It's Time...

...for the Second Annual De Koboldorum Rebus Awards To Members Of The Edmonton Oilers For Their Performances During The Recently Concluded NHL Hockey Season!! Hereafter, these will be referred to as "The Scalies." Last year's edition is here.

Well, that was depressing, wasn't it? The Oilers hurtled into this season abrim with optimism, and ended up pretty much where they did last year, only without much of the fun. In the end, poor old Craig MacTavish walked the plank, and not even the most devout MacT fan (and I'm a fairly devout MacT fan) could claim that it wasn't time. And so we look ahead to next year with, well, optimism, or at least interest. There will be a new coach! New players! A refreshing new attitude! Etc. And now on to the awards:

Team MVP: It's a bit of a cop-out to pick the team's starting goalie, but let's face facts here. Dwayne Roloson became the oldest goalie ever to start 60 NHL games in a season, and stole more than a handful of points for the Oil. He was looking worn out by the end of the year, but without him the Oilers would have been done by about the beginning of March.

Best Rookie: This year's freshman class lacked the flash of last year's, with nary a Gagner nor a Cogliano to be seen. So... Well, Theo Peckham is a more promising prospect, and Steve MacIntyre was a better story (in addition to producing the best photo of the season, see above), but Liam Reddox got himself into 46 games, and, even though he didn't do much in them, that's enough to earn him the Scaly.

Most Under-Rated Player: Ooh, a repeat winner! To put it bluntly, when Dustin Penner was on the ice, the Oilers had a significantly better chance to score than did the other team (and you can go here and play with the stats if you don't believe me). And yet, once again, all we heard was that Penner is fat, lazy, stupid, a communist, and so on. Bizarrely, his coach joined in on that theme this year, which was one of the first signs that things had to gone pear-shaped with reference to MacT's tenure. Anyway, Penner's a good player, and I hope he stays in Edmonton.

Most Improved Player: After a nice rookie year, Sam Gagner's offence went away at the beginning of this season. However, his defensive play had improved dramatically, and the fact that he was playing on a wonky ankle probably had something to do with his inability to score. By the end of the season he was quite possibly the team's best player.

And so, on to next season! Excelsior (please)!