Thursday. The deal is only known as long-term, but with the cap space the Oilers have, it won't be a surprise if the deal hovers around $5 or $6 million a year for however many years.

Raffi Torres	Shawn Horcoff	Ales Hemsky
Geoff Sanderson	Jarret Stoll	Fernando Pisani
Ethan Moreau	Marty Reasoner	Patrick Thoreson
Marc Pouliot	Robbie Schremp	Zach Stortini

Joni Pitkanen *	Sheldon Souray
Steve Staios	Dick Tarnstrom
Matt Greene	Ladislav Smid

Dwayne Roloson

Mathieu Garon

What exactly does this all mean for the pool? Well, Souray will add a presence on the point for the Oiler power play. There isn't much question about that. Will he score a record breaking amount of goals or even come close in Edmonton? I wouldn't say it was likely that he'll have the same form of last season right away... but you never know. Yes, it's as sketchy as it sounds. On the bright side for Souray, the Oilers were better in the faceoff circle than Montreal and both Horcoff and Stoll are key faceoff men on the powerplay. So, there's a plus. When it comes to goals against, Souray did not fare well in his plus/minus statistic, but the Oilers were better defensively than Montreal. Does that mean better coaching? Perhaps. There's a lot of question marks left with this deal, but right now, I don't see any real benefit to either side signing the deal.

Technorati Tags
NHL, Hockey Pool, Free Agents, Signing, Hockey, Edmonton Oilers, Sheldon Souray