There’s only 12 days until the start of the Oilers regular season, and their training camp roster still sits at 42 players. With a maximum allowed roster of 23 players come opening day, there remains 19 more cuts to make. Some of these are easy, such as Dean Arsene, Ryan O’Marra, Taylor Chorney, etc. Some however will not be so easy. Jordan Eberle has seemingly played well enough to merit a further look much as Sam Gagner and Andrew Cogliano did at training camp in 2007. Not to mention the Brule/Pouliot debate for the 4th line centre position. And then the grand daddy of all: What to do with Robert Nilsson?

Inspired by Ryan Rishaug’s line combos over on OilersNation.com, these line combos are not even close to what will actually happen in reality, but I’d love to see Quinn and Renney take a chance.

O’Sullivan – Comrie – Hemsky
Cogliano – Gagner – Penner
Moreau – Horcoff – Pisani
Jacques – Brule – Stortini
MacIntyre
Pouliot

Now, to speculate that Comrie will be the top line centre this year might be too much for some to handle. Oiler faithful are still having troubles getting used to seeing him in Oiler silks. But the fact of the matter is that he and O’Sullivan have some obvious chemistry, and one can only hope that Hemsky could thrive with the two of them. Yes, this separates him from Horcoff and puts a $5M man as our third line center, but Horcoff will still take a lot of faceoffs, get powerplay time, and most importantly penalty kill time.

Penner is on his off-wing but his size will be needed on that second unit. One could think of putting Gagner on right wing and Cogliano at center to put Penner back at left wing, but unless things have changed over the summer, Cogliano is terrible in the dot and that line will need puck possession to be effective at all. Gagner’s not a whole lot better, but 5% better in 08-09 is still a lot of faceoffs.

The third line will be a very effective shutdown line while the 4th line reminds me of the Glencross-Brodziak-Stortini line of 2 years back that provided a lot of energy. Of course, that’s if Jacques plays hard night in and night out the way Stortini does and Brule plays his run and gun style of hockey.

Defense and Goal are set. Deslauriers will be backup this year but he has to prove himself this year or lose his NHL job to Dubnyk next season.

What about Robert Nilsson and Liam Reddox you say? How about Rob Schremp? Well, Robert Nilsson should be placed on waivers and if not claimed will spend the season in Springfield. Same with Liam Reddox (I’m unclear on his waiver status) and Rob Schremp. I have a feeling teams will be far more interested in Rob Schremp than Robert Nilsson for his powerplay effectiveness.

As for call-ups: Ryan Stone proved he’s got what it takes to play at this level. He’ll be the first call-up. Theo Peckham, once healthy, will be the first call-up on defense.

Let’s be honest tho, the line combos won’t happen, Horcoff and Hemsky will be on the top line together, and Nilsson will probably still be an Oiler come Oct 3.