Looking around the net this evening I noticed that capgeek.com has the Oilers signing defender Dean Arsene. Arsene is a veteran of seven AHL seasons and is surely pencilled in to the Falcons blueline for this season. He provides very little offence (in his best AHL season he managed 15 points) but a whole lot of toughness (he's had more PIMs than games played in each of his seven seasons). He was a +8 last season and played in all 22 playoff games for the Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears. In his best season Arsene accumulated 15 points, 187 PIMs and was a +23. Further, Guy Flaming seems to have known which way the wind was blowing when he mentioned Arsene in a column earlier this week, mentioning his leadership as a strength. All of these things lead me to believe that Arsene is more than a goon, that he takes a regular shift and should be able to provide some stability in Springfield along with Jake Taylor. If this is accurate, this is a good signing by the Oilers.
Interestingly, this means that the AHL club has now added yet another defender to the mix. In addition to Arsene and Taylor, the Falcons will have Peckham, Chorney, Wild, Motin, Plante, Young (and Nickerson) all trying to earn regular time. I suppose they might end up in some sort of rotation but until injuries hit at least two of these players are going to either be in the press box or in Stockton.
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2 comments:
Peckham will be in Edmonton, that's my bet.
That's quite possible David but right now the Oilers have the same seven guys they had last year for the NHL team. If someone is moved out then Peckham could move up but he looks blocked unless they move Strudwick to forward (which would have negative repercussions for a guy like Brule).
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