Oilers Aware Of Pitfalls Caused By Injuries
20/09/2008 04:18
EDMONTON - The Edmonton Oilers are well aware that putting a hockey team together during training camp is one thing, but keeping it together for the balance of a season is another.
After staggering through a 2007-'08 campaign that saw them lose a club-record 346 man-games to injury and miss the playoffs for a second straight year, the Oilers start putting the pieces together again Saturday with their first on-ice session of training camp.
That means new faces like Erik Cole and Lubomir Visnovsky mixing in with familiar ones like Sheldon Souray, Shawn Horcoff, Fernando Pisani and Ethan Moreau, all of whom were expected to play big parts in coach Craig MacTavish's plans last season but for didn't.
Given Edmonton's injury woes last year, it's fair to characterize this year's camp as a do-over for MacTavish and his staff.
''We feel like everybody is surgically rebuilt,'' MacTavish told reporters Friday at Rexall Place while the Oilers took medicals and did fitness testing. ''You never say never in this business, but it's going to be almost impossible to think we're going to have an injury problem to the extent we've had the last couple of years.''
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SWIVEL HIPS SAYS:
The first casualty of 2008-2009 would appear to be coach Craig MacTavish, who will miss the first couple of practices nursing his surgically repaired pinky finger. Let’s hope this is not a sign of things to come for the Oil this year.