Comrie Lands in Edmonton

The Oilers have announced on Thursday that they will be welcoming back Mike Comrie to the fold this season. Comrie signed a 1-year deal with the club, financial terms still to be announced.

Comrie split the 2009 season between the Islanders and the Senators, playing in 63 games, scoring 10 goals and 17 assists.

This will be Comrie's second stint in Edmonton, the first being his entrance into the NHL, back in the 2000-'01 season. Comrie scored 61 goals and 72 assists in 192 games with the club over two and a half seasons.

Before this deal was signed, the Oilers had 22 players signed on at an approximate cap hit of $55.7 million, leaving little room for Comrie to maneuver in. If the deal is to be worth about $1 million for the season, he should fit nicely into the mix with the club. Otherwise, there may need to be a cut or two to weave around this new cap issue. See below for the 23 players now forming the Oilers theoretical roster.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Ales Hemsky	Sheldon Souray	Nikolai Khabibulin
Shawn Horcoff	Tom Gilbert	Jeff Deslauriers
Patrick O'Sullivan	Denis Grebeshkov
Sam Gagner	Lubomir Visnovsky
Andrew Cogliano	Steve Staios
Dustin Penner	Ladislav Smid
Robert Nilsson	Jason Strudwick
Mike Comrie
Ethan Moreau
Marc Pouliot
Fernando Pisani
Liam Reddox
Zach Stortini
Steve MacIntyre

Adding Comrie to an already small-ish Oilers team does seem to be a bit of a lateral move, if not a step backwards. Comrie's value as a key centreman has taken many blows and is left in shambles for the most part. This isn't to say he can't rebuild his career where it got started, but it hardly seems likely. He's been fairly injury-prone over the past few season, missing games here and there, so he won't be anywhere on my drafting list. This signing may even drop Nikolai Khabibulin's value down a little bit as well.