Brule Re-Signs in Edmonton

It appears that the Oilers got themselves one hell of a deal out of Gilbert Brule, before he was supposed to go to arbitration next week. Brule signed a 2-year deal worth $3.7 million, a $1.85 million cap hit each season, late on Tuesday afternoon. Quite a few of the predictions for Brule's arbitration hearing had him well over $2 million for a 1-year deal, so the team got Brule to tow the company line a bit more.

Brule finally got a chance to show off his stuff with the Oilers this past season, a year after the team acquired him from Columbus in a July 1st deal.  In 2010, Brule played in 65 games with the club (missing 16 games between the flu and an ankle sprain), scoring 17 goals and adding 20 assists for 37 points.  That finished Brule 215th in the league in pool rankings, 154th among forwards and does have plenty of upside to possibly play 80 games and pick up even more points.  He could figure in nicely with some of the younger kids coming in, especially at the pivot position, so he could be a breakout player.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Dustin Penner	Kurtis Foster	Nikolai Khabibulin
Gilbert Brule	Ryan Whitney
Shawn Horcoff	Tom Gilbert
Ales Hemsky	Sheldon Souray
Colin Fraser	Jim Vandermeer
Zach Stortini	Ladislav Smid
Ryan Jones	Taylor Chorney
J-F Jacques

Without question, the Oilers have some work still to do with their line-up, including moving Sheldon Souray and then seeing which kids are ready for the big show right away or not. There will be plenty of movement still to come, but without some of the big name kids, who still have to earn their spots, and some subtractions, the Oilers currently have 18 players on their roster for $42.1 million.  Once you add some of those entry-level deals to this total, the Oilers will have zero problem making the salary cap floor, so stay tuned for training camp, that's when I'll be adding a lot more names to the table.